In an internal paper drawn up by the German Economy Ministry, experts say the US economy would suffer if Donald Trump were elected president.

The weekly news magazine "Der Spiegel" quoted the paper as saying that the United States could expect "a shrinking GDP, fewer jobs and higher unemployment" if the Republican candidate were to triumph in November.

Trump has promised to push through the biggest tax cut in US history and renew the country's transportation and communications infrastructures while canceling a majority of its trade agreements with other nations.

He has offered few specifics on how he would finance his proposed expenditures, and the Economy Ministry reports that his plans would violate both US and international law. The experts, who directly advise Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, the possible 2017 chancellor candidate for the Social Democrats (SPD), wrote that Trump's ideas were "impossible to put into practice" and "no basis for a realistic economic policy."

The criticism is the latest instance in which prominent German government officials and employees have voiced dismay at Trump.

'Preacher of hate'

The release of the position paper comes after a week in which German politicians, including Gabriel, were extraordinarily frank in criticizing the Republican.

"Trump has no plan for the United States - to say nothing of the great challenges of international politics," Gabriel said on Tuesday in the wake of the first US presidential debate, which most commentators felt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won.

Other SPD and left-wing politicians echoed those sentiments. That was hardly surprising. After all, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, of the SPD, went so far as call Trump a "preacher of hate" in August.

What's remarkable is how much criticism Trump has attracted from German conservatives.

"You have to look at his character, and that promises nothing good," Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in an unusually blistering statement after the debate. He is a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union.

But "Der Spiegel" also reported that Markus Ederer, the state secretary of the German Foreign Ministry, has met with Trump advisers to talk about foreign policy issues, particularly NATO. Trump has been critical of the status quo within the military alliance and has called for members, including Germany, to bear more of the costs for the joint defense, insinuating that US troops could be withdrawn from Europe if his demands weren't met.

That position, however, has opened up Trump to more unprecedented opposition.

(DW)