Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel describes a Donald Trump “fascinated” by leaders with authoritarian tendencies and acting “in an emotional mode”, in her memoirs, extracts of which were published Thursday.
During their first meeting in Washington, in March 2017, shortly after Donald Trump was installed for his first term in the White House, the American president “asked me a series of questions, in particular about my East German origins and my relations with Vladimir Putin, who seemed to fascinate him,” says Angela Merkel in the extracts published by the weekly Die Zeit.
“In the following years, I had the impression that leaders with autocratic and dictatorial tendencies exerted a certain fascination on him,” she continues in her book entitled Freiheit (Freedom) which will be published on November 26 in around thirty countries.
In this book, Angela Merkel, who led Germany between 2005 and 2021, shares her thoughts on her political career, her principles and her vision of the challenges encountered during her mandate.
She returns in particular to her first interview with Trump in spring 2017, which did not leave her with “a good feeling,” she confides.
Before their one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office, he ignored the request of journalists and photographers for another handshake, despite murmurs from the Chancellor suggesting a repeat of the exercise carried out in front of the entrance to the White House.
During their interview, he resumed his “usual” criticism of Germany, which he accused of being ruined by the reception of refugees in 2015 and 2016, of being stingy on military spending and of adopting commercial practices unfair. In particular, he saw the strong presence of German cars in New York as “a thorn in the side.”
Merkel responded based on facts, but came up against an American president operating “in an emotional mode”, who listened to the chancellor’s arguments only to “transform them into new criticisms”.
“Solving problems didn’t seem to be his goal,” she observes.
Leaving Washington, the chancellor concluded that “cooperation for an interconnected world would not be possible with Trump”, convinced that the success of this president depended only “on the failure of others”.
In June 2017, Trump announced to Merkel over the phone that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
“This decision, which went against my efforts to make the climate a central subject of the G20, was a hard blow,” admits Angela Merkel.
