Merkel says free trade vital for US & Germany
Chancellor to meet Trump
MUNICH, Germany, March 13, (RTRS): German Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored the importance of free trade in a speech to business leaders in Munich, before her first trip to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington for talks on a range of issues, including defence spending.
Merkel is due to meet Trump for more than two hours on Tuesday, followed by a working lunch, her spokesman said .
Briefing reporters before the trip, a senior German official said he expected the talks to focus on foreign policy issues ranging from NATO and Russia to Syria, Middle East peace, Iran, North Korea and the European Union.
Talks between German officials and members of Trump’s administration suggest the two countries will cooperate closely on policy towards Russia, the official said.
“The United States of America is a key trading partner for Germany and for the entire European Union,” Merkel said. “Trade is advantageous for both sides and I’m looking forward to the chance to speak to the newly elected American president about these issues.
“I believe that direct, one-onone conversations are always much better than talking about each other. Talking together instead about each other — that’ll be my slogan for this visit, which I’m really looking forward to.”
Refugees
Trump has called Merkel’s decision to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany a “catastrophic mistake”.
He has also threatened to impose tariffs on German carmakers that import into the United States and has criticised Berlin for not spending more on defence. Another source of tension is Germany’s 50 billion-euro trade surplus with the United States.
The United States is Germany’s biggest export destination, buying German goods and services worth 107 billion euros ($114 billion) last year while exporting just 58 billion euros’ worth in return. It is Germany’s third-largest trading partner, just behind China and France.
Merkel said German companies employ about 750,000 people in the United States and 1 million to 2 million jobs in the United States depend indirectly on German companies.
Bosses of German companies including engineering group Siemens and carmaker BMW will travel with Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet US President Donald Trump this week, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Faced with Trump’s “America First” policy and threats to impose tariffs on imported goods, the captains of industry will stress how many US jobs are tied to “Deutschland AG”.
Trains-to-turbines group Siemens employs more than 50,000 people in the United States, its single biggest market, where it makes 21 percent of its total revenue, while BMW’s South Carolina plant is its largest factory anywhere in the world.
Trump will meet Merkel, Europe’s longest-serving leader, for the first time on Tuesday in Washington.
Trade
Merkel told business leaders in Munich on Monday that free trade was important for both countries, while a German government spokesman confirmed at a press conference that the two leaders would also meet with German business executives.
German chancellors have a long tradition of taking groups of business leaders along with them on trips to important countries. The other business leader accompanying Merkel will be the chief executive of ball-bearings maker Schaeffler .
The three chief executives will cross the Atlantic for a single scheduled meeting of less than an hour with Trump. They will brief the president on the German practice of training workers on the job while also sending them to classes at a vocational school to obtain formal qualifications.
Such training is traditionally offered by large German companies both at home and in their foreign operations, and is particularly prized in emerging economies, where it helps German corporations win business.
Sources of tension between Berlin and the new US administration include an accusation by a senior Trump adviser that Germany profits unfairly from a weak euro, and Trump’s threat to impose 35 percent tariffs on imported vehicles. The United States is Germany’s biggest trading partner, buying German goods and services worth 107 billion euros ($114 billion) last year while exporting just 58 billion euros’ worth in return.
“The accusations of President Donald Trump and his advisers are plucked out of thin air,” the president of Germany’s VDMA engineering industry association, Carl Martin Welcker, said in a statement on Monday.
He said 81,000 people were employed in German-owned engineering firms in the United States with almost 30 billion euros in total revenue, while German export successes were linked to the high quality of goods, not foreign-exchange effects.