'Europe's
fate is in our hands': Angela Merkel's defiant reply to Trump
Chancellor
joined by French president in making curt comments about the US
president-elect’s remarks about Germany, EU and Nato
Philip Oltermann in
Berlin
Monday 16 January
2017 19.54 GMT
Angela Merkel and
François Hollande have responded curtly but defiantly after Donald
Trump cast further doubt on his commitment to Nato and gave strong
hints that he would not support EU cohesion once in office.
“We Europeans have
our fate in our own hands,” the German chancellor said after the
publication of the US president-elect’s interviews with the Times
and German tabloid Bild. “He has presented his positions once more.
They have been known for a while. My positions are also known.”
In the Times
interview, Trump complained that Nato had become “obsolete”
because it “hadn’t taken care of terror” – a comment later
welcomed by the Kremlin. He suggested that other European countries
would follow in Britain’s footsteps and leave the EU.
Hollande, the French
president, retorted by saying Europe did not need to be told what to
do by outsiders.
“Europe will be
ready to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will based on its
interests and values,” Hollande said on Monday. “It does not need
outside advice to tell it what to do.”
Germany’s foreign
minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the criticism of Nato had
caused concern in the political and military alliance. “I’ve
spoken today not only with EU foreign ministers but Nato foreign
ministers as well and can report that the signals are that there’s
been no easing of tensions,” he said.
Other senior members
of Merkel’s government were quick to defend Germany’s policies
after Trump criticised the chancellor’s handling of the refugee
crisis and threatened a 35% tariff on BMW cars imported to the US.
Responding to
Trump’s comments that Merkel had made an “utterly catastrophic
mistake by letting all these illegals into the country”, the deputy
chancellor and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel, said the
increase in the number of people fleeing the Middle East to seek
asylum in Europe had partially been a result of US-led wars
destabilising the region.
“There is a link
between America’s flawed interventionist policy, especially the
Iraq war, and the refugee crisis; that’s why my advice would be
that we shouldn’t tell each other what we have done right or wrong,
but that we look into establishing peace in that region and do
everything to make sure people can find a home there again,”
Gabriel said.
“In that area,
Germany and Europe are already making enormous achievements – and
that’s why I also thought it wasn’t right to talk about defence
spending, where Mr Trump says we are spending too little to finance
Nato. We are making gigantic financial contributions to refugee
shelters in the region, and these are also the results of US
interventionist policy.”
John Kerry, the
outgoing US secretary of state, also responded tartly to Trump’s
criticisms of Merkel, warning him he would need to rein in his views
once he took office.
“I thought,
frankly, it was inappropriate for a president-elect of the United
States to be stepping in to the politics of other countries in a
quite direct manner,” Kerry told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “As
of Friday, he’s responsible for that relationship.
“But I think we
have to be very careful about suggesting that one of the strongest
leaders in Europe - and one of the most important in respect of where
we are heading - made one mistake or another.”
Gabriel, who is
expected to run as the centre-left candidate against Merkel in
Germany’s federal elections in September, said Trump’s election
should encourage Europeans to stand up for themselves.
“On the one hand,
Trump is an elected president. When he is in office, we will have to
work with him and his government – respect for a democratic
election alone demands that,” Gabriel said.
“On the other
hand, you need to have enough self-confidence. This isn’t about
making ourselves submissive. What he says about trade issues, how he
might treat German carmakers, the question about Nato, his view on
the European Union – all these require a self-confident position,
not just on behalf of us Germans but all Europeans. We are not
inferior to him, we have something to bring to the table, too.
“Especially in
this phase in which Europe is rather weak, we will have to pull
ourselves together and act with self-confidence and stand up for our
own interests.”
The German foreign
ministry rejected Trump’s criticism that creating “security
zones” in Syria would have been considerably cheaper than accepting
refugees fleeing the war-torn country.
“What exactly such
a security zone is meant to be is beyond my comprehension and would
have to be explained,” said Martin Schäfer, a spokesman for the
German foreign ministry.
Schäfer also
rejected Trump’s labelling of the EU as a “vehicle for Germany”.
He said: “For the German government, Europe has never been a means
to an end but a community of fate which, in times of collapsing old
orders, is more important than ever.”
Hints of a
fundamental shift in US trade policy sent shockwaves through German
politics and business.
In his interview,
Trump indicated that he would aim to realign the “out of balance”
car trade between Germany and the US. “If you go down Fifth Avenue,
everyone has a Mercedes Benz in front of his house, isn’t that the
case?” he said. “How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not
very many, maybe none at all … it’s a one-way street.”
Asked what Trump
could do to make sure German customers bought more American cars,
Gabriel said: “Build better cars.”
Shares in BMW,
Daimler and Volkswagen fell on Monday morning following Trump’s
comments. BMW shares were down 0.85%, shares in Daimler were 1.54%
lower and Volkswagen shares were trading 1.07% down in early trading
in Frankfurt.
All three carmakers
have invested heavily in factories in Mexico, where production costs
are lower than the US, with an eye to exporting smaller vehicles to
the US market.
A BMW spokeswoman
said a BMW Group plant in the central Mexican city of San Luis Potosi
would build the BMW 3 Series from 2019, with the output intended for
the world market. The plant in Mexico would be an addition to
existing 3 Series production facilities in Germany and China.
But Gabriel said on
Monday that a tax on German imports would lead to a “bad awakening”
among US carmakers since they were reliant on transatlantic supply
chains.
“I believe BMW’s
biggest factory is already in the US, in Spartanburg [South
Carolina],” Gabriel, leader of the SPD, told Bild in a video
interview.
“The US car
industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that
aren’t being built in the US were to suddenly come with a 35%
tariff. I believe it would make the US car industry weaker, worse and
above all more expensive. I would wait and see what Congress has to
say about that, which is mostly full of people who want the opposite
of Trump.”
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