Hamburg’s promenade on the Elbe River, which connects the port to the North Sea.
Photographer: Maria Feck/Bloomberg
Europe
Trump’s Tariffs and Germany’s Troubles Collide in Hamburg
A global trade war is heating up and Germany’s biggest seaport, like the country at large, is steeling itself for what may be to come.
Germany’s economy may be flagging, but you wouldn’t know it from the level of activity at its largest seaport.
Tugs, ferries, barges, police launches, a dredger, fireboat — even a Mississippi-style paddle steamer — bustle along the Elbe River in Hamburg. They pass banks of gantry cranes busily loading containers on and off the gigantic vessels that make the trip downriver to the North Sea and out into the world.