The heads of Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler were ready to meet the Trump administration at the White House in 2018, but they had not yet received a formal invitation, industry sources said.
The proposed talks came as President Donald Trump had threatened for months to impose tariffs on all European Union-assembled vehicles. The move could have disrupted the German carmakers’ business in the United States.
According to the original report, one industry source said the meeting was already being planned and that the chief executives would attend. A second source said the Washington discussions were still being worked out and that the car bosses would make clear they could not negotiate for the European Union.
Sources at the companies said no travel arrangements had been made. They said the meeting could happen at short notice, possibly the following week. The companies declined to comment publicly.
A German government spokesman said the chancellery knew about the idea of a meeting, but stressed that trade negotiations were the responsibility of European Union officials.
One industry source said the invitation put the companies in an awkward position because trade policy fell under the EU, even though they did not want to miss a chance for direct dialogue. The source said access to the U.S. market remained critical for the German car industry, which saw China as its largest market and the United States as the second largest.
Bernd Westpahl, business policy spokesman for the Social Democrats, said the invitation could still help. He called it a good, and perhaps the last, opportunity to persuade the U.S. president to back away from punitive tariffs.
Handelsblatt reported that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, had passed on the invitation to the carmakers. The newspaper also said Grenell had met the German car bosses in July. An embassy spokesman referred questions to the White House, and no immediate response was available because of the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday.
The United States then imposed a 2.5 percent tariff on cars, while the European Union charged 10 percent.
