(Bloomberg) -- Post-World War II order and peace must be upheld, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned as she met President Donald Trump for the first time since lacing into the U.S. leader’s s last week.
At a commemoration for the 1944 D-Day invasion that liberated Europe from Nazi domination, Merkel said that the reconciliation and unity in Europe, and the entire post-war order was something to be proud of.
“That I can be here today as German chancellor and that we can stand for peace and freedom is a gift of history that must be guarded and maintained,” Merkel told reporters in the English city of Portsmouth after the ceremony on Wednesday.
The EU’s longest-serving leader, in her last term as German chancellor, took Trump to task at a commencement address at Harvard University last Thursday, urging students to “tear down walls” and not to treat “lies as truth.” Without naming the U.S. leader, Merkel left little doubt as to whom she might mean to a crowd who cheered her on.
In a gallery of world leaders on stage, attention was drawn to Trump and Merkel as U.S.-German tensions harden. "You can always count on Angela to express what everyone else is thinking," Ian Bremmer, head of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, said in a tweet accompanying a photograph of Merkel turning to catch a glimpse of Trump.
In Portsmouth, there was much focus on reading the body language between the two leaders, during the celebrations as well as their brief one-on-one.
A rift between Merkel and Trump has widened as the U.S. president revels in skewering Germany over its trade surplus, defense spending, a Russian gas pipeline and deals with Iran. Just over two years after Trump took office, some of Merkel’s aides worry the breakdown in U.S.-German relations has passed the point of no return.
Trump officials took a dim view of the chancellor’s two-day trip to Massachusetts, according to an official familiar with their deliberations. Merkel’s team made little effort to tack on a meeting with Trump, who was between trips to Japan and the U.K., according to two officials who declined to be identified.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
POPULAR