Published November 26,2024
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In her long-awaited memoir printed on Tuesday, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel portrayed Donald Trump as a pacesetter who considered worldwide relations by the lens of “real estate deals.”
Merkel recounted her first Oval Office assembly with Trump in 2017, writing: “He judged everything from the perspective of the real estate entrepreneur he had been before entering politics. From our conversations, I concluded that collaborative efforts toward an interconnected world would be impossible with Trump.”
The memoir revealed Trump’s distinctive worldview, with Merkel saying: “Each piece of land could only be given away once. If he didn’t get it, someone else would. That was also how he looked at the world. For him, all countries were in competition with one another, in which the success of one was the failure of the other.”
The relationship between the 2 leaders was strained from the start, as Trump had criticized each Germany and Merkel personally throughout his 2016 presidential marketing campaign. The stress turned publicly evident throughout their first White House assembly in March 2017, marked by Trump’s notable refusal to shake palms with Merkel throughout a photograph alternative.
During their conferences, Merkel recalled Trump’s curiosity about her East German background and her relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The Russian president clearly fascinated him (Trump). In the years that followed, I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial tendencies cast their spell over him.”
The memoir detailed quite a few coverage disagreements between the leaders, spanning NATO protection spending, commerce relations, and local weather change. Merkel highlighted Trump’s recurring declare that “Germany owed him and America something,” noting how this rhetoric resonated along with his political base.
“Trump had also repeatedly criticized Germany and me personally during the election campaign,” Merkel wrote. “He claimed that I had ruined Germany by taking in so many refugees in 2015 and 2016, accused us of spending too little money on defense, and accused us of unfair trade practices because of our trade surplus with the US.”
Merkel, who served as German chancellor from 2005 to 2021, was well known as Europe’s most influential chief throughout her 16-year tenure. As Germany’s first feminine chancellor and a physicist from former East Germany, she stewarded Europe’s largest economic system by a number of crises, incomes the affectionate nickname “Mutti” (Mother) amongst Germans.
Source: www.anews.com.tr