Germany’s Merkel Signals Deepening Rift With US Under Trump

Germany’s top politicians have stepped up criticism of US President Donald Trump, a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel said the US and United Kingdom were no longer reliable partners.

After a bruising set of meetings of G7 wealthy nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation last week, Merkel – who is seeking re-election in September – suggested on Sunday that Europeans had to take fate into their own hands, prompting concern in Washington and London.

“Never before has there been so much uncertainty about the political course, and so many contradictions in the president’s statements, four months after the inauguration of a new US president”, Hardt told Reuters.

The German chancellor spoke following the G7 summit, in which leaders failed to agree unanimously on climate change after USA president Donald Trump said he needed more time to decide whether to back a key climate accord.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking in Munich on Sunday.

Even as Merkel positions herself ahead of the election, the message could be the signal of a shift away from the United States, perhaps even one that could outlast Trump’s time in office, and that would weaken US global power over the long term.

She believes relations with America “are a strong pillar of our foreign and security policy, and Germany will continue working to strengthen these relations”, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said Monday.

But Seibert also took the opportunity to stress that Merkel remained “a deeply convinced trans-Atlanticist”.

Along with Obama, Merkel has been one of the most prominent voices from Western nations countering nationalist movements of the kind represented by the Brexit campaign and Trump’s policies. The leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United States and Italy will be joined by representatives of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as teams from Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria and Tunisia during the summit from May 26 to 27, 2017.

“There’s a situation where it’s six – if you count the European Union, seven – against one”.

“The era in which we could fully rely on others is over to some extent”, Merkel said, before adding, “That’s what I experienced over the past several days”.

Those putting on “national blinkers” on matters of worldwide sustainability were going about things the wrong way, she said.

By making clear that Germany may have to distance itself from Trump, she is protecting her domestic flank and reframing the defense spending issue: no longer is it about fulfilling Trump’s wishes, but about building a European defense capacity independent of the United States.

Trump did not hold a news conference after the summit but later tweeted that he would make his “final decision” on the Paris accord this week.

Angela Merkel, who’s trying to get re-elected for a fourth term, is reportedly disappointed that her chaotic, open-borders policy (which has fueled the Muslim refugee crisis in Europe) is not shared by President Trump.

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, certainly knew what she was doing when she made her otherwise cautious statement.

The frustrations began in Brussels when Trump renewed his attack on Germany’s trade surplus and vehicle exports in a private meeting with European Union officials.