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BERLIN – Angela Merkel spoiled George W. Bush with roast wild boar, discovered a soul mate in Barack Obama and explained the fundamentals of international law to Donald Trump.
And on Thursday, the German Chancellor will arrive at the White House to try to cement a relationship with Joe Biden, her fourth – and, given her impending political retirement, last – US President.
In her 16 years in office, Merkel has outlasted countless foreign counterparts, including three US presidents: She led Germany through three years of Bush’s second term, Obama’s presidency every eight years and the turbulent four years of Trump’s tenure.
Merkel has had warm, constructive, and even warm relationships with some of the former White House residents; relationships with others were downright difficult.
As she flies to Washington on Wednesday to meet Biden, here’s how she got along with the US presidents who came before him.
Bush: Post-Schröder warmth
When Merkel took over as Chancellor in 2005, the relationship between the White House and the German Chancellery was at a low point. In 2003 and 2004, Bush, as is well known, argued with Merkel’s predecessor, the Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, over the invasion of Iraq and Germany’s participation (or lack of) in this war.
It had gotten so bad that the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of a “poisoned atmosphere†between the two governments.
Merkel was therefore the chance for a new beginning with Bush, which he gladly took advantage of. After the first meeting of the two in the White House in 2006, Bush raved about his German counterpart, saying it was “really refreshing to work with” and that he was “excited” to work with her.
“Now we have the chance to open a new chapter in our relationship,” Bush said at the time.
In line with Bush’s open style, Merkel had a warm and relaxed relationship with her American counterpart. Bush visited Merkel’s homeland Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 2006, where the couple ate roast boar and toured Merkel’s parliamentary district; In 2007, she returned the favor and flew to Crawford, Texas, on a visit and informal talk at the Bush family ranch.
“He is friendly and open, and she reacted to it,” says James D. Bindenagel, who served as US ambassador and special envoy for Holocaust issues under Bill Clinton and Bush and now teaches at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn . “They were really friendly … he’s the guy you’d like to have a beer with, and she actually did.”
Perhaps the most embarrassing moment in their relationship was at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg in 2006, when Bush got a little too friendly: He stood behind Merkel and briefly rubbed her shoulder, to which she reacted with obvious unease. The incident that made the headlines at the time didn’t seem to hamper their continued relationship.
Obama: A close, prosperous partnership
In the final months of Obama’s presidency, when the White House and the world stage were shaken by the Trump election, one of Obama’s last trips abroad was to see Merkel in Berlin.
During this November 2016 trip, Obama named Merkel an “outstanding partner†and praised her “integrity, her truthfulness, her thoughtfulness†and said that if he were a German voter, he would certainly elect her for another term.
It was the culmination of a slow but steady deepening of the relationship between Obama and Merkel: By the time he left office in 2017, the two politicians had built a relationship full of benevolence and mutual understanding.
“A personal bond has really developed between Obama and Merkel,” said Charles Kupchan, Obama’s European affairs expert on the National Security Council. “You could see it. You could feel that. It was a real friendship. “
They didn’t start that close. It took the two leaders years of relationship to develop into the partnership and affection they still have today. This is partly due to the different political styles of the two leaders: Obama came into office after an election campaign full of lively rhetoric and lofty speeches, while Merkel was always reserved and sober.
(When the then candidate Obama wanted to give a campaign speech at the Berlin Brandenburg Gate in the summer of 2008, Merkel said she found the plan a bit “strange”; instead he spoke at the Victory Column in Berlin’s Tiergarten.)
Things got even more complicated in 2013 when it became known that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had reportedly bugged Merkel’s cell phone. The Chancellor was angry and directly expressed her displeasure to Obama; The incident, part of a larger scandal over the scope of NSA surveillance, created serious tension in US-German relations.
But the relationship developed over the last few years of Obama’s tenure. The real turning point for Obama and Merkel came in 2014, said Kupchan: After the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, Germany and the USA finally seemed to be on one side in their strategy towards Russia and the two could work more constructively and closely together.
This close connection seeped through to all levels of government: In the last few years of Obama’s presidency, Kupchan remembered having been in contact with his German counterparts on an almost daily basis. And while Obama and Merkel certainly have different political styles, Kupchan found that they had more in common than they thought.
“They’re pretty similar in many ways,” he said. “You are both intellectual politicians; You believe in deliberative democracy. You are risk averse; they are ideological centrists. And so there was a lot to bring them together. “
Trump: A 180 degree shift
When Merkel visited Trump a few months after taking office in March 2017, the two of them sat in chairs in the Oval Office for a photo opportunity. When the photographers asked her to shake hands, Merkel turned to Trump and asked: “Would you like a handshake?” Trump ignored the request, grimaced and said to the cameras: “Thank you, thank you.”
The handshake – that wasn’t a moment – felt like a fitting metaphor for the relationship between the two politicians over the next four years: a series of misunderstandings, profound disagreements, and a lack of personal warmth.
“The 180 degree turn from a personality like President Obama to Donald Trump … was a challenge for everyone, including the Chancellor,” said Merkel’s Christian Democrat politician Peter Beyer, transatlantic coordinator at the German Foreign Ministry.
Trump’s remarks about Merkel during the 2016 election campaign had not exactly prepared the couple for a close relationship: With regard to Merkel’s decision to allow more than a million refugees to come to Germany, Trump said she should be “ashamed”. And when he found out that Merkel had been named Person of the Year by Time Magazine, Trump tweeted: [sic] who is ruining Germany. “
After Trump’s election, Merkel brought him her congratulations – and a veiled message about his politics. In a statement, she listed the “common values†of the USA and Germany, including democracy, freedom and the rule of law: “I would like to offer close cooperation on these values,†she said.
In early talks with Trump, Merkel seems to have tried to build a constructive relationship and is said to have even explained the Geneva Convention to him in a phone call during his first few weeks in office. When she came to Washington in the spring, she was looking for something in common.
“She tried a charm offensive … and she failed to change him, change his character and positively influence the way he communicated with us,” Beyer said of this first visit to the White House . “It was complicated and it never got better over time.”
The relationship didn’t exactly help Trump’s envoy in Berlin, Richard Grenell, who burst onto the stage in spring 2018 with a series of bold demands. Trump continued to berate Merkel personally and tweeted about the German crime rate and her refugee policy. This, coupled with a turn in trade policy and its rhetoric towards the European Union and NATO, damaged the American-German relationship, which is still being repaired today.
So the move in politics and personality from Trump to Biden is part of the reasons officials on both sides of the Atlantic see things go a lot easier with the current president than they did the last.
“The personal connection cannot be emphasized enough,” said Kupchan. “And I think that’s good news from the Biden Presidency perspective because Biden believes in personal relationships …
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