Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes

Chris Reiter is a senior editor at Bloomberg News in Berlin. Will Wilkes is automotive and industrial correspondent for Bloomberg News in Frankfurt. Their book Broken Republik: The Inside Story of Germany’s Descent Into Crisis was released by Bloomsbury on 6 March. The German edition, Totally Kaputt?, was published by Piper Verlag on 27 Feb.

Can German cars survive Donald Trump?

In 2003, Donald Trump took delivery of a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, a $450,000 German supercar that blended precision engineering with Formula 1 bravado. Photographed grinning over its bodywork in Manhattan, he looked every bit the unabashed playboy flaunting a new toy. Two decades on, he’s threatening to hammer the very firm that built it –