US President Donald Trump called Germany’s trade and spending policies
US President Donald Trump called Germany’s trade and spending policies “very bad” yesterday, intensifying a row between the long-time allies and immediately earning himself the moniker “destroyer of Western values” from a leading German politician.
As the war of words threatened to spin out of control, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other senior German politicians stressed the importance of their country’s Atlantic ties, with Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel suggesting the spat was just a rough patch.
Mr Trump took to Twitter to attack Germany, a day after Ms Merkel ramped up her doubts about the reliability of Washington as an ally.
“We have a massive trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay far less than they should on Nato & military. Very bad for US. This will change, ” Mr Trump tweeted.
The tit-for-tat dispute escalated rapidly after Mr Trump criticised major Nato allies over their military spending and refused to endorse a global climate change accord. Later, White House spokesman Sean Spicer clarified that the US President views Germany as an important ally and gets along very well with Ms Merkel.
Speaking at a news briefing after Mr Trump’s tweet, Mr Spicer said: “They get along very well. He has a lot of respect for Ms Merkel. And he views not just Germany but the rest of Europe as an important American ally.”
On Sunday, Ms Merkel showed the gravity of her concern about Washington’s dependability under Mr Trump when she warned at an election campaign event in a packed Bavarian beer tent that the times when Europe could fully rely on others were “over to a certain extent”.
Those comments, which caused shock in Washington, vented Europe’s frustration with Mr Trump on climate policy in particular. And while German politicians sided with Ms Merkel, Mr Gabriel signalled that it was time for cooler heads to prevail.
“The United States are older and bigger than the current conflict, ” he said, adding that relations would improve. “It is inappropriate that we are now communicating with each other between a beer tent and Twitter, ” he said in Berlin.
Ms Merkel had already begun finessing her message on Monday, stressing that she was a “convinced trans-Atlanticist”.
But Martin Schulz, leader of Mr Gabriel’s centre-left Social Democrats, was less emollient earlier in the day when he told reporters Mr Trump was “the destroyer of all Western values”. He added that the US President was undermining the peaceful co-operation of nations based on mutual respect and tolerance.
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said he agreed with Ms Merkel that Europe needed to forge its own path.
“This takes nothing away from the importance of our trans-Atlantic ties and our alliance with the United States. But the importance we put on these ties cannot mean that we abandon fundamental principles, such as our commitment to fight climate change and in favour of open societies and free trade, ” he said.
