n recent months, Trump has complained that he sees too many German cars on American streets. He has falsely charged that crime is spiking in the country. He has reportedly complained about the size of America’s decades-long troop presence in the country. And as German Chancellor Angela Merkel battles a political crisis over immigration, he seems to take pleasure in seeing “the people of Germany … turning against their leadership.” [...]
Theories abound about the reason for Trump’s German fixation — all the more surprising given his own German ancestry — and there may be no single answer. They range from Trump’s seeming belief that Germany has grown wealthy by mooching off the U.S. to the notion that he resents strong women like Merkel, who also happened to be one of President Barack Obama’s closest allies. [...]
The timing of Trump’s outburst — sitting across a table from a surprised-looking NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg — is especially alarming to many observers because Trump is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday amid concern that he is too close to the autocratic Russian leader. [...]
“Berlin is realizing that we have to think about how Germany gets on with its future without the United States as a strong partner for the remainder of the Trump presidency,” said David-Wilp, who is based in Berlin. “And there’s no guarantee that a post-Trump America will also bounce back to be the partner that Germany once knew.”
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