“By portraying him as the naughty boy in the room, he will stick even more to his behavior and it will get worse,” said Röttgen, who is a member of Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union. “We have to ignore his behavior and concentrate on what is left of the substance of the transatlantic relationship.”
.. But Röttgen derived at least some hope from Trump’s proposal for entirely tariff-free trade among allies. Although Trump coupled the idea with a threat, and most experts see the notion as far-fetched, Röttgen said it is at least a basis for discussion.
.. Germany has the most to lose from a trade war with the United States. The United States had a $151 billion trade deficit in goods with the European Union last year. Germany alone, with its high-end automobile and appliance exports, accounted for $64 billion of that.
.. there were signs among otherwise frustrated allied leaders that they see Trump and his “America First” agenda as an aberration and not necessarily as expressive of a new reality.
Macron emphasized his belief that Trump’s vision of America was at odds with American values.
.. Trump allies allegedly told the Telegraph newspaper that the U.S. president had grown weary of May’s “schoolmistress tone.”
.. Trump had called for Russia to be readmitted into the G-7 group, much to the dismay of leaders of Germany, Britain and France.
.. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte
.. said on Twitter that Russia’s return to the group was “in the interests of everybody.”
.. “every move made by the premier has been conceived so as to break the European front and attempt to build an anti-EU axis with Trump.”