Many have said that if Trump wins the presidency, a new ice age of global trade protectionism may be upon us. Well, some may be taking steps to preempt that and are already launching various protectionist measures in response to rising populist anger.
Just a few months after the US Treasury unveiled new anti-tax inversion rules, which were meant to kill the Pfizer-Allergan deal, but according to many may have launched a new wave of global deal protectionism, overnight Germany appears to have retaliated in kind when according to Welt am Sonntag, Angela Merkel’s government was exploring options to limit any purchase of more than a 25% stake in German companies.
As Reuters adds, the German Economy Ministry wants to protect high tech companies in Germany fromunwanted takeovers, especially from state-owned and partly state-owned companies in non-European countries. Welt am Sonntag (WamS) said Deputy Economy Minister Matthias Machnig had in the past week sent to members of the German government a paper containing six key points for reviewing investment at the European Union level. The paper foresees wide-reaching rights for the EU and national governments to prohibit company acquisitions by investors in non-EU countries, the newspaper said.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Oct 16, 2016.
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