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For diplomatic reasons, Angela Merkel was never able to say what she thought of Donald Trump. But their facial expressions said it all: a slight roll of the eyes, a barely perceptible head movement and arched eyebrows accompanied Merkel’s meetings with the still-incumbent US incumbent.
With the election of Joe Biden, the years of alienation between Berlin and Washington should end. Because Biden is what Trump never was: an old-school liner and a trusted negotiating partner. For decades, Biden had close contacts with German politics as a foreign expert in the United States Senate and as Vice President, and was a regular guest at the Munich Security Conference.
She looks forward to “future cooperation with President Biden,” Merkel wrote over the weekend. “Our transatlantic friendship is irreplaceable.” Merkel also explicitly congratulated Kamala Harris, the “country’s first elected vice president.”
The joy for the new members should be real. Merkel, the sober pastor’s daughter, and the boastful real estate agent Trump, that never went well. The Trump presidency put German foreign policy in dire straits. It simply lacked a negotiating partner from the US side for four years.
A story by American investigative journalist Carl Bernstein for the CNN station illustrated how the culture of conversation was enduring. Trump had called the chancellor “stupid” and accused her of “being in the hands of the Russians.” Merkel is said to have remained calm and collected. The federal government has never denied Bernstein’s version.
Trump was the third president of the United States during Merkel’s chancellorship. When it comes to restarting relationships under President Biden, the long-term head of government can look back and have some experience. Following her election as chancellor in 2005, Merkel immediately set about repairing the relationship with the US government of George W. Bush, which had been damaged by the dispute over the Iraq war under her predecessor Gerhard Schröder (SPD).
“The closest friend on the world stage”
Bush, who liked to invoke the value of freedom in his speeches, invited them to his ranch on the prairies in Texas. “I was fascinated by the way Angela described her growing up in communist East Germany,” Bush later recalled in his autobiography. “Angela was trustworthy, friendly and warm-hearted. She became one of my closest friends on the world stage.”
Merkel quickly developed a kind of political friendship with Barack Obama. Merkel initially saw the hype surrounding Obama in the 2008 election campaign, the “Obamania,” with a mocking distance. But he quickly found access to the new president. Obama’s top adviser, Ben Rhodes, describes in his memoirs an emotional farewell meeting between the two in 2016 in Berlin: Trump had already won the election. Merkel is now “completely alone” on the world stage, Obama said with concern.
The election of the unpredictable Trump is said to have been one of the reasons Merkel ran again in the 2017 federal election. Trump’s deselection should now confirm his plan to withdraw entirely from active politics in 2021.
