German chancellor Angela Merkel will
meet US
president Donald Trump at the White
House on Friday
in what is expected to be a clash of
personalities and
ideologies.
Mrs Merkel was supposed to have
arrived in the
United States on Tuesday. But with
Washington, DC
shut down by a snowstorm on Monday,
Mr Trump
phoned the chancellor as she was
headed to the
airport to reschedule.
The storm provided an apt metaphor for
the kind of
relationship that has been forecast to
emerge
between Mrs Merkel and Mr Trump ever
since he took
office in January.
“The two leaders couldn’t be more
different,” said
Timo Lochocki, a political analyst and
fellow at the
German Marshall Fund of the United
States, which
works on building transatlantic
cooperation. “He’s
impulsive and emotional. She thinks
longer and is so
much more strategic. It’s very hard to
even tell what
she’s thinking.”
Mr Trump has made no secret of his
America-first
nationalism, of his distaste for the
European Union
and Nato, and of his intent to rectify
trade deficits
with countries like Germany, which
export more to the
US than they import from it.
The US president has also faulted Mrs
Merkel’s
leadership during Europe’s continuing
refugee crisis.
“I think she made one very catastrophic
mistake, and
that was taking all of these illegals,” Mr
Trump said in
an interview with Britain’s Times and
Germany’s Bild
newspapers in January, adding that he
otherwise had
“great respect” for her.
He accused the EU of having become “a
vehicle for
Germany”, and promised to inflict a tax
of 35 per cent
on cars that the German firm BMW plans
to
manufacture at a new plant in Mexico.
For Mrs Merkel – who shared such a
close
relationship with former US president
Barack Obama
that his last official phone call to a
foreign leader was
to her – talks with Mr Trump will involve
walking a
fine diplomatic line.
The chancellor has been referred to by
many western
news outlets as the new leader of the
free world after
Mr Obama left office. Her stature as the
three-term
chancellor of Germany, and her public
espousal of
liberal values, stand in sharp contrast to
Mr Trump’s
noviciate presidency and populist
conservatism.
Mrs Merkel has already found cause to
criticise Mr
Trump’s policies. In January, when the
US president
implemented a short-lived ban on
travellers from
seven Muslim-majority nations and on
all refugees,
Mrs Merkel’s spokesperson said she had
to explain
the Geneva Convention to Mr Trump in a
phone call.
At the same time, the chancellor needs
to establish a
sound relationship with Mr Trump, to
both protect
Germany’s economic interests and
convince voters
ahead of a re-election bid later this year
that she is
the best candidate to deal with an
unpredictable
leader across the Atlantic.
In one poll of German voters, taken in
mid-January,
55 per cent feared a deterioration in US-
German
relations during Mr Trump’s presidency.
Mrs Merkel is also keen to stave off any
form of
economic protectionism Mr Trump may
try to usher
in, either by way of higher import tariffs
or by
persuading US companies on German
soil to move
home.
The chancellor will be accompanied by a
high-profile
business delegation, including the heads
of BMW and
Siemens. BMW employs nearly 70,000
people in the
US, while Siemens employs around
50,000.
“This again is strategic on her part,” Mr
Lochocki
said. “The delegation will prove how
much Germany
invests in the US and how Americans
benefit from the
relationship. But also, Merkel knows
Trump is a
businessman. With the delegation by her
side, she
can talk his language, the language of
business.”
Germany relies upon this trade
relationship, with one
in every two German jobs dependent on
exports. Last
year, Germany sold €107 billion
(Dh393bn) worth of
goods to the US, but imported only
€57bn worth.
Peter Navarro, Mr Trump’s adviser on
trade, has
called this imbalance a “serious issue”
and accused
the EU of deliberately devaluing the euro
to gain a
price advantage.
“Germany is one of the most difficult
trade deficits
that we’re going to have to deal with
[and] we’re
thinking long and hard about that,” he
said last week.
German media have described Mrs
Merkel’s
methodical preparation for her meeting
with Mr
Trump, which they say included going
through old
interviews and video clips to gauge the
personality of
her counterpart.
“She will try to avoid conflict, of course,”
Mr Lochocki
said. “But she has all the economic
might of Europe
behind her, and I think she is also fully
prepared to
tackle a trade war if necessary.”