Angela Merkel and Donald Trump – Values, Interests, and the Future of the West

Abstract

German Chancellor Merkel and US President Donald Trump did not get off to a good start. Their relationship so far has been lukewarm at best. Trump's deficits in understanding and lack of support for democracy and the liberal world order as it was established by Trump's predecessors in the mid-1940s deeply worries European politicians. In view of their own past history and the expectation that Germany may have to step in and become the western world's leading defender of western values, most German policy makers, including the long-serving chancellor, are particularly annoyed and distraught about the developments in the US. This article will analyse the evolving relationship between Angela Merkel and Donald Trump since the latter moved into the Oval Office in January 2017. The article will highlight both the more fundamental structural problems and the day-to-day political hurdles in German–American relations.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Klaus Larres is the Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center of Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University/SAIS in Washington, DC, and a Visiting Professor at Schwarzman College/Tsinghua University in Beijing. He also serves as a Counselor and Senior Foreign Policy Adviser at the German Embassy in Beijing, China. Larres is the former holder of the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and a Member/Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, NJ. He also was the Clifford Hackett Visiting Professor of European History at Yale and a Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. Larres has three main research fields: 1. relations among the U.S.-Europe-China; 2. U.S. foreign policy and transatlantic relations; 3. the Cold War and the life and politics of Winston Churchill. He has published widely in all these areas.

Notes

1 See Alan Crawford and Tony Czuczka, Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis (Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley/Bloomberg, 2013); Stefan Kornelius, Angela Merkel und ihre Welt (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2013); Gerd Langguth, Angela Merkel: Rise to Power (Munich: dtv, 2005).

2 See the article by Dieter Dettke in this issue.

3 Quote: Hans-Peter Schwarz, ‘Outlook: America, Germany, and the Atlantic Community after the Cold War’, in Detlef Juncker (ed.), The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990. A Handbook, Vol.2: 1968–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.561.

4 See Klaus Larres and Peter Eltsov, ‘How Adolf Hitler haunts Angela Merkel,’ Politico, 26 May 2015: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/angela-merkel-hitler-118287 (accessed 30 June 2017).

5 While Merkel did no't like it, Bush clearly meant it as a sign of affection. See Luke Harding, ‘Bush Rubs Merkel the Wrong Way’, The Guardian, 28 July 2006, available from https://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2006/jul/28/bushrubsmerkel; for the video, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUTwaSPcGno (accessed 30 June 2017).

6 George W. Bush, Decisions Points (New York: Random House, 2010), pp.412–13.

7 See George K. Zestos, The Global Financial Crisis: From U.S. Subprime Mortgages to European Sovereign Debt (London: Routledge, 2016).

8 Quoted in Crawford and Czuczka, Angela Merkel, p.109.

9 Ibid., p.108.

10 See for example, ‘U.S. Spy Scandal Triggers Outrage, Paranoia in Germany’, NBC News, 2 Aug. 2014, available from http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/nsa-snooping/u-s-spy-scandal-triggers-outrage-paranoia-germany-n170366 (accessed 30 June 2017)

11 In 1957 Konrad Adenauer had also addressed both Houses of Congress (but in two separate sessions).

12 For the video clips of both occasions, see: https://www.c-span.org/video/?289781-1/german-chancellor-address-joint-meeting-congress (3 Nov. 2009); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ5qOTEC93g (7 June 2011) (accessed 30 June 2017).

13 See Alan Sugar, What You See is What You Get: My Autobiography (London: Macmillan, 2008).

14 At the age of 16 Donald Trump's grandfather Friedrich Trump emigrated to the US in order to escape poverty. He followed in the footsteps of his sister Katherine who had gone to the US two years earlier. Friedrich (now called Frederick) soon moved to British Columbia and opened a hotel and restaurant near the Klondike Gold Rush. He was stripped of his German citizenship in 1889 (when he left Bavaria he had not de-registered, and he had not fulfilled his mandatory military service). He became a US citizen three years later.

In the same year, in 1892, he returned to Kallstadt to attend the wedding of his sister. Five years later, in 1897, Trump's grandfather visited Kallstadt again, where he met and became engaged to 20-year-old Elisabeth Christ, also from Kallstadt. In 1902 Friedrich Trump returned for a third time to Kallstadt to get married to Elisabeth; they moved to New York.

But he had promised his wife that they would eventually settle in Kallstadt and in 1904 they returned there. Although he told the US authorities he would come back to the US, he took all his savings with him. However, he was unable to re-obtain his German citizenship; instead he was asked to leave within eight weeks, otherwise he would be deported, as he had left Germany without permission and before having fulfilled his military service. Thus in July 1905 Friedrich and his wife had no choice but to return to New York.

Soon afterwards, in October 1905, Trump's father Fred was born. Just over 40 years later, in June 1946, Donald Trump was born in the same city. Incidentally, John Henry Heinz, the grandfather of the founder of the Heinz Ketchup empire (Henry J. Heinz), was also born in Kallstadt; he had immigrated to the US in 1840 aged 19. Henry J. Heinz was a second cousin of Donald Trump's grandfather, Frederick Trump.

See Janosch Delcker, ‘Donald Trump, Germany's Disfavoured Son’, Politico, 23 and 28 Sept. 2017, available from http://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-ancestry-forefathers-kallstadt/

For a detailed account, see Gwenda Blair, The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President, with a New Foreword (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); and the documentary movie by Simone Wendel, ‘Kings of Kallstadt’ (2014), available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dSq6Sc35bY (all accessed 30 June 2017).

15 See Robin Alexander, Die Getriebenen: Merkel und die Fluechtlingspolitik. Report aus dem Inneren der Macht (Hamburg: Siedler, 2017).

16 ‘Things Donald Trump Said About Angela Merkel – and Vice Versa’, Deutsche Welle, 13 March 2017, available from http://www.dw.com/en/things-donald-trump-said-about-angela-merkel-and-vice-versa/a-37889332 (accessed 30 June 2017).

17 See Kevin Liptak, ‘Trump Welcomes Merkel after Bashing her on Campaign Trail’, CNN, 17 March 2017, available from http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/16/politics/angela-merkel-donald-trump-washington-visit/index.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

18 ‘Things Donald Trump Said About Angela Merkel – and Vice Versa’, Deutsche Welle, 13 March 2017. See also Meghan Keneally, ‘What Trump and Merkel Have Said About Each Other’, ABC News, 17 March 2017, available from http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-merkel/story?id=46198767 (accessed 30 June 2017).

19 Ibid.

20 For a good overview see NBC News, ‘Trump to Speak with Merkel after a Campaign’s Worth of Criticism’, 27 Jan. 2017, available from http://www.newsjs.com/url.php?p=http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-phone-merkel-after-campaign-s-worth-criticism-n713376; See also James P. Rubin, ‘Why is Trump Picking on Merkel?’, 16 Jan. 2017, available from http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/why-is-trump-picking-on-merkel-214641 (all accessed 30 June 2017).

21 See ‘Things Donald Trump Said About Angela Merkel – and Vice Versa’, Deutsche Welle, 13 March 2017.

22 Ibid.

23 See Klaus Larres, ‘Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy: what do we know, what can we expect?’ In Depth Newsletter, University of Nicosia, Cyprus, Vol.13/6 (December 2016): (Accessed 30 June 2017): http://www.cceia.unic.ac.cy/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=538&Itemid=538n.

24 See Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign (New York: Crown, 2017).

25 For the video tape of her congratulatory statement, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnA0RtmzYBM (accessed 30 June 2017).

26 Carol Giacomo, ‘Angela Merkel's Message to Donald Trump’, New York Times, 9 Nov. 2017, available from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/angela-merkels-warning-to-trump (accessed 30 June 2017).

27 For all quotes, see ‘Merkel Congratulates Trump as Politicians Express Shock’, Deutsche Welle, 9 Nov. 2017, available from http://www.dw.com/en/merkel-congratulates-trump-as-politicians-express-shock/a-36318866 (accessed 30 June 2017).

28 For the video of Steinmeier's short statement on 9 Nov. 2016, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIGffrTUuD8 (accessed 30 June 2017).

29 This section has been guided by my article ‘Hitler's Long Shadow: Donald Trump and Angela Merkel’, E-International Relations, 8 Feb. 2017, available from http://www.e-ir.info/2017/02/08/hitlers-long-shadow-donald-trump-and-angela-merkel/ (accessed 30 June 2017).

30 ‘Statement by the President on International Holocaust Remembrance Day’, 27 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/statement-president-international-holocaust-remembrance-day (accessed 30 June 2017).

31 ‘Executive Order: Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States’, 27 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states (accessed 30 June 2017).

32 ‘“Justice Department lawyer says … ”’, 3 Feb. 2017, Washington Post, available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/government-reveals-over-100000-visas-revoked-due-to-travel-ban/2017/02/03/7d529eec-ea2c-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html?utm_term=.4e3df60446c5 (accessed 30 June 2017).

33 See Adam Liptak, ‘Trump Loses Travel Ban Ruling in Appeals Court’, New York Times, 12 June 2017, available from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/us/politics/trump-travel-ban-court-of-appeals.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news. See for a timeline of Trump's executive orders on immigration and the consequences and reactions: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/timeline-president-trumps-immigration-executive-order-legal-challenges/story?id=45332741 (all accessed 30 June 2017).

34 For an article on the ‘mutual incomprehension’ between the U.S. and Germany over the Iraq war of 2002, see Klaus Larres, ‘Mutual Incomprehension? U.S.-German Value Gaps over Iraq and Beyond’, Washington Quarterly, Vol. 26, No.2 (spring, 2003), 23–42. http://digirep.rhul.ac.uk/file/ca2b7c4c-45f3-0764-7ab3-b4354346f0d7/1/Larres--Washingon%20Quarterly%20as%20publ.pdf (accessed 30 June 2017).

35 See ‘Angela Merkel is Now the Leader of the Free World, Not Donald Trump’, The Independent, UK, available from http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/angela-merkel-donald-trump-democracy-freedom-of-press-a7556986.html (accessed 30 June 2017). For two interesting recent short books on right-wing populism, see Jan-Werner Mueller, What is Populism? (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); John Judis, The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2016).

36 Theresa May's government had a majority of 17 seats but she wished to strengthen her position with a much larger majority in parliament and thus called a snap election that took place on 8 June 2017. The opinion polls gave her a huge lead and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn seemed to be a weak opponent. Yet she badly miscalculated and lost her majority in parliament, thus greatly weakening her position.

37 ‘PM Press Conference with U.S. President Donald Trump: 27 January 2017’, available from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-press-conference-with-us-president-donald-trump-27-january-2017 (accessed 30 June 2017).

38 ‘Trump laedt Merkel ins Weisse Haus ein’, available from http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump/telefonat-mit-merkel-50001996.bild.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

39 ‘Readout of the President's Call with Chancellor Angela Merkel, of Germany’, 27 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/28/readout-presidents-call-chancellor-angela-merkel-germany (accessed 30 June 2017).

40 ‘PM Press Conference with U.S. President Donald Trump: 27 January 2017’.

41 Peter Baker, ‘Trump says NATO Allies don’t pay their Share. Is that true?’ New York Times, May 26, 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/world/europe/nato-trump-spending.html; David Adesnik, ‘NATO’s European Members Should Increase Defense Spending,’ National Review, July 8, 2016: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437598/nato-members-defense-spending-must-meet-target (accessed 30 June 2017).

42 See ‘Germany Mulls a Real, But Unrealistic, Pledge on Defence Spending’, Deutsche Welle, 24 Feb. 2017, available from http://www.dw.com/en/germany-mulls-a-real-but-unrealistic-pledge-on-defense-spending/a-37709485; for a discussion of European defence efforts, see Klaus Larres, ‘Europe Démilitarisé? Un Regard Américain’, Politique étrangère 79/1 (2014), pp.39–52. English version ‘The United States and the “Demilitarization” of Europe: Myth or Reality?’ (spring 2014), available from http://www.cairn.info/resume.php?ID_ARTICLE=PE_141_0117 (accessed 30 June 2017).

43 See Baker, ‘Trump Says NATO Allies Don't Pay their Share. Is that True?’.

44 ‘Readout of the President's Call with Chancellor Angela Merkel, of Germany’, 27 Jan. 2017.

45 See for example, The Guardian, UK, 29 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/29/merkel-explains-geneva-refugee-convention-to-trump-in-phone-call (accessed 30 June 2017).

46 ‘Angela Merkel “Explains” to Donald Trump … ’, The Independent, UK, 30 Jan. 2017, available from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anglea-merkel-explains-donald-trump-geneva-refugee-convention-obligations-muslim-immigration-ban-us-a7552506.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

47 German main evening news, 30 January 2017, 8 pm, available from http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts-18145.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

48 ‘US Trade Chief Seeks to Reshore Supply Chain’, Financial Times, 31 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.ft.com/content/8dc63502-e7c7-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539 (accessed 30 June 2017).

49 ‘Trump Takes Swipe at EU as “Vehicle for Germany”’, Financial Times, 15 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.ft.com/content/1f7c6746-db75-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce (accessed 30 June 2017).

50 ‘Transatlantic Mood Sours as Merkel Refutes Trump on Euro’, Bloomberg News, 31 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-31/trump-adviser-blasts-germany-for-exploiting-undervalued-euro (accessed 30 June 2017).

51 See ibid.; and Wolfgang Muenchau, ‘Navarro has a Point When it Comes to Germany and the Euro’, Financial Times, 5 Feb. 2017.

52 ‘US Trade Chief Seeks to Reshore Supply Chain’, Financial Times, 31 Jan. 2017.

53 See Kevin Liptak, ‘Trump Welcomes Merkel after Bashing her on Campaign Trail’, CNN, 17 March 2017, available from http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/16/politics/angela-merkel-donald-trump-washington-visit/index.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

54 Rebecca Flood, ‘Trump Printed Out Fake 300 bn NATO Invoice … ’, The Independent, 26 March 2017, available from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-angela-merkel-nato-bill-defence-ignore-usa-germany-spending-a7650636.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

55 See Anthony Faiola, ‘“'The Germans are Bad, Very Bad”: Trump's Alleged Slight Generates Confusion, Backlash’, Washington Post, 26 May 2017, available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trumps-alleged-slight-against-germans-generates-confusion-backlash/2017/05/26/0325255a-4219-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html?utm_term=.63afdc6e0107 (accessed 30 June 2017).

56 See Balazs Koranyi and Gernot Heller, ‘G20 Financial Leaders Acquiesce to U.S., Drop Free Trade Pledge’, Reuters, 18 March 2017, available from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-trade-idUSKBN16P0FN (accessed 30 June 2017).

57 For Trump's full speech at the NATO summit on 25 May 2017, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L3JuowHGKs (accessed 30 June 2017),

58 For the enormous planned increase of the defence budget to a total of $603 billion (including an increase from c. 285 to 355 battleships), see an article focusing on the congressional hearing with Defence Secretary Mattis on 12 June 2017: Joe Gould, ‘Mattis: Trump Military Build-up Begins in 2019’, DefenseNews, 12 June 2017, available from http://www.defensenews.com/articles/mattis-trump-military-buildup-begins-in-2019 (accessed 30 June 2017). See the book by the Obama official who claims to have invented the ‘Asian pivot’, Kurt M. Campbell, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia (New York: Twelve, 2016).

59 Robert Gramer, ‘Trump Discovers Article 5 After Disastrous NATO Visit’, Foreign Policy, 9 June 2017, available from http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/trump-discovers-article-5-after-disastrous-nato-visit-brussels-visit-transatlantic-relationship-europe/ (accessed 30 June 2017).

60 Guilia Paravicini, ‘Angela Merkel: Europe Must Take “Our Fate” into Own Hands’, Politico, 28 May 2017, available from http://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-europe-cdu-must-take-its-fate-into-its-own-hands-elections-2017/ (accessed 30 June 2017).

61 See ‘EU Seeks Climate Allies among U.S. Cities, States, EU's Sefcovic Says’, Reuters, 5 June 2017, available from http://www.businessinsider.com/r-eu-seeks-climate-allies-among-us-cities-states-eus-sefcovic-says-2017-6 (accessed 30 June 2017)

62 See Daniel Boffey and Arthur Neslen, ‘China and EU Strengthen Promise to Paris Deal with US Poised to Step Away’, The Guardian, 1 June 2017, available from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/31/china-eu-climate-lead-paris-agreement (accessed 30 June 2017).

63 Gramer, ‘Trump Discovers Article 5 After Disastrous NATO Visit’.

64 Ibid.

65 ‘Germany Gives Up On President Trump … ’, Salon, 26 Jan. 2017 (based on a story in the German newspaper Handelsblatt), available from http://www.salon.com/2017/01/26/germany-gives-up-on-president-trump-angela-merkels-advisors-dont-believe-hell-act-presidential/ (accessed 30 June 2017).

66 See Erick Erickson, ‘The Fantasy of Impeachment’, New York Times, 12 May 2017, available from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/opinion/erick-erickson-the-fantasy-of-impeachment.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

67 Andrew Sullivan, ‘The Reactionary Temptation’, New York Magazine, 2 May 2017. See also Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency (New York: Penguin Press, 2017).

68 This is of course a rather unusual and probably highly ill-advised situation. I am referring to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and Ivanka Trump, his oldest daughter. See Peter Baker, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, ‘Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump: Pillars of Family-Driven West Wing’, New York Times, 15 April 2017, available from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/us/politics/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-white-house.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

69 Confidential information.

70 For an enlightening video on the career and political view of Steve Bannon and some of his associates, see PBS/Frontline video ‘Bannon's War’, 23 May 2017 (54 minutes), available from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/bannons-war/ (accessed 30 June 2017).

71 Eric Bradner, “Conway: Trump White House offered ‘alternative facts’ on crowd size,” (Jan. 23, 2017): https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html

72 Matthew Nussbaum et al., ‘Kushner's Alleged Russia Back-channel Attempt Would be Serious Break From Protocol’, Politico, 27 May 2017, available from http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/27/jared-kushner-russia-backchannel-protocol-238888 (accessed 30 June 2017).

73 See Klaus Larres, ‘Reality Check: Donald Trump shies away from isolationism during his first meeting with Chinese president,’ International Politics and Society (April, 2017): http://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/international-relations/article/show/reality-check-1976/ (accessed 30 June 2017).

74 See Max Bergmann, ‘Present at the Destruction: How Tillerson is Wrecking the State Department’, Politico, 29 June 2017, available from http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/29/how-rex-tillerson-destroying-state-department-215319 (accessed 30 June 2017).

75 See Elli Lake, ‘Washington Loves General McMaster, But Trump Doesn't’, Bloomberg News, 8 May 2017, available from https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-08/washington-loves-general-mcmaster-but-trump-doesn-t (accessed 30 June 2017).

76 H.R. McMaster and Gary D. Cohn, ‘America First Doesn't Mean America Alone’, Wall Street Journal, 30 May 2017, available from https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-first-doesnt-mean-america-alone-1496187426 (accessed 30 June 2017).

77 David Brooks, ‘Donald Trump Poisons the World’, New York Times, 2 June 2017, available from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/donald-trump-poisons-the-world.html?_r=0. See also David Frum, ‘The Death Knell for America's Global Leadership’, The Atlantic, 31 May 2017, available from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/mcmaster-cohn-trump/528609/; Jeet Heer, ‘H.R. McMaster and the Foolish Trust in Trump's “Generals”’, New Republic, 2 June 2017, available from https://newrepublic.com/article/143040/hr-mcmaster-foolish-trust-trumps-generals (accessed 30 June 2017).

78 See Klaus Larres, ‘Obamas Mixed Foreign Policy Balance Sheet,’ The National Interest (Oct.18, 2016): http://nationalinterest.org/feature/obamas-mixed-foreign-policy-balance-sheet-18089 (accessed 30 June 2017).

79 Lisa Hagen, ‘Trump: “You Have to be Flexible”’, The Hill, 3 March 2016, available from http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/271751-trump-you-have-to-be-flexible (accessed 30 June 2017).

80 Noah Bierman, ‘Trump is Delivering on his Promise … to be Unpredictable on Foreign Affairs’, LA Times, 16 Dec. 2016, available from http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-unpredictable-20161218-story.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

81 Kevin Sullivan and Karen Tumulty, ‘Trump Promised an “Unpredictable” Foreign Policy. To Allies, it Looks Incoherent’, Washington Post, 11 April 2017, available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-promised-an-unpredictable-foreign-policy-to-allies-it-looks-incoherent/2017/04/11/21acde5e-1a3d-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?utm_term=.2c2b18c5ccd5 (accessed 30 June 2017). Plenty of evidence for this was then presented convincingly in Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (New York: Henry Holt, 2018).

82 See also Klaus Larres, ‘Donald Trump's Foreign Policy: What Do We Know, What Can We Expect?’, In Depth Newsletter, University of Nicosia, Cyprus, 13/6 (Dec. 2016), available from http://www.cceia.unic.ac.cy/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=538&Itemid=538 (accessed 30 June 2017).

83 ‘Donald Tusk says Donald Trump Poses Existential Threat to EU’, The Independent, UK, 31 Jan. 2017, available from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/donald-tusk-donald-trump-existential-threat-europe-brexit-eu-theresa-may-a7555061.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

84 See for example, ‘Trump Attacks BMW and Mercedes, but Auto Industry is a Complex Target’, New York Times, 16 Jan. 2017; ‘Trump: German Automakers Will Pay Tariff on Cars Built Outside U.S.’, Washington Post, 16 Jan. 2017, available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/01/16/trump-german-automakers-will-pay-tariff-on-cars-built-outside-u-s/?utm_term=.0a20401dc8ca (accessed 30 June 2017).

85 See for the quotes Faiola, ‘“The Germans are Bad, Very Bad”’. See also Markus Becker and Peter Mueller, ‘Dieser Besuch verlief nicht ganz so “amazing”’, Spiegel online, 25 May 2017, available from http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-trifft-jean-claude-juncker-und-donald-tusk-in-bruessel-a-1149256.html (accessed 30 June 2017).

86 See The Telegraph, 28 Jan. 2017, available from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/theresa-may-meets-donald-trump-white-house-live/ (accessed 30 June 2017).

87 ‘Trump Gives Backing for Brexit … ’, 28 Jan. 2017, available from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-4165034/Trump-hails-special-relationship-Britain-United-States.html (accessed 30 June 2017). For an excellent recent overview of the European integration process, see Winfried Loth, Building Europe: A History of European Unification (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter/Oldenbourg, 2015).

88 For a good short overview, see Geir Lundestad, ‘Empire by Integration’. The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

89 See for instance: ‘Russian Hacking Looms Over Germany's Election’, Politico, 19 Dec. 2017, available from http://www.politico.eu/article/russian-influence-german-election-hacking-cyberattack-news-merkel-putin/ (accessed 30 June 2017)

90 See Peter Eltsov and Klaus Larres, ‘Putin's Targets: Will Eastern Ukraine and Northern Kazakhstan be next?’ New Republic, online, 10 March 2014, available from http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116965/putins-next-targets-eastern-ukraine-and-northern-kazakhstan (accessed 30 June 2017).

91 ‘Fool me Once: Germany Turns Sour on Russia’, The Economist, 23 April 2016, available from http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21697236-germanys-establishment-once-believed-conciliation-russia-no-longer-fool-me-once (accessed 30 June 2017).