German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that she favors a U.S.-Russian summit, seeking to point global diplomacy forward after an intense meeting of Group of Seven leaders, Bloomberg informed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not get an invitation to the G-7 summit in Canada, although U.S. President Donald Trump made a suggestion that he should be readmitted. In an echo of Cold War meetings on neutral ground, Austria is encouraging the U.S. to hold a summit with Putin in Vienna, a White House official said last week.
“I’m certainly in favor of that,” Merkel said in a German television interview. “I’d even wish for that to happen — that two presidents meet for an extended period of time.”
Merkel’s comment was one of two nods to Trump during her hour-long ARD interview after returning from the G-7. She also stated the U.S. president wasn’t entirely wrong in putting pressure on Germany to increase defense spending.
Almost 18 months into Trump’s presidency, Merkel’s comments offered evidence of Germany’s struggle to adapt to a disturbed relationship with the U.S. Echoing a series of comments she’s made about the erosion of U.S.-European ties, Merkel expressed consternation about Trump’s disavowal of the G-7’s joint closing statement.
“Reneging in a tweet is sobering and a bit depressing,” Merkel said in the interview late Sunday. “It’s difficult, it was disappointing this time, but it’s not over. Sometimes it seems the American president thinks that only one side wins and everyone else loses.”
Even so, dialogue with the U.S. president must continue and global partnerships aren’t over, she said.
Merkel said the contentious meeting drives home the point she’s made for more than a year: that the European Union needs to stand together to increase its clout on the world stage and that the U.S. is a less reliable partner.
“We as Europe have to stand up for our principles, potentially together with Japan and Canada,” Merkel said. The EU also won’t be “taken for a ride” in its trade conflict with the U.S., she said.
If Europe wants to take its destiny into its own hands, “that also means that we need to do more for our own security,” she said. In that context, Trump “is right to a certain extent when he criticizes Germany for spending only 1.3 percent of economic output on defense,” Merkel said. “So we need to increase our defense budget.”
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