New Trump attack on Germany widens transatlantic rift

WASHINGTON: The transatlantic diplomatic rift widened on Tuesday as US President Donald Trump responded to criticism from Chancellor Angela Merkel with a new attack on German trade tactics and defence spending.

Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer insisted that the leaders ‘get on very well’ but — as is often the case — his warm words from the White House podium were overshadowed by the president’s intemperate tweets.

When Trump returned over the weekend from the first foreign trip of his presidency, his aides hailed the tour as a success and a sign of renewed and bolder US leadership on the world stage.

But, while Trump received a warm welcome in Saudi Arabia and Israel, he left behind a bitter taste in Europe after the Nato summit in Brussels and the G7 get-together of the world’s richest powers in Sicily.

European leaders were especially dismayed by Trump’s refusal to reaffi rm US support for last year’s Paris climate change accord and his failure to publicly endorse Nato’s mutual defence pledge.

Germany was particularly discomfited, and Merkel wasted no time in warning German voters that the US can no longer be relied upon as before.

Trump’s response came in the early hours of Tuesday when he took to Twitter to once again demand that Germany renegotiate the terms of transatlantic trade and boost its defense spending.

“We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on Nato military,” Trump wrote, in his flamboyantly undiplomatic style. “Very bad for US. This will change.”

German officials have insisted that, as a member of the European Union, they cannot conduct bilateral trade talks with the US and that they are not ready to dramatically increase military spending.

In January, the White House accused Germany of exploiting an undervalued euro to boost its trade advantage, despite Berlin’s long opposition to the European Central Bank’s loose monetary policy.

And, even after he held a frosty meeting with Merkel in Washington in March and heard her explain Germany has no independent, non-EU trade policy, Trump continues to complain about Germany’s surplus.

According to the German weekly Der Spiegel, Trump told European officials in Brussels last week that ‘the Germans are bad, very bad’.

Spicer gamely tried to deny the report, insisting that European Commission chairman Jean- Claude Juncker had confirmed that ‘ Trump was not aggressive on German trade surplus’.

But after Merkel and other senior German officials, who are campaigning ahead of September national elections in their own country, spent the weekend attacking Trump, the US leader returned to the theme. — AFP