For Frank Riemensperger it is obvious which factors influence German-American economic relations and which do not.

"The cannon thunder of the Trump administration had no effect - Corona did," said the Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany (AmCham Germany) in an online press conference in front of journalists on Tuesday.

The occasion was the presentation of the results from the annual survey of companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sven Astheimer

Editor responsible for corporate reporting.

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While the total sales of the 50 largest German and American companies grew steadily under the presidency of Donald Trump, the statistics showed a decline for the first time in 2020.

While German companies in the US earned 0.4 percent less in the past year, Americans in this country saw it go down by 1.4 percent.

The first half of 2021, however, promises a recovery on a broad front, it said.

At last 189 billion euros, sales of US corporations in Germany have been at a fairly stable level over the past few years, said Riemensperger.

Unlike with China, for example: If the Americans still significantly reduced the deficit in the trade balance with the Middle Kingdom until the outbreak of the Corona crisis, it has been increasing noticeably since then.

Another figure from the survey is clearly surprising: despite the slight decline in sales, American employers also built up employment in Germany during the Corona crisis.

The number of employees rose by 0.8 percent year-on-year to around 276,500 in 2020, although the severe underemployment during the lockdown put millions of people in Germany on short-time work.

Amazon benefited from the corona lockdown

This may also have to do with the shift in industry activity during the pandemic. Because the ranking according to sales is led by the online retailer Amazon, which has expanded its lead over the car manufacturer Ford to around 10 billion euros. As is well known, Amazon benefited particularly strongly from the lockdown and business closings, which is why many people switched to mail order business. “You can see the success of the platform economy here,” commented Riemensperger, who is full-time director of the technology consultancy Accenture in Germany. Amazon now employs around 23,000 people in Germany.

Only the fast-food chain McDonald's, with 68,000, counts even more among the Americans. TK Elevator follows in third place among the sales drivers. The former elevator division of ThyssenKrupp was sold to a majority American consortium in 2020 for more than 17 billion euros. The US mobile operator Sprint went the opposite way and was completely swallowed up by T-Mobile US. As a result, their sales rose to the equivalent of almost 70 billion euros, which makes them not only number three among the mobile phone companies in America, but also by far the German group with the highest sales in the USA, ahead of Daimler (38), Volkswagen (27), Aldi (18 , 4) and BMW (18).

Looking at sectors, the mobility sector and mechanical engineering in Germany in particular have suffered from the corona pandemic.

According to the survey, five out of seven machine builders suffered from a drop in sales.

Only the agricultural machinery manufacturer Agco achieved slight growth.

Software industry and pharmaceutical industry as crisis winners

In contrast, in addition to trade and the software industry, the pharmaceutical industry was also among the winners of the crisis. Sales here increased by more than 13 percent within a year. The main beneficiaries were manufacturers of laboratory equipment such as Thermo Fisher or Abbott, each of which showed organic growth in the double-digit range. Bristol-Myers Squibb, on the other hand, grew by an enormous 44 percent through the takeover of Celegene, while Stada Arzneimittel increased its revenues by more than 15 percent through several smaller acquisitions. According to AmCham Vice President Riemensperger, this branch also has further potential for American investments. On the other hand, the USA offers great opportunities for German companies in sustainability and green energy.

In the trend survey on transatlantic economic relations, the managers also rated the general conditions and economic policy. The best thing among Americans was direct support for companies during the pandemic, for example in the form of short-time work benefits. Expressed in school grades, there was a 2.5 for it. On the other hand, in addition to the corona measures in schools and kindergartens, the digital accessibility of the administration was rated as inadequate. For AmCham President Simone Menge, this is a serious warning.

Digitization will play an important role in the development of transatlantic economic relations in the coming years.

"The Americans expect there to be a transatlantic economic area," said Quantity.

Vice-President Riemensperger added that Americans sometimes expressed concern that Europe was “regulating innovations out of digitization” with increasingly strict laws.

On the other hand, German companies were most disturbed by the rigid entry restrictions in the USA.

After all, this hurdle will be removed in a few days.