If we don't incorporate environmental regulations into our manufacturing, then our goods are artificially cheaper because we don't internalize the costs of the damage to the earth. I think it is fair that Germany might try to correct this with a tax.

I totally agree that Germany or any other country should tax us for being obstructionist and not helping the planet,but damaging it.If they are going to do us then,I also want them to do China and or Korea or India.We,in the U.S.,need to get this moronic president out and get on the road to helping to heal this planet.We aparently can't compete on the world economic market because of other countries using extremely cheap labor and not worrying about environmental pollution.We need some equity in the world.We need to get our act together and develope renewable energy.

If such a policy were adopted by the German government as a formal trade policy, the US in all likelihood will initiate proceedings under the WTO on the grounds that this policy unfairly targets an individual member. WTO court precedents do not have controlling value on future decisions, but if the past is any guide, the US would likely prevail in such a dispute. The Germans would do better--again, if history is a guide--if they applied the policy uniformly against all trading partners and established the scientific basis conclusively between world industrial practices and harm to the German people and environment.

The US's ban on tuna that was caught with sea turtle-unfriendly methods would be a valuable lesson on how to properly target industrial practices that are environmentally unsound.