Trump calls Germany 'delinquent' as divide with
Merkel deepens over US troop pullout
AFP
news@thelocal.de
@thelocalgermany
30 July
2020
08:42
CEST+02:00
In pulling 12,000 US troops from Germany, President
Donald Trump is laying bare what has long been clear -- there is no love lost
between him and Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Trump has
clashed with plenty of US allies but he has appeared to have special enmity for
Merkel, whose liberal, technocratic approach on issues from the coronavirus to
immigration is at stark odds with the New York mogul's in-your-face populism.
"Germany is delinquent. They haven't paid their
fees," Trump told reporters.
"The
United States has been taken advantage of on trade and on military and on
everything else for many years, and I'm here and I've been straightening it
out."
Trump,
himself of German ancestry, has long accused NATO's second largest economy of
unfairly enjoying US protection while promoting cars and other exports.
Snub on
summit
Trump first
spoke of removing troops in June after Merkel, a scientist by training who has
acted aggressively to stop COVID-19, rejected on health grounds Trump's plan to
convene the Group of Seven leaders in Washington.
Trump had
hoped to showcase a return to normal life ahead of November 3rd elections, in
which he faces a tough challenge from Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump
instead has mulled a wider summit that includes Russian President Vladimir
Putin, who was kicked out over the takeover of Crimea.
Robert
Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called
the troop withdrawal "an affront to one of our closest allies" that
would benefit Russia, which according to US intelligence intervened in the 2016
election to favor Trump.
"Champagne
must be flowing freely this evening at the Kremlin," Menendez said.
But the
Trump administration has also targeted Germany over its own relationship with
Russia, earlier this month opening the way for sanctions over their Nord Stream
2 gas project.
No patience
for Trump
Trump's
2016 election shocked US allies but most tried to deal with him. Japanese,
British and French leaders all flattered Trump with invitations, even if French
President Emmanuel Macron was also vocal on disagreements over issues ranging
from climate change to Iran.
Merkel from
the start did little to hide her disdain for Trump.
Several
months after Trump took office, Merkel made waves when she said that the United
States under Trump along with Britain, which voted to leave the EU, were no
longer reliable partners and that Europe should "take its fate into its
own hands."
Trump in
turn shattered norms of polite behavior between allies. In 2018, he wrote on
Twitter that Germans were "turning against their leadership" over the
"big mistake" on welcoming millions of migrants.
Trump has
frequently clashed with powerful women, taking sharply personal tones with
domestic rivals including Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.
Sudha
David-Wilp, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the
United States, said that while gender could be a factor, Merkel had also been
"joined at the hip" with Trump's predecessor Barack Obama toward the
end of his presidency.
For Obama,
"Germany was seen as the indispensable partner, especially in light of
Brexit," David-Wilp said.
"So I
also think President Trump of course was probably wary of Angela Merkel and the
other way around," she added.
And in
personality, "President Trump and Chancellor Merkel are diametrically
opposite," she said.
A recently
published Gallup survey found that only 12 percent of Germans approved of how
the United States exercises leadership.
Ivan
Krastev, chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, a research group based
in Bulgaria, told a June conference at the Brookings Institution that he felt a
shift in Germany which was "once the most pro-Atlantic country."
But Obama,
while personally popular, also had disagreements with Germany, which he had
pressed to show more magnanimity toward the rest of Europe including
debt-ravaged Greece.
"I do
believe people are going to make a mistake if they believe that simply because
Biden is back, Europe is back in its relations with the United States,"
Krastev said.
By Shaun Tandon
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