BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Europe’s most influential leader, has concluded, after three days of trans-Atlantic meetings, that the United States of President Donald J. Trump is not the reliable partner her country and the Continent have automatically depended on in the past.
Clearly disappointed with Trump’s positions on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), Russia, climate change and trade, Merkel said in Munich on Sunday that traditional alliances were no longer as steadfast as they once were and that Europe should pay more attention to its own interests “and really take our fate into our own hands”.
“The times in which we could rely fully on others—they are somewhat over,” Merkel added, speaking on the campaign trail after a contentious Nato summit meeting in Brussels and a Group-of-Seven (G7) meeting in Italy. “This is what I experienced in the last few days.”
Merkel’s strong comments were a potentially seismic shift in trans-Atlantic relations. With the US less willing to intervene overseas, Germany is becoming an increasingly dominant power in a partnership with France.
The new French president, Emmanuel Macron, has shown a willingness to work with Germany and to help lead the bloc out of its troubles. And Merkel sees Germany’s future more and more with the European Union (EU) of 27 nations, without Britain after its vote to leave the bloc.
“This seems to be the end of an era, one in which the United States led and Europe followed,” said Ivo H. Daalder, a former US envoy to Nato who is now director of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “Today the United States is heading into a direction on key issues that seems diametrically opposite of where Europe is heading. Merkel’s comments are an acknowledgment of that new reality.”
Merkel’s emphasis on the need of Europe to stand up for its own interests comes after Trump declined to publicly endorse Nato’s doctrine of collective defense or to agree to common European positions on global trade, dealing with Russian aggression or mitigating the effects of climate change.
“We have to know that we must fight for our future on our own, for our destiny as Europeans,” Merkel said.
Merkel, who did not mention Trump by name, also spoke of Britain’s decision to leave the EU, which means the bloc will lose its second-largest economy and one of its two nuclear powers.
Britain’s departure will also weaken trans-Atlantic ties and leave the Continent more exposed than before.
Given this new context for international relations, she said, “I can only say that we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands—of course in friendship with the United States of America, in friendship with Great Britain and as good neighbors wherever that is possible also with other countries, even with Russia.”
With her statement, she seemed to be calling for German voters to get accustomed to a more active European role—and to more involvement by Berlin in crises on the Continent, as well as global ones affecting Europe’s future. Merkel is seeking a fourth term as chancellor ahead of parliamentary elections in September.
Merkel was known to have been unsettled by her meetings with Trump in Washington in March, and she had been concerned that if Marine Le Pen won the French presidency this month, Germany would be isolated and the EU badly damaged.
But Macron, who was meeting Trump for the first time, appeared to have a less negative impression of the outcome of the talks than Merkel. In a news conference at the end of the G7 conference, Macron took a glass-half-full approach, saying he believed, overall, that despite Trump’s earlier hostile language toward Nato, multilateralism was intact and there was a shared vision in a number of areas.
Trump campaigned on a platform of trade protectionism, nationalism and skepticism about multilateralism and climate change—all issues on which most European leaders disagree with him.
Europeans also depend on Nato for their ultimate defense and are more concerned about an increasingly aggressive Russia than Trump seems to be, although his defense secretary and national security adviser, both senior military officers, insist that the president is fully behind Nato’s Article 5, which requires all members to come to the defense of any country in the alliance that is attacked.
Daalder said, “This is ‘America First’—a policy focused on narrow self-interest—and abandons the idea that the best way to enhance our security and prosperity is by having strong allies and leading globally in pursuit of common values and interests.”
Image credits: Matthias Balk/dpa via AP