The Trump-Merkel doctrine of mutually assured detestation

Mathew Karnitsching

If it seemed like the U.S.-German war of words couldn’t get any worse, think again.

Tensions between Washington and Berlin broke wide open across a range of core security issues this week, from Chinese involvement in Germany’s 5G network to burden-sharing within NATO, suggesting that a rapprochement between the two capitals is unlikely anytime soon.

While the two have a long history of public and private sparring, including the feud between Donald Trump and Angela Merkel, the intensity of this week’s tit-for-tat has even dyed-in-the-wool Atlanticists questioning the stability of the alliance.

“It’s a catastrophe for the transatlantic relationship,” said Maximilian Terhalle, a German international security analyst and commentator, adding that both sides bear some blame for the recent collapse of the relationship.

With NATO allies set to mark the 70th anniversary of the alliance’s founding in just three weeks, the acrimony between the U.S. and Germany threatens to overshadow an event many had hoped would help to repair a deep rift between two longtime partners that increasingly look more like frenemies.

It’s become accepted wisdom among Germany’s political elite that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner.

About the only thing the two sides seem to agree on these days is that the other is at fault.

“We have to accept that the U.S. is no longer the stable Western partner that it once was,” Friedrich Merz, a prominent Christian Democrat, told a group of German MPs this week.

What was notable about the comment is that Merz, who recently lost the contest to succeed Merkel, is also chairman of Atlantik-Brücke, a transatlantic lobbying group that has been a bastion of the German business and political establishment for decades.

Merz isn’t alone. It’s become accepted wisdom among Germany’s political elite that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner.

What’s curious about that view from the American perspective is that neither of those issues has any direct bearing on the U.S. commitment to European security. The U.S. operates military bases across Europe and has continued to expand its operations there under Trump.

Though the president hasn’t been shy about criticizing European allies for their modest military spending, the U.S. has continued to fulfil its commitments, recently sending troops to Poland, for example, as part of NATO’s response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

In congressional testimony on Wednesday, Kathryn Wheelbarger, an acting assistant U.S. defense secretary, said that Washington is close to being in agreement with Warsaw about building a permanent presence in Poland, a project the country’s president once dubbed “Fort Trump.”

Nonetheless, the widespread perception in Germany — both among politicians and the public — is that Europe can’t rely on the U.S. as it once did. That view was bolstered by a report that the Trump administration was considering demanding that allies pay for the full cost of U.S. bases in their countries, plus 50 percent.

Though the idea wasn’t formally put to Germany, the speculation that Trump is mulling such a step reinforced the notion that the president’s ultimate goal is to dismantle the alliance.

In American eyes, however, it’s Germany that represents the weakest link in the transatlantic chain. While Trump may have threatened Germany on various fronts, it’s Berlin that has taken steps to undermine the alliance.

For example, after months of pledging to increase defense spending in the coming years to move toward NATO’s benchmark of 2 percent of GDP, Berlin signaled this week that it wouldn’t spend as much as anticipated.

In the government’s draft budget for 2020, defense spending would total €44.7 billion, instead of the €47.2 billion requested by Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. The reduction means Germany would likely miss its 2024 defense spending goal of 1.5 percent of GDP, not to mention the NATO target.

Germany has argued for some time that even if it doesn’t hit the 2 percent target, it is fulfilling the spirit of that pledge by “moving towards” the goal.

Germany, which spent about 1.2 percent of GDP on defense in 2018, has been running a budget surplus in recent years and can borrow money in capital markets at below cost. Given those factors, Washington is unlikely to show much patience with Germany’s new spending plans.

“Now they’re going against their own interpretation,” a senior U.S. official said. “Dialing back is not moving towards.”

American frustration with Germany is also growing over Berlin’s refusal to bar China’s Huawei from installing its 5G network equipment in the country, despite months of urgent U.S. warnings.

The U.S. went as far as to threaten to suspend intelligence-sharing with Berlin, which Germany’s security apparatus relies on heavily, if it allows the Chinese in.

“We’re concerned about their telecommunications backbone being compromised in the sense that particularly with 5G, the bandwidth capability and the ability to pull data is incredible,” said NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti in congressional testimony on Wednesday. “If it also was inside of their defense communications, then we’re not going to communicate with them across the division defense communications. And for the military that would be a problem.”

Washington also regards Berlin’s conciliatory stance toward Iran as undermining American interests. On the same day that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence urged allies in Europe to sever ties with the Iran regime, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas met with his Iranian counterpart. His office then tweeted a photo of the two shaking hands.

A few days later, it emerged that German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had sent a telegram to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, congratulating him, “also in the name of my people,”  on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Islamic republic. Though it was a symbolic gesture, the message wasn’t lost on Washington.

The U.S. also points to Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline project under the Baltic Sea linking Russia and Germany, as an example of Berlin’s lack of solidarity. The U.S. and many European countries worry that the project, which is still under construction, would make the Continent too reliant on Russian gas. The U.S. is also pushing Europe to import more American natural gas. Berlin, however, wants to continue to engage with Russia, arguing that isolating it further would backfire.

At the same time, Berlin may be underestimating the repercussions of alienating the U.S., the country that has been its key ally and guarantor of its security for more than 70 years. Despite the growing difficulties at the political level, the U.S. remains Germany’s biggest export market. Since Trump came into office, German businesses have continued to invest heavily in the country and have welcomed his administration’s deregulation push.

Yet if the political climate between the two countries continues to deteriorate, it’s likely only a matter of time before the business community gets hit, as the standoff over imposing auto tariffs has made clear.

When it comes to security, Berlin increasingly finds itself isolated not just from the U.S. but from other key allies as well, as illustrated by both Nord Stream and Huawei.

Poland and the Baltic states, for example, are much more aligned with Trump’s position on defense spending than Germany’s.

“I think Trump is right on this,” former Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski told a gathering in Berlin Thursday evening. “He’s addressing the Europeans in undiplomatic language, but I even have sympathy with that because when successive U.S. presidents have been telling Europeans in diplomatic language to get their act together and start rearming, they haven’t done it. So he’s right that we’re free-riding on security.”

Some senior German officials in Merkel’s party agree and are frustrated with the government’s failure to engage more with the Trump administration. But they are unwilling to express their views in public for fear of alienating the chancellery.

Aversion to Trump within Merkel’s inner circle runs so deep that Berlin’s first reaction to anything out of the White House is opposition, they say. The two leaders haven’t spoken since meeting at the G20 in early December.

“Merkel has become so caught up in her criticism of Trump that she can’t move beyond it,” Terhalle said.

Observers on both sides of the Atlantic doubt the U.S.-German relationship will improve until there’s a change in leadership in one of the two countries. Merkel, already a lame duck, could be gone later this year if her government, as many in Berlin expect, collapses.

Trump, meanwhile, is likely counting the days.

Courtesy: (politico.eu)