Washington won’t succeed if it tries to drive a wedge in the European Union with import tariffs, the new German economy minister, Peter Altmaier, has said during a visit to the US. Should Europe and the US plunge into a trade war, producers and consumers on both sides would pay the price, the minister warned. "We are a customs union and act jointly. It cannot be in the interest of the US government to divide Europe, and it also would not succeed," Altmaier told the Handelsblatt newspaper on Sunday.