In her long-awaited memoir published on Tuesday, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel portrayed Donald Trump as a leader who viewed international relations through the lens of “real estate deals.”
Merkel recounted her first Oval Office meeting with Trump in 2017, writing: “He judged everything from the perspective of the real estate entrepreneur he had been before entering politics. From our conversations, I concluded that collaborative efforts toward an interconnected world would be impossible with Trump.”
The memoir revealed Trump’s distinctive worldview, with Merkel saying: “Each piece of land could only be given away once. If he didn’t get it, someone else would. That was also how he looked at the world. For him, all countries were in competition with one another, in which the success of one was the failure of the other.”
The relationship between the two leaders was strained from the beginning, as Trump had criticized both Germany and Merkel personally during his 2016 presidential campaign. The tension became publicly evident during their first White House meeting in March 2017, marked by Trump’s notable refusal to shake hands with Merkel during a photo opportunity.
During their meetings, Merkel recalled Trump’s curiosity about her East German background and her relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The Russian president clearly fascinated him (Trump). In the years that followed, I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial tendencies cast their spell over him.”
The memoir detailed numerous policy disagreements between the leaders, spanning NATO defense spending, trade relations, and climate change. Merkel highlighted Trump’s recurring claim that “Germany owed him and America something,” noting how this rhetoric resonated with his political base.
“Trump had also repeatedly criticized Germany and me personally during the election campaign,” Merkel wrote. “He claimed that I had ruined Germany by taking in so many refugees in 2015 and 2016, accused us of spending too little money on defense, and accused us of unfair trade practices because of our trade surplus with the US.”
Merkel, who served as German chancellor from 2005 to 2021, was widely recognized as Europe’s most influential leader during her 16-year tenure. As Germany’s first female chancellor and a physicist from former East Germany, she stewarded Europe’s largest economy through multiple crises, earning the affectionate nickname “Mutti” (Mother) among Germans.