Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Donald Trump’s “breach of values” that have underpinned nearly a century of peace on the European continent represent an “epochal break”, Germany’s president has warned in a speech marking the 80 anniversary of the end of the second world war.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the international community had responded to the horrors of the Holocaust by introducing rules to stem nationalism, promote co-operation and create a world order underpinned by international law.
“All of this was never perfect, never undisputed,” he told the Bundestag on Thursday. “But the fact that the United States, which significantly shaped this order, is now turning away from it is a shock of an entirely new magnitude.”
Steinmeier said that, together with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the US’s “breach of values” under Trump represented “nothing less than a double epochal break”.
The US president’s return to the White House has been a particular shock for Europe’s largest nation. Trump’s decision to launch a global trade war, his hostility to Europe, ambivalence towards Nato and his efforts to impose a peace settlement on Ukraine have struck at the heart of an export-driven country whose postwar rebirth was supported and shaped by the US.
The remarks by Steinmeier, whose role is largely ceremonial, came as Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz prepared to hold his first telephone call with Trump on Thursday.
Speaking prior to the call, Merz said that he hoped to underline the importance of free trade and to highlight his personal commonalities with the US president, including their shared business background. He said he would argue against the punishing tariffs Trump unleashed on Europe and a number of another nations around the world last month, which were later paused for 90 days to allow for trade negotiations.
“I want to try to explain to him that we would like to facilitate the trade and not make it difficult,” Merz told Welt TV.
The Trump administration has not only thrown the economic and security relationship between the two nations into doubt, but it has also caused deep anger in Germany by openly backing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which scored a historic second place in parliamentary elections in February.
Senior figures, including secretary of state Marco Rubio, have criticised a recent decision by the German domestic intelligence agency to label the entire AfD a rightwing extremist entity — a move that has reopened the debate about whether the party should be banned.
Merz said Washington must accept that Germany alone would decide how to handle its own domestic politics. “That is our business. We decide that, not an American government,” he said.
Steinmeier used his speech, which stressed German guilt and responsibility for the devastation of the second world war and murder of 6mn Jews in the Holocaust, to warn that “fascination with authoritarianism and the lure of populism” were once again gaining ground in Europe and in Germany.
The German president also warned that Putin would seek to use the anniversary of the end of the second world war for propaganda purposes.
The Social Democrat — who has previously admitted past mistakes in his approach towards Moscow — said that while Germany was grateful to the Soviet army and other Allied forces for defeating the Nazis, Putin’s war in Ukraine had nothing to do with a “continuation of the fight against fascism”.
“This historical lie is nothing but a cover-up for imperial madness, grave injustice, and the most serious crimes,” Steinmeier said.
