Govt says Merkel seeks partnership, not confrontation, with Trump

BERLIN: The German government’s coordinator for transatlantic relations says that the building of trust will be the main goal of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first meeting with US President Donald Trump.

“Most important is that she succeeds in making clear that differences of opinion can be spoken on the basis of partnership, but not out of confrontation,” Juergen Hardt said

As examples of confrontational attitudes, he named the claims by Trump advisers that Germany was manipulating the euro or undermining US employment prospects.

Merkel will use “all her time” in her visit to Washington on Monday evening and Tuesday to open a personal line of communication with Trump and his new security adviser HR McMaster, Hardt said.

The goal is to continue the dialogue that began with Vice-President Mike Pence in February at the Munich Security Conference, Hardt said.

“I think the central message will be that Germany and the European Union want to be America’s partners,” he stressed, adding this applies to trade and economic policy as well as security.

“It would be a great success if Merkel and Trump could . say that the process towards an ambitious trade agreement between the US and the EU will continue to be worked on, whether that now will be called TTIP or not.”

The proposed US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union is in question as Trump has said he prefers bilateral trade agreements rather than broad multilateral pacts. EU nations, however, are unable to pursue such deals alone.

For Germany to exit the EU to pursue bilateral agreements with the US would be “economic suicide,” Hardt said. — dpa