“He judged every little thing from the angle of the property entrepreneur he had been earlier than politics,” she wrote of Trump. “Each property may solely be allotted as soon as. If he didn’t get it, another person did. That was additionally how he regarded on the world.”
“For him, all international locations have been in competitors with one another, wherein the success of 1 was the failure of the opposite; he didn’t imagine that the prosperity of all might be elevated via co-operation.”
Merkel’s feedback are notable due to the excessive stage of respect she commanded amongst European political leaders, whilst her reign over Germany ended. Her ideas on how greatest to deal with with the ex-president might be of be aware to politicians making ready for a second Trump time period.
The former Christian Democratic Union chief discovered the Trump relationship so difficult, she even sought recommendation from Pope Francis on how you can cope with him.
“Without naming names, I requested him how he would cope with essentially differing opinions in a bunch of vital personalities,” Merkel wrote, referring to a dialog across the time Trump was threatening to tug the U.S. out of the Paris local weather settlement. “He understood me instantly and answered me straightforwardly: ‘Bend, bend, bend, however be sure it doesn’t break.’”
“I appreciated this picture. I repeated it to him. ‘Bend, bend, bend, however be sure it doesn’t break.’ In this spirit, I might attempt to clear up my downside with the Paris Agreement and Trump in Hamburg.”