Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recalled her impression of Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, saying the new American president-elect showed a \u201cfascination with the sheer power\u201d of strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Korean leader Kim Jong Un. <\/p>\n
In the wide-ranging interview, Merkel discussed her new memoir, \u201cFreedom,\u201d which reflects on her 16 years as the first woman to lead Europe\u2019s largest economy. Over her premiership, the continent weathered multiple crises \u2013 from the economy to migration, from climate to a pandemic. Shortly after she left office, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has raised questions about the extent to which Germany relied on cheap Russian gas and cast some of her decisions in a harsher light. <\/p>\n
In the book, Merkel writes how her life splits neatly into halves. She spent the first 35 years of her life studying and working as a chemist in communist East Germany. But since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the second 35 years of her life have been spent in a free, liberal democracy \u2013 a system she now fears is under threat. <\/p>\n
She recalled first meeting Trump at the White House in 2017. Sitting by the famous fireside in the Oval Office, the two leaders were asked by reporters to shake hands for a photo. Trump appeared to snub the request, although they shook hands at other times during Merkel\u2019s visit. <\/p>\n
Merkel said Trump \u201clives off acting unconventionally\u201d and often tries to \u201cput down a marker.\u201d <\/p>\n
In the book, Merkel writes that Trump was \u201cclearly fascinated\u201d by Putin and \u201ccaptivated\u201d by politicians with an autocratic bent. <\/p>\n
Merkel\u2019s comment echoed those made by several US officials who worked closely with Trump during his first administration. John Kelly, who was Trump\u2019s longest-serving White House chief of staff, said before November\u2019s election that Trump fit \u201cthe general definition of fascist\u201d and that he spoke positively of the loyalty of Adolf Hitler\u2019s Nazi generals. Trump\u2019s campaign denied the exchange. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to make any comment on this,\u201d Merkel said of Kelly\u2019s remarks. <\/p>\n
Putin, with whom Merkel enjoyed closer ties than many other European leaders, also loomed large over her premiership. Merkel recalled how Putin, knowing that she had once been wounded by a dog and was uneasy around them, had infamously brought his large Labrador to a meeting between them in 2007. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little, small attempt to test the waters \u2013 you know, how resilient a person is, how strong,\u201d Merkel said. \u201cIt\u2019s a power play.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite relatively cordial relations between Moscow and Europe, Merkel said things began to sour after the 2008 North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in the Romanian capital, Bucharest. NATO declared that both Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join the defense alliance, without giving them a plan for how to get there. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was firmly convinced that Putin would not allow this to happen without taking action, so I thought it was wrong to actually put this on the agenda at the time,\u201d Merkel said, particularly when Ukraine\u2019s government and people \u201cwere split right down the middle.\u201d <\/p>\n
During Merkel\u2019s premiership, Russia won a five-day war against Georgia in 2008 and launched its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, annexing Crimea and occupying territory in the east of the country. Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European leaders have been criticized for not being sufficiently alert to the threat from Moscow and allowing its territorial aggression to go unchecked. <\/p>\n
With the war in Ukraine approaching its fourth year, and both militaries having huge and hard-to-sustain losses, talk is turning to whether the war can end with a lasting peace. Trump, who takes office next month, has said he would end the war within a day, without specifying how. <\/p>\n
Merkel warned that negotiating with Putin is a fraught task. She recalled confronting Putin about Russia\u2019s invasion of Crimea in 2014 \u2013 an operation the Kremlin initially sought to obfuscate, claiming the soldiers fighting in Ukraine were not part of Moscow\u2019s army, giving rise to the myth of \u201clittle green men\u201d who were fighting independently. <\/p>\n
Merkel said Putin later conceded to her that \u201che had lied\u201d about this. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a turning point in our relationship quite clearly that I had to be extremely cautious in my approach toward him. So you cannot only trust in an agreement with him \u2013 that\u2019s absolutely correct,\u201d she said. Negotiations to end the war in Ukraine must provide Kyiv with \u201csecurity guarantees,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Despite presiding over a period of relative calm in Europe, Merkel\u2019s critics say that events in recent years have clouded her legacy. In particular, they argue that Germany\u2019s extreme reliance on cheap Russian gas helped bolster Moscow\u2019s economy and its influence within Europe. <\/p>\n
Asked whether she had made errors of judgment during her premiership, Merkel said: \u201cWe always have to look at matters under the conditions we were in then. I don\u2019t think it makes a whole lot of sense to say from today\u2019s vantage point in hindsight.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recalled her impression of Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, saying the new American president-elect showed a \u201cfascination with the sheer power\u201d of strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In the wide-ranging interview, Merkel discussed her new memoir, \u201cFreedom,\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}