Sober Merkel-Trump meeting looms after Macron bromance

After his three-day bromance with Emmanuel Macron, US president Donald Trump’s three-hour meeting on Friday with German chancellor Angela Merkel has an air of a sober speed-date.

Merkel, freshly elected to her fourth term, hopes her second Oval Office meeting with Trump goes better than their first last year, when a scowling US president appeared to ignore requests that he shake the German leader’s hand for the cameras.

She is also keen to pick up where Macron left off: Iran, Syria, Ukraine – as well as uncertainties over global trade and looming US tariffs on EU products.

Before her departure for the US, Merkel allies bristled at any talk of Berlin coming out second-best to Paris in the transatlantic steeplechase. “Macron’s was a state visit, this is a working meeting and it makes little sense to judge visits based on their length,” sniffed a senior Berlin official.

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By any standard, however, the German leader has a long list of topics to get through with a president known for his short attention span.

Merkel will argue that Germany’s trade surplus with the US – long a Trump bugbear – is a complex issue due in part to factors beyond Berlin’s control: exchange rates, oil prices and consumer preferences for German products – in particular cars.

And although Germany exports 480,000 cars to the US, German-owned car plants in the US export 13,000 more vehicles annually to countries including China.

Like Macron, Merkel will use her visit for last-minute intervention on EU steel and aluminium exports to the US. With an exemption on tariffs expiring on May 1st, Merkel will maintain her line that multilateral co-operation adds “value for everyone”.

Pessimistic note

“That’s why we’re advocating global trade that is as free as possible, based on common rules,” said Merkel earlier this week at Germany’s largest trade fair.

Her officials struck a pessimistic note on changing Trump’s mind on trade. Around one in four jobs in Germany are export-dependent, in particular in the powerful car industry. “We have to assume at the moment that tariffs will come into force ... affecting our economy negatively,” said a senior Berlin official.

Merkel is said to be open to striking a “broader trade package” extended to “other duties and trade barriers”, but will continue to remind the president that individual EU member states cannot negotiate bilateral deals with the US.

Washington can expect little or no flexibility from Berlin on plans for secondary sanctions against Russian officials that Berlin argues will “seriously harm the German economy”.

Baltic Sea pipeline

Russia looms large over discussion about the second Nordstream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, bringing Russian fuel to western Europe and bypassing Ukraine. For years Kiev has protested to Berlin, without much effect, that the pipelines allow Moscow reduce gas supply to Ukraine without affecting western customers.

In recent weeks, aware of renewed US interest in the project, Merkel has assured Ukraine it has nothing to fear while conceding the project has political as well as economic factors.

Echoing Macron, Merkel will urge Trump to adapt – not abandon – the multinational Iran nuclear deal from 2015, under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.

While Trump has threatened to reimpose US penalties next month unless the agreement’s “flaws” are fixed, Berlin proposes maintaining the existing deal with add-ons addressing Iran’s role in the region and its ballistic missile programme.

First meeting

“The premise of Macron’s proposal is that the agreement remains in its existing form and additional elements come on top,” said another German government official.

This is the US and German leaders’ first meeting since last year’s G7 meeting in Hamburg after which Merkel, entering her re-election campaign, said: “The era in which we could fully rely on others is over to some extent. We Europeans really have to take our fate into our own hands.”

Aware that Trump is likely to flag again Germany’s defence spending – at 1.13 per cent well short of Nato’s 2 per cent target – Berlin pre-empted that criticism by announcing last week an extra €1 billion in spending on drone aircraft.