FRANKFURT, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are showing a sharp decline in interest in doing business in the United States, with parts of the business community now holding negative views, a survey published on Monday showed.
U.S. tariffs are having a broad impact on German companies, with 12 percent reporting direct effects and 44 percent affected indirectly through customers and suppliers, according to a DZ Bank survey of more than 1,000 medium-sized firms.
Business sentiment among German SMEs toward the United States has also deteriorated markedly. Only 9 percent of surveyed companies said they could imagine the United States playing a larger role in their supply chains over the next five years, down 3 percentage points from the previous survey. Meanwhile, 18 percent expect the U.S. market to play a smaller role, double the share recorded in the 2024 survey.
"No other country has experienced such a sharp decline in popularity in DZ Bank's surveys since 2022," German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote in a commentary on the findings.
The growing reluctance to include the United States in supply chains spans nearly all sectors and company sizes, DZ Bank economist Claus Niegsch said.
More than half of German companies are adjusting their business strategies in response to heightened uncertainty, placing greater emphasis on domestic markets and broader diversification, the bank added. ■