Europe makes a plea to keep trade open

MUNICH -- BMW CEO Harald Kruger appealed to the incoming Trump administration to maintain free trade, not just because of BMW's new $1 billion Mexican factory but also to protect the automaker's plant in Spartanburg, S.C. The Spartanburg plant is BMW's biggest globally and exports 70 percent of its production.

"The U.S. market is fundamental for us. We are a big exporter out of the U.S.," he said. "It's clear we need free trade," Krueger said at the annual Automotive Summit organized by German business daily Handelsblatt here.

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said his company is waiting to see what the new administration does. "Many things get said during the heat of an election campaign," Zetsche said.

Big bets by German premium brands on Mexico production to help boost their U.S. sales could backfire if Donald Trump scraps the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Audi, which opened its first North American factory in Mexico in September, said it still believes the country is a good location to build cars because it has 12 free-trade agreements for duty-free exports and imports with more than 50 countries. "That gives us a good basis to produce and export the new Q5 for the world market," an Audi spokesman told Automotive News in an email.

Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, said foreign automakers with U.S. production would be on the winning side if Trump sets up trade barriers. "Mexico, the new El Dorado of the auto industry, could suffer," he told Bloomberg.