Merkel goes to the White House
Angela Merkel visits Washington on Thursday for the last time in her long chancellorship, with US-German ties at a historic post-Trump, post-Brexit pivot point.
One big issue threatens full reconciliation between the two powers. That is the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline that Joe Biden sees as an obstacle in his goal of reunifying the West, given the different views it masks about the future relationship between the NATO/G7 alliance and Russia.
There are no signs of an easy resolution to the US-German standoff over the pipeline. While the issue may seem a parochial business one, Biden sees it in geopolitical terms, fearing that Moscow could use the 1,230-km pipeline as leverage to weaken EU states by increasing their dependency on the Kremlin.
However, the Nord Stream issue is not the only one that divides the two leaders. Another point of tension is the US-proposed global intellectual property (IP) rights waiver that Washington believes will get coronavirus disease vaccines to the developing world quicker. Germany is at the vanguard of international resistance to this plan and insists such a measure will do little, if anything, to boost vaccine supply.
With neither side likely to back down on Nord Stream, the IP issue could become a longrunning bilateral sore. That said, Biden was encouraged last month by comments from the candidate for chancellor from Merkel’s own Christian Democratic Union party, Armin Laschet, who said Germany could stop gas flowing through the pipeline if Moscow breaks the terms of the arrangement or uses it to put pressure on Ukraine.
At this week’s summit, the best that Biden and Merkel can probably hope for is to agree to disagree on Nord Stream and to seek an upside from the wider upturn in bilateral ties. Biden has dialed down, in public at least, on several longstanding issues in the bilateral relationship, especially trade and defense spending, which Trump prioritized. On trade, for instance, Trump had called Germany “very bad” because of its significant trade surplus, with exports greater than its imports, and he castigated Berlin’s failure to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense spending — a key NATO goal.
These remain key issues for Biden too, but they are ultimately subservient to his broader strategic goal of reconsolidating the Western alliance. Here, the new US president may curse his luck that his term in office coincides with the end of Merkel’s, as she could have been a key player in enabling this mission.
Biden will do all he can to stabilize the bilateral relationship before she leaves office this autumn. In the post-Brexit era, the US president sees Berlin and Paris as increasingly important anchor points in the transatlantic relationship. This will be clear again later this year, when Biden reaches out early to Merkel’s successor, especially on Nord Stream.