Assault
on Europe
Donald
Trump and the New World Order
The
inauguration of Donald Trump heralds the arrival of a new world
order. The West is weaker than ever before and rising American
nationalism poses a threat both to Germany's economy and the European
Union.
January 20, 2017
06:01 PM Print FeedbackComment
When trying to
answer the question as to who has the say in the European Union, it's
easy to get confused. The European Council, the European Commission,
the member states: Even those who know the EU well don't often know
who has the last word in Brussels disputes. The confusion isn't new.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger famously wondered: "Who
do I call if I want to call Europe?"
Today, a new
president is moving into the White House and one thing is already
clear: Telephone calls between Washington and Brussels won't get any
easier. "I spoke to the head of the European Union, very fine
gentleman called me up," Donald Trump said this week in a joint
interview with the German tabloid Bild and the Times of London. When
asked if it was Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European
Commission, Trump responded: "Yes, ah, to congratulate me on
what happened with respect to the election."
Except, the fine
gentleman Mr. Juncker wasn't the fine gentleman Mr. Juncker. It was
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, the powerful body
representing the leaders of the EU member states. A former Polish
prime minister, Tusk chatted with the future U.S. president for about
10 minutes, but Trump was apparently able to remember neither his
name nor his arguments. The European Union, he said in the interview,
is "basically a vehicle for Germany," adding that "I
believe others will leave," as Britain plans to do.
For more than 60
years, the U.S. has promoted European unity. The country introduced
the Marshall Plan, it supported the single European market and backed
Europe's eastward expansion following the collapse of the Iron
Curtain. But now, a man is entering the White House who is counting
on the disintegration of the EU. He would rather negotiate with each
country individually, believing that will be more beneficial for
America.
A real estate
magnate is now the most powerful man in the world and it looks as
though he plans to run his administration as though the U.S. were a
vast real estate conglomerate. He is after lucrative deals, and those
who can't keep up in the competition for the most profitable
contracts will be left behind.
Concepts like human
rights and the protection of minorities are not part of his
vocabulary. His only goal is America's profitability, particularly in
global trade, which he sees as a brutal fight for survival and not,
as had been normal for his Republican Party, as a peaceful exchange
with benefits for both sides. The concept of "win-win" is
not one his team adheres to.
The situation could
hardly be worse for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Soon, the EU
will be forced to make do without the United Kingdom, the bloc's
second-largest economy; right-wing populists are on the advance in
Europe; and now Trump is at the helm in the U.S., a man who said in
his interview this week that the German chancellor had "made a
catastrophic mistake." It would be difficult to formulate a
challenge more directly than that.
Can Merkel's Europe
now hold together? Can she become a worthy adversary to Trump in the
approaching conflicts over trade regulations, international
agreements and the liberal legal and economic order that has been so
important to the United States for the last six decades?
That which had
seemed inconceivable just a short time ago now appears to be a
foregone conclusion: A new era is beginning, one in which the
certainties that have held true for decades are suddenly no longer
valued. They are suddenly vulnerable.
For the most part,
that is because the 45th president of the United States of America is
simply not interested in the world order that has developed since
1945. He is just as disinterested in the trans-Atlantic partnership
and the long-cultivated alliances with Western allies.
An Epochal Shift
For Trump, there is
no such thing as friendships and alliances. He is not focused on
morals; he is not concerned with dividing the world into good and
evil; he does not see the use in unselfishly providing protection to
allies, as the U.S. has done for decades with it soldiers stationed
in Europe.
"America first"
is his slogan, one which helped him win the election. It is the same
promise British Prime Minister Theresa May has made to her voters:
"Britain first." And Marine Le Pen, head of the French
right-wing populist party Front National, is using a similar slogan
in that country's ongoing presidential election campaign: "La
France d'abord." What, though, will the world look like when
there are no longer any grand, binding values and goals? A world in
which each country is only looking out for itself?
Most dangerous, it
seems, is Donald Trump's deep ignorance of the Western community of
values that has developed since World War II. History is not
something that concerns him. As such, he feels no obligation to it.
NATO? Obsolete. The World Trade Organization? "A disaster."
The new president
feels absolutely no sentimentality when it comes to the alliances
that arose out of the rubble of World War II. Like no other president
before him, he is prepared to call them into question and even,
apparently, to bring them to an end. Plus, Trump has no taboos. On
the contrary: He loves to break them, he loves to provoke.´
The result is that
Europe finds itself on the eve of an epochal shift of the kind it
hasn't seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the
Eastern Bloc. Is this the end of the West as we know it, as former
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned a month ago? U.S.
historian Anne Applebaum told SPIEGEL in an interview this week that
she expects a historical change of course. "The world order that
we've known since the end of the Cold War has been radically
transformed," she says.
Russia's annexation
of Crimea was the first indication that the global order that we had
enjoyed for 25 years was under threat -- and the world simply stood
by and watched. Apart from a couple of sanctions, U.S. President
Barack Obama left the problem to the Europeans. Even then, America
was no longer interested in overseas autocrats like Bashar Assad and
Vladimir Putin.
Europe's Loss,
Russia's and China's Gain
The new president
will likely continue the process that began under his predecessor:
America's withdrawal from global politics. Just that the incoming
president is expected to formulate that withdrawal more clearly than
Obama did. Trump has pledged to carry out a relentless fight against
Islamic State, but otherwise he is an avowed isolationist, intending
to stay out of other global conflicts.
In the fight against
terrorism, the new president would seem to be leaning toward a close
alliance with Russia. A weak, perhaps disintegrating Europe wedged in
between the two great powers U.S.A. and Russia, whose presidents get
along better than most of their predecessors: For Europe, such a
scenario would be the largest foreign and security policy challenge
since World War II. For the last 70 years, Europe could depend on
having America at its side. Now, this is no longer a certainty.
The power vacuum
that America's withdrawal is creating is particularly welcome to two
countries: China and Russia. For the leadership in Beijing, the
collapse of the old world order is akin to an act of God: America,
China's last rival on its path to becoming a superpower, is pulling
back. Never before have the prospects been as good for the
realization of the "Chinese Dream," which Xi Jinping has
made the slogan of his presidency.
Xi spoke of his
global vision this week in Davos, at the annual gathering of the
world's economic and financial elite. The rules of international
cooperation, he said, must be changed. Beijing isn't happy with
Western dominance of global organizations such as the United Nations,
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. China, with its
population of 1.3 billion and significant economic strength, sees
itself as an alternative. Beijing, Xi said, is prepared to take on
more responsibility: "History is created by the brave."
Are we headed for a
world in which China -- an authoritarian state in which the Communist
Party leadership has a firm grip over the economy, controls the media
and censors the internet -- dominates the new global order? Will the
21st century see the realization of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New
World" or George Orwell's "1984," the most dystopian
visions of the 20th century?
Might Makes Right
For the moment, that
seems farfetched. But from Moscow's perspective, new commonalities
with the U.S. are emerging. Even before his inauguration, Donald
Trump presented the Russian leadership with a significant gift: He
branded NATO obsolete and called into question the alliance's
principle of collective defense. Things could hardly be going better
for Moscow. Maintaining control over Russia's immediate vicinity is
one of the country's core interests while NATO's eastward expansion
is seen as a traumatic infringement of that claim. Putin has finally
found an ally, in Washington of all places, in his battle against a
world order that he has long attacked as being unipolar and unjust.
Like Trump, Putin would like a world free of the West's constant
moralizing, a world in which might makes right.
The two leaders are
also bound by their skepticism of the EU. But there is one
significant difference: In contrast to Trump, Moscow would like to
keep the United Nations as a foundation of global order. UN
headquarters in New York is one of the few places where Russia,
thanks to its permanent Security Council seat and accompanying veto,
can negotiate at eye level with the West and block important
decisions, as it did most recently in the Syrian conflict. Everything
else can more or less be negotiated with Donald Trump, from Russia's
interests in Crimea to America's interests in Syria.
Still, Russia has no
illusions: Trump will not determine the direction of U.S. foreign
policy on his own. He requires Congressional approval. And Putin's
experience with Trump's two predecessors, George W. Bush and Barack
Obama, have shown him that initial amicability can soon turn frosty.
As such, the world
is left trying to figure out how power will be divvied up in the
Trump administration. Will he leave foreign policy to the diplomatic
establishment of the Republican Party? Will he be able to count on
Congressional support?
A Foreign World
In an effort to find
out, emissaries from the government in Berlin began trying to
establish initial contacts with the Trump team not long ago. It was
like a trip to a foreign world.
Peter Wittig is one
of Germany's most experienced diplomats, having served in the
country's Foreign Ministry for the last 35 years. He has served as
Germany's ambassador in Lebanon and Cyprus and has sat down across
from myriad negotiating partners. But the diplomat has seldom
experienced the kind of overblown self-confidence that he has seen in
recent months.
He has held several
meetings with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, both before and after
the election. At their first encounter in spring 2015, it was the
Germans who wanted to know more about Trump's plans, with a friendly
and reserved Kushner taking careful notes.
But the more often
the two met, the more demanding Kushner became, say Berlin diplomatic
sources who have read Wittig's meeting reports. The last meeting in
New York in December culminated in Kushner's curt question: "What
can you do for us?"
Government officials
in Berlin speak of an "astounding mixture of arrogance and
naiveté" when discussing the conversations they have had with
counterparts in the incoming administration. Shortly before
Christmas, Merkel's foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen traveled
to the U.S. for talks with Michael Flynn, tapped by Trump as national
security adviser. Around one year ago, Flynn was a paid speaker at an
anniversary party for RT, the Russian propaganda broadcaster.
Heusgen's first
impression of Flynn was sobering. At a conference of conservative
parliamentarians in Berlin on Wednesday, Heusgen said that some
members of the incoming administration "don't have an exhaustive
understanding" regarding "certain problems facing the EU
and their backgrounds." In other words: The new president's team
doesn't have a clue about Europe.
Berlin diplomats
still hope that the level-headed foreign policy espoused by cabinet
appointees such as future defense secretary James Mattis and future
secretary of state Rex Tillerson will hold sway. But nobody thinks
that Trump will transform into a passionate defender of the Western
alliance. In the campaign, the new U.S. president claimed that he was
a "fan" of NATO. But at the same time, he warned Germany
that European alliance members would have to increase their financial
contributions. At Davos this week, Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci
said that the postwar world order was no longer suitable for the
challenges of the 21st century.
America's Greatest
Adversaries: Japan and West Germany
That is particularly
true when it comes to trade policy, which Trump has for decades seen
as a conspiracy against America. For the past several weeks, a March
1990 issue of Playboy magazine has been making the rounds in Merkel's
Chancellery. The cover shows a long-haired brunette covered in a
black tuxedo jacket next to a slim 40-something: Donald Trump. Inside
is a long interview with Trump, in which he talks about what he sees
as America's most dangerous adversaries. He doesn't mention Russia or
Red China, but Japan and West Germany, countries that he said had
robbed the U.S. of its self-esteem. "Their products are better
because they have so much subsidy," he said, while America is
ensuring that those countries aren't "wiped off the face of the
earth in about 15 minutes." He concludes his point by saying:
"Our 'allies' are making billions screwing us."
Merkel's staff is
convinced that his views haven't changed. Trump's newly formed
National Trade Council is to be led by economist Peter Navarro, an
avowed opponent of Beijing's "stranglehold" -- which he
illustrated in his documentary film "Death by China" with
an animation of a Chinese knife being stabbed into a map of the
United States. Robert Lighthizer, Trump's designated trade
representative, has long been known in Washington circles as a
passionate protectionist who misses no opportunity to insist that
World Trade Organization rules are "not religious obligations."
Trump adviser
Kushner is likewise consumed by the issue of imports to the U.S. and
the consequences for American jobs. In a meeting with the German
emissary Wittig, he said that the Trump team looked at statistics
showing which countries export more to the U.S. than they import. In
first place is China, followed by Japan and then Germany. Kushner's
message was clear: The situation must change.
Merkel's staff has
become certain that conflicts with the new U.S. administration will
primarily be focused on two policy areas: foreign trade and relations
with Russia. The decisive question is: Can Merkel rely on European
backing?
Part
2: Europe's Last Toast?
January 20, 2017
06:01 PM
It has been
conceived as a huge birthday celebration this March in Rome, replete
with an anniversary summit and a celebratory statement. The EU
intends to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its founding treaties
with the pathos we have come to expect from the bloc. But the
ceremony is also seen as a message to Trump.
After the in-coming
president made clear this week that he believes the EU has outlived
its usefulness, it wasn't long before European leaders closed ranks.
Europe must "stand together," intoned German Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Europe, French President François
Hollande groused earlier this week, "does not need outside
advice to tell it what to do." Meanwhile, European Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker admonished Trump not to abandon the
trans-Atlantic alliance. "Together, we need to tackle climate
change and migration together, fight terrorism with united forces and
conquer globalization and its social consequences," he said. But
he expects "that it will take a few months until the American
president discovers the abundant finer points of Europe."
There are many,
though, who believe that the toasts given in Rome this March could be
among the last ones for the EU. The number of skeptics has grown even
larger since it became clear that Trump would be moving into the
White House.
The incoming U.S.
president has always viewed the EU as an alliance aimed at weakening
America's economy. Now he sees an opportunity to get rid of an
unwanted competitor. Officials in Brussels are concerned that one of
Trump's foreign policy goals may be that of dividing the EU -- in
areas like the environment and energy policy, for example, but
particularly in its relationship with Russia.
Trump has made clear
that he plans to scrap the hardline taken against the Kremlin by his
predecessor. He has also placed a question mark over the future of
sanctions against Russia imposed by the West in the course of the
Ukraine crisis. In his interview with Bild and the Times this week,
Trump said of Merkel and Putin: "I start off trusting both, but
let's see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all."
It is a horrifying
statement: Merkel needs Washington's support in order to maintain her
clear position toward Moscow. A number of EU countries would already
prefer to lift most of the sanctions. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orbán has outed himself on several occasions as a friend of Russia
-- and as an admirer of the new U.S. president, as well. "What a
wonderful world," he said following Trump's election. "This
also shows that democracy is creative and innovative."
A unanimous vote is
required to extend the sanctions. So far, Merkel has been able to
achieve consensus in large part because she enjoyed the full support
of the American government. "If Trump opposes the sanctions,
then Europe will no longer hold together on the issue," says one
member of Merkel's cabinet.
European capitals,
led by Italy, Hungary and Austria, are already calling for a
loosening of some of the punitive measures. Austrian Foreign Minister
Sebastian Kurz recently told SPIEGEL in an interview that we need to
move away from a punitive system and towards one of "incentive."
A Great Threat to
Europe
If Trump sticks with
his positions, it is the chancellor's view that Europe could be
facing a great threat. Putin could even see himself emboldened to the
point he might try to destabilize the Baltic states, without fear of
any resistance from the Americans. "Trump's messages about NATO
could lead to a situation in which Putin says to himself, 'Let's give
it a shot!'" warns Elmar Brok, a confidant of Merkel's. Brok is
also a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European
Parliament.
Moscow is the first
trump card Trump has at his disposal to place Brussels under
pressure. The second is London. Barack Obama tried to make it clear
to the British that they would be placed at the back of the line when
it came to any free trade agreement with the United States if they
voted in favor of Brexit. Trump, however, has said he wants to
expedite negotiations of a trade treaty with Britain.
That has been a
boost to London's self-confidence as it seeks to establish its Brexit
negotiating positions. In her speech on Tuesday laying out her
roadmap for Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May said her
government wouldn't even strive to remain part of the EU's single
market. The new tune coming from the other side of the English
Channel these days is no longer "Brexit means Brexit," but
"Brexit means exit." "Trump has strengthened the
Brits' negotiating hand," says Markus Ferber, a member of the
conservative Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to
Merkel's CDU, and of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in
European Parliament. "If Clinton had become president, at least
we might have got a soft Brexit in the best-case scenario," says
Jo Leinen, a member of the center-left Social Democrats who has long
been involved in foreign policy affairs in the European Parliament.
So far, the 27 other
EU member states have managed to maintain a unified position over
their break-away member. Indeed, one diplomat with Britain's Foreign
Office says that May's announcement she would not seek a model based
on single market memberships like those enjoyed in Switzerland and
Norway is a reaction to the tough position taken by the EU. At the
same time, it also means that Britain will be removing itself even
further from Europe. This coming Monday, EU foreign ministers wanted
to back a new Middle East initiative proposed by the French, but
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson blocked the text, secure in
the knowledge that Trump wasn't a fan of the proposal either.
There is little
doubt that some European politicians will use Trump's inauguration as
an occasion to further drive discord within the EU. Should the bloc
continue to pursue an ever-closer union? What are the correct fiscal
policies? Right now, there are few policies over which Europe isn't
divided. Speaking in Davos this week, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte
said, "too many countries are not doing what was promised --
implementing reforms -- particularly in the south of Europe they are
not doing that. That is creating a fundamental distrust within Europe
and particularly between the north and the south." Fellow
panelist Martin Schulz of Germany, who recently left his post as
president of the European Parliament, retorted that individual
countries needed to stop "giving lessons to other nations"
and that pressure should come from the community institutions rather
than a handful of countries like Germany or the Netherlands.
'Too Much Time with
Nigel Farage'
People in Brussels
are plenty familiar with the tones being struck by the new U.S.
president, but they are used to hearing them from a much different
person. "Trump has spent too much time drinking coffee with
Nigel Farage," says Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, a foreign policy
expert with the business-friendly Free Democratic Party in the
European Parliament. Farage, the former leader of UKIP, the party
that gave birth to the Brexit movement, accompanied Trump at times
during the presidential election campaign and the president-elect has
repeatedly expressed his admiration for the British politician ("he's
a great guy, very good guy, very supportive. He was one of the
earliest people that said Trump was gonna win.").
As with other
European right-wing populists, Farage is rejoicing in Trump's
victory. In March, the Islamophobic Party for Freedom, led by
EU-opponent Geert Wilders, could become the biggest force in
parliament in the Netherlands. In May, Front National head Marine Le
Pen is likely to make it into the second round of voting in the
French presidential election. Will Trump jump in to promote the
populists with the help of the Russian intelligence agencies' trolls?
"Russia is very stealthily undermining the EU," says Arne
Lietz, an SPD member of the European Parliament who is also on the
Foreign Affairs Committee. "But Trump is doing it on Twitter."
Targeting Europe's
Economy
The campaign against
Brussels being waged by the incoming U.S. president is not just
focused on politics. Trump's actual target is Europe's economy. "I'd
throw a tax on every Mercedes-Benz rolling into this country and on
all Japanese products," he told Playboy magazine 25 years ago.
"And we'd have wonderful allies again."
Hansa Studios, where
David Bowie and U2 recorded legendary albums, is one of the most
glamorous event locations in Berlin. A week ago, it was packed with
entrepreneurs, executives and industry officials attending the new
year's reception of the Committee on Eastern European Economic
Relations (comprised of leading German business and industry
organizations). The hosts served finger foods and sparkling wine and
the event featured Markus Kerber, the director-general of the
powerful Federation of German Industries (BDI), as its keynote
speaker.
Kerber could have
dedicated his speech to successes in the German economy, about record
exports, full order books or the high level of employment. But
instead he bleakly warned of "changing times in international
economic policies." Kerber didn't mention anybody by name, but
everyone knew who he was referring to: Trump and all the
anti-globalization politicians who, with their "nationalist
industrial policies," are threatening to trigger a trade war
between the U.S. and China. If that were to happen, "considerable
declines in economic value creation and employment within a very
short period of time" could be expected, particularly in
export-driven countries like Germany. "Our prosperity is at
risk," Kerber warned, "more than at any other time in the
past 60 years."
And yet, the markets
have been celebrating a Trump-fueled boom for weeks now. After all,
international trade is currently in full blossom, not least between
Germany and the U.S. American companies are investing more heavily
than ever before in Germany, with that volume climbing by a rapid 113
percent in 2015 compared to the previous year. Some of the biggest
companies in America are expanding their presences in Germany,
including General Electric, Facebook and IBM. Information technology
equipment supplier Cisco wants to invest a half-billion dollars in
Germany.
German companies,
for their part, are even more active in the U.S. German companies
conduct more trade with the United States than with any other
country. In 2015, the U.S. surpassed France as Germany's biggest
export market. It's a development that has been fueled by the robust
U.S. economy and a euro that has recently been relatively weak to the
dollar, making German goods less expensive.
Gaping Trade
Imbalance
What frustrates
Trump about this state of affairs is that Germany profits far more
from this positive development in trans-Atlantic trade than the U.S.
does. In 2015, German companies delivered goods valuing close to 114
billion euro across the Atlantic, whereas the Americans only exported
goods worth around 60 billion euros to Germany. Even the successes of
America's digital economy are failing to offset this huge imbalance.
The Obama
administration had already been eyeing the deficit in trans-Atlantic
trade with suspicion, and Trump is likely to actually do something
about it. Washington's new economic policy mantra is that those who
want to sell in America also have to manufacture there -- otherwise
they will face punitive tariffs or special taxes. "Donald Trump
is a risk for the German business model," warns Michael Hüther,
head of the influential Cologne Institute for Economic Research
(IWK).
In a 2014 report,
the consulting giant McKinsey found that no other national economy is
as globally interconnected as Germany's - but also that few others
were as dependent on exports. In 2015, German industry exported goods
valuing 1.194 trillion euros all around the world. But the country
only imported 949 billion euros worth of goods.
Germany has had a
surplus in its trade balance for decades now. This is the product of
German industrial giants, but even more so of the large number of
highly specialized, high-tech small- and medium-sized businesses that
are dependent on open markets. They now fear that Trump won't just be
talk when it comes to protectionism and that he will set the country
on a new course. They say he has the legal means for doing so.
The U.S. Congress
has granted the president trade promotion authority until at least
2018, when it comes up for renewal. That means that Trump has broad
freedoms to negotiate free trade agreements. Or to put an end to
them. And that end could come quickly: The U.S. must provide only six
months advance notice, for example, to back out of the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which regulates the free trade of good
between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
High on the List
The Trade Act of
1974 is another tool at his disposal. It allows the president to
impose tariffs of up to 15 percent for as long as 150 days on
countries that accumulate large current account surpluses.
Germany is high on
that list, with the country's over-dependency on exports long having
been a source of repeated criticism. And it's not just that Germany
exports more than it imports, it also owns more foreign debt than it
borrows from abroad. That money is then used for consumption and
investment outside of Germany rather than inside the country.
Many international
politicians and academics have called on Germany to reduce these
surpluses -- and some industries, such as carmakers, have even heeded
these calls. Instead of exporting vehicles, they now make them
on-site. The industry has been building more vehicles abroad than
inside Germany since 2010. Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen have
built several factories in the biggest markets of the world,
including in China and the U.S. They didn't want to become dependent
on exporting from Germany because of the hurdles presented by
potential tariffs or disadvantageous currency fluctuations.
BMW expanded its
production facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina while
Mercedes-Benz did the same in Tuscaloosa and Volkswagen in
Chattanooga. In doing so, the German companies created thousands of
jobs in the structurally weak southeastern United States and earned
praise from American politicians, including many from the Republican
Party.
But then Daimler and
the rest fell into the Mexico trap. The country lured them south with
low wages and free access to the U.S. market by way of NAFTA. Late
last year, Audi moved the production of its Q5 SUV to a newly
constructed factory in San José Chiapa. BMW and Daimler have just
begun construction of a factory in Mexico and Volkswagen produces
more than 450,000 vehicles in Puebla.
An import duty would
hit different German manufacturers in different ways. The losses
would be especially steep for Volkswagen. The brand exports its
Jetta, Beetle and Golf models from its Mexican factory into the U.S.
A tariff of 35 percent would make those cars hard to sell.
'The German
Prosperity Model Would Fail'
It is, in short,
clear that if Trump does what he indicated he would, Germany and
Europe would be especially hard hit. If there are no more "reliable
frameworks," BDI manager Kerber says, "the German
prosperity model would fail."
During her tenure,
Angela Merkel has seen a fair number of crises. About 10 years ago,
Lehman Brothers collapsed in the US and the global economy was on the
verge of collapse. Seven years later, Greek debt brought the European
common currency to the brink of disintegration. Then came the refugee
crisis, which threatened to cost the chancellor the support of her
own party.
This year, she is
once again standing for re-election, if she wins, there is reason to
believe that the Trump presidency will be her greatest challenge yet.
How should she deal with a man who seems unconcerned about the
possibility of the EU disintegrating and who threatened the German
export industry with tariffs before he even took office? How should
she react when Germany's most important ally questions decades-old
relationships?
Merkel being Merkel,
her first reaction has been: "Let's wait and see. One Wednesday,
she and her cabinet agreed to react to possible Trump provocations
with demonstrative restraint. Afterwards, a stone-faced Merkel went
before the press and said the task now was to "find a new
understanding" with the American government. She sounded like
she was announcing disarmament negotiations with North Korea.
At the same time,
though, Chancellery staff hasn't yet given up hope that Trump could
find his way to a halfway moderate position. Stephen Hadley, former
security advisor to ex-President George W. Bush, also believes that
is a possibility. Hadley is an advisor to Rex Tillerson, the incoming
secretary of state. In a conversation with Heusgen on Wednesday,
Hadley said that Merkel should come to Washington as soon as
possible, adding that Trump would listen to her.
But will he be
prepared to receive her soon? Heusgen told Flynn during his visit
that the chancellor was ready to travel to Washington on short
notice. But so far there hasn't been an answer from Trump.
Chancellery staffers are hoping for a face-to-face between the two
leaders in spring at the latest.
Free-Trade Reflexes
Furthermore, hope
that the Republican establishment might still rein in the president
has not yet entirely disappeared. Many in the Chancellery have
reactivated old contacts to Republicans, such as former Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice. Merkel is placing her hopes on the skepticism
many Congressional Republicans have for Russia and on the party's
free-trade reflexes.
The first
opportunity to meet representatives of the new American
administration will be in February at the Munich Security Conference.
Twenty members of Congress are scheduled to attend, as is James
Mattis, Trump's designated defense secretary. The incoming
president's pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is expected
to attend the meeting of G-20 foreign ministers in Bonn the day
before. He too might come to Munich, as might vice president-elect
Mike Pence. Peter Thiel, the only significant Silicon Valley figure
to support Trump in the election, has also given a firm yes.
Chancellor Merkel has not yet indicated whether she will take part.
"My advice
would be to stay calm," says Heusgen. Still, it's clear that
Merkel desperately needs a plan for how she should react to the
challenge of Trump's presidency. In Europe, the time for merely
talking about community has passed: It's time for a plan that
combines an unavoidable deepening of foreign and security policies
with greater national autonomy in other political areas. The Euro
Zone needs a common economic policy, for example, with a budget and
finance minister of its own. And Merkel needs to think about what
long-term position she should take on trade balance surpluses.
Germany's export strength is a trademark of its economy, but it is
also a significant nuisance to the country's European partners and a
target for Trump's protectionist rhetoric. Demands for Germany to
increase domestic demand will only grow.
More than anything,
though, Germany needs to try as best it can to stand up for the
values that Trump is openly questioning. If Merkel stays strong on
those issues, it will become more difficult for the new strongman in
the White House to carry out his attacks on the liberal order at
home.
Trump is the end of
the world as we know it -- that much is clear. Or, as the Economist
recently wrote: "Things could get much worse."
By Christian Esch,
Martin Hesse, Alexander Jung, Peter Müller, Ralf Neukirch, Britta
Sandberg, Michael Sauga, Christoph Schult, Holger Stark and Bernhard
Zand
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