Germany’s vice chancellor, responding to an interview with President-elect Donald Trump, has rejected threats by Trump to put tariffs of up to 35 per cent on German automakers if they set up plants in Mexico instead of the US and try to export cars to the US from there. Sigmar Gabriel, who’s also Germany’s economy minister, was quoted Monday by the daily Bild as saying such tariffs would make “the American auto industry worse, weaker and more expensive.”