03 June, 2017
She was prompted to make it by Trump's failure to endorse a number of common security and economic positions, most notably the core North Atlantic Treaty Organisation doctrine of collective defence, which has only ever been invoked after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the USA, or to maintain United States commitment to the Paris climate accord.
Shortly after Trump's visit to Europe, Merkel had made a statement saying that Europe could no longer depend on the United States for assistance and that it had to become self-reliant. Her comments may have been interpreted differently in the US, causing an uproar, but that's not her fault, said the official.
He said his administration would begin talks either to re-enter the Paris accord or to have a new deal with better terms for the United States.
In January, the White House accused Germany of exploiting an undervalued euro to boost its trade advantage, despite Berlin's long opposition to the European Central Bank's loose monetary policy.
Speaking after a meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she went out of her way to laud the South Asian country as a "reliable partner" on major projects and noted that India was working hard to implement the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
According to the German weekly Der Spiegel, Trump told European officials in Brussels last week that "the Germans are bad, very bad".
Trump's chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, on Friday morning confirmed to a pool reporter that Trump was critical of Germany.
Following Merkel's appearance at the rally in Munich her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reports that relations between the U.S. and Germany "are a firm pillar in our foreign and security policy".
Merkel, for instance, announced last spring that she wanted to increase Germany's annual defence budget by $27bn over the next three years. She said: The times when Europe could rely exclusively on others is somewhat in the past.
"Europe must become a player active in worldwide affairs".
And Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, also a Social Democrat, said Monday that if the Trump administration "finds pushing through national interests more important than an worldwide order. then I say that the West has become smaller - it has at least become weaker".
Trump's shaky grasp of trade policy - or manufacturing in the US generally - notwithstanding, he has already done grave injury to an alliance of democratic nations at a time when the common threat is more obvious than ever: a territorially ambitious Vladimir Putin.
This is not a view that Trump seems to grasp. ". Germany will see in time that we have the backs of our allies, and all of our allies are starting to see that. and when the time comes we need them to have our back as well". And, OMG, he said Germany is sending us too many cars.
