US says sorry to UK as Merkel comes calling
WASHINGTON: Britain, a close US ally, extracted an apology from White House for accusing it of spying on Trump Tower and Germany, another close ally, was expected to push President Donald Trump on Friday on protectionist trade measures he touted to boost the US economy.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has said she planned to raise with Trump, at their meeting on Friday, his threat to impose import duties on countries that have a trade surplus with the US.
Just hours before Trump received Merkel at the White House, National Security Adviser HR McMaster and press secretary Sean Spicer delivered the British an apology for accusing its signals intelligence agency GCHQ of spying on Trump Tower for President Barack Obama during elections. They “explained” to the British that “Spicer was simply pointing to public reports, not endorsing any specific story,” a White House statement said.
Spicer had recycled an unsubstantiated spying claim made on Fox News against GCHQ, which is NSA’s counterpart. But London has said the Americans apologised and gave an undertaking that they will not repeat that charge again. The claim that Obama had ordered the surveillance was first made by Trump himself in a tweet, without providing any evidence yet.
That the Trump administration thought nothing of accusing a close ally like Britain of spying will give US further grief. Germany, specially.
Trump has been critical of Merkel about her immigration policy and has accused her of “ruining Germany”. And she has publicly slammed Trump’s travel ban, as has UK. Germany is said to be most concerned about Trump’s economic and business policies.
Merkel, who is accompanied by CEOs of auto giant BMW, engineering behemoth Siemens, and manufacturing major Schaffler, plans to let Trump know that German companies in the US are creating thousands of jobs.