{"id":29668,"date":"2025-04-18T07:44:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T07:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/29668\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T07:44:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T07:44:14","slug":"amid-trumps-tariff-war-germanys-next-leader-keeps-faith-in-free-trade-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/29668\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid Trump\u2019s tariff war, Germany\u2019s next leader keeps faith in free trade \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe best thing we can do is all work together to achieve zero tariffs on transatlantic trade. Then the problem will be solved,\u201d Merz said in an interview on TV channel RTL<\/a> after his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) agreed last week to form a coalition government with the Social Democrats (SPD).<\/p>\n

For Merz, the trade headwinds blasting across the Atlantic couldn\u2019t come at a worse time, with Europe\u2019s largest economy facing a third year of recession<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On top of that, as the EU\u2019s leading exporter, Germany and its auto industry are most exposed to Trump\u2019s universal tariffs \u2014 10 percent on most goods, along with 25 percent levies on steel, aluminum and cars. (Trump last week paused a higher, discretionary tariff<\/a> of 20 percent against the EU for 90 days to open the way for trade talks.)<\/p>\n

Merz, 69, has made long careers in both business and politics as a champion of the $1.6 trillion transatlantic trading relationship and the NATO alliance \u2014 which was conceived to keep America engaged in Europe while keeping Germany \u201cdown\u201d and allowing it to grow into an export powerhouse. The trained lawyer headed the Atlantic Bridge, a German nonprofit, for a decade, and among other roles chaired the German arm of U.S. investment giant Blackrock.<\/p>\n

A transatlantic free-trade deal was a central economic policy pitch<\/a> that Merz made on the election campaign trail. His incoming government\u2019s policy pact strives for an FTA with the U.S.<\/a> \u201cin the medium term,\u201d while in the near term seeking to avoid a trade conflict and to secure the reduction of import duties.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Merz has sought to project an image of strength and resolve toward Washington. \u201cThe key message to Donald Trump is: Germany is back on track,\u201d he said in English<\/a> as he unveiled the coalition deal.<\/p>\n

The mixed signals are impossible to miss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe best thing we can do is all work together to achieve zero tariffs on transatlantic trade. Then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[1212,1213,13402,17777,346,1395,6178,473,32,1396,33,34,2000,299,1214,36,1945,1824,1195,475,806,6084,1197,1216,809,46,2343,811,6861,1218,479,1201,6862,1219,49,1220,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-29668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-aluminum","9":"tag-americas","10":"tag-angela-merkel","11":"tag-bridges","12":"tag-cars","13":"tag-china","14":"tag-conflict","15":"tag-defense","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-dumping-duties","18":"tag-elections","19":"tag-emmanuel-macron","20":"tag-eu","21":"tag-europe","22":"tag-exports","23":"tag-france","24":"tag-friedrich-merz","25":"tag-germany","26":"tag-growth","27":"tag-imports","28":"tag-industry","29":"tag-infrastructure","30":"tag-investment","31":"tag-maros-sefcovic","32":"tag-negotiations","33":"tag-policy","34":"tag-research","35":"tag-security","36":"tag-single-market","37":"tag-steel","38":"tag-tariffs","39":"tag-trade","40":"tag-trade-agreements","41":"tag-trade-war","42":"tag-united-states","43":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","44":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}