Trump’s Trend of Handshaking Mishaps Continue: Snubs Merkel’s Handshake Request

President Trump also said he expected the United States to do “fantastically well” in trade withGermany.

Bannon has championed trade protectionism and opposed the European Union and other multilateral institutions that underpin the world order.

On Friday, President Donald Trump opted to reopen a painful rift in U.S.

One German official said Merkel has been coached on the idea that Trump prefers to hear clear positions with few details.

“At least we have something in common perhaps”. Trump still says he was witetapped by Obama.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump met today after months of subtle jabs from Washington to Berlin.

Trump, who as a candidate who called Merkel’s migration stance “insane”, offered little of the effusive praise to which Merkel became accustomed to from former President Barack Obama. They need to talk and seek common ground on a wide range of issues – from the future of transatlantic ties to worldwide security, the Ukrainian conflict, climate change, the refugee issue, and the EU’s prospects after Brexit.

In 2015, with Greece buckling under the crushing austerity cuts demanded by Merkel, leading economists warned that such medicine, imposed from Germany and Brussels, had “bled the patient, not cured the disease”.

‘We just reiterated the fact that we were just simply reading media accounts.

Both Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term, and Schulz are hoping to end the current coalition and form a new government with smaller allies.

GS: Yes, I am sure he will raise the issue and I am quite sure that Merkel will reassure him that “yes, indeed, you are absolutely right, we should all pay our fair share and Germany will indeed pay its fair share”.

Obama was told of the operation in 2010 and let it continue, according to multiple news reports, but his national security advisor Susan Rice later assured Germany that the White House knew nothing about it. While agreement may be achieved on countering the sources of extremism such as ISIS in the Middle-East, it is likely that differences would remain on promoting Palestinian statehood.

Since being elected, he has been mostly quiet on the issue. Nonetheless, the bilateral dialogue may initiate the process of a better understanding of Trump’s inclinations and German compulsions at the strategic level in relation to central and eastern Europe and Russian Federation.

On the sidelines of the press conference, Trump’s Justice Department said it had “complied” with a request from several congressional committees for information relating to surveillance during the 2016 election.

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