Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he told US President Donald Trump that he can negotiate trade matters only with the European Union and there can’t be any side deals with individual member states.
Speaking to reporters on Friday during his first visit in Brussels since his election as chancellor in Berlin earlier this week, Merz said he congratulated Trump on the recent conclusion of a trade agreement with the former EU member state Britain.
“But I explained to him that this won’t be possible with other European nations that are members of the European Union because we can and want to act only united on trade matters,” Merz said during a news conference with European Council President Antonio Costa.
Merz said he had the impression that Trump had understood and accepted this fact during their first phone call late Thursday.
“I told him that from my point of view it’s not a good idea to escalate this trade dispute,” Merz said. “My strong conviction is – zero tariffs would be best.”
Merz will later also meet with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Merz, 69, has pledged that Germany will play a more active role within the EU again and seek closer cooperation with its international partners.
Trump has targeted the EU as part of his broader effort to reshape global trade and has been offering to negotiate with major trading partners since announcing steep tariff hikes in early April.
While the UK announced this week that it had struck an agreement with the US to pare back some of Trump’s tariffs, efforts to avert an escalation of the trade dispute have made scant progress so far in the EU. The EU is planning to hit €95 billion ($108 billion) of US products with additional levies if ongoing trade talks with Trump’s team fail to yield a satisfactory result.
The proposed retaliatory measures would target industrial goods including Boeing Co. aircraft, US-made cars and bourbon, which was initially removed from a previous list. The new proposal will be the subject of consultations with member states and other stakeholders through June 10 and could change before it’s finalized.
The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm that handles trade matters, is kick-starting negotiations with the US administration this week and is still aiming to find an amicable solution to Trump’s tariff push. Commission officials are expected to present Washington with a menu of options — including ideas to lower trade and non-tariff barriers and boosting investments in America — that could be turned into formal proposals.
Merz pushed back against speculation that he might support more joint European borrowing, which has been raised as a way for EU member states to finance more defense spending in light of tight national budgets.
“I won’t change the position of the German government regarding the borrowing options of the European Union, this must remain an exception,” Merz told reporters.
“There have been exceptions in the past, but we’ll have to deal and be confronted with crises and difficult situations for a longer period of time now. This cannot be taken as a permanent justification for additional European debt.”
Merz said discussions among EU member states about more joint European borrowing would continue and views are diverging on the subject, adding that France and Germany are not on the same page on the debt issue.
Also read: Macron and Merz pledge to strengthen Franco-German relations
Source: Michael Nienaber and Christoph Rauwald – Bloomberg
