The European state-owned news agency Deutsche Welle published an article with the article” Trump’s election defeat is a problem for Germany” less than 24 hours after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in November 2024.
A few hours afterwards, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced that his three-party social alliance had collapsed. A major factor in disagreements regarding how to help improve Germany’s fragile market was the US election resulted in the coalition breaking up, according to Scholz.
One month later, Scholz lost a trust vote, ending the state he has led since 2021. Federal votes will take place in Germany on February 23, 2025.
Germany is regarded as one of the United States ‘ most enmity partners in Western Europe, working on everything from financial industry to military protection.
However, this may change if Trump retakes company. As Angela Merkel, the lifelong former chancellor of Germany, said in November 2024, the looming following Trump administration “is a problem to the world, particularly for multilateralism”.
However, Trump’s US-centric approach to international politics runs counter to diplomacy, which is the notion that various countries working together helps people involved.
European officials worry that the incoming Trump presidency poses a major threat to the relation as someone who studies German-American connections in the 20th century.
Trump’s potential launch of a tariff-induced industry war, as well as the likelihood that the president-elect would withdraw his financial and military support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, are among the European problems.
Given that, in addition to the US and the EU, Germany is the third-largest donation to Ukraine and would be required to make even more of this financial assistance if the US stopped giving Ukraine wealth, both scenarios may hurt the German economy even more.
Despite the fact that he has previously served as president, German officials continue to be perplexed by Trump’s unique political bent.
Merkel wrote in her 2024 autobiography” Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021″ that when she first met Trump in 2017, she acted as though she were having a conversation with” people totally normal”.
Merkel immediately realized, nevertheless, that Trump was not like other British officials. She noted that Trump seemed to believe that all nations competed, and that one victory could mean another disappointment.
A long-lasting empire
Merkel and another Germans were not used to doing that, which was not the American leader.
Merkel was born in 1954, when Germany was split into two countries: socialist, Soviet-aligned East Germany, where Merkel grew away, and bourgeois West Germany, which was formed out of the three northern areas controlled by France, the US and the United Kingdom at the end of World War II and was aligned with the US.
Shortly after the war, the US accepted West Germany as an essential alliance. This alliance made certain that Germany, who was once a US foe during World War II, would never again pose a danger to international peace.
West Germany even served as a crucial front line for Europe as the US fought the Soviet Union in the Cold War starting in 1947.
Despite the fact that West Germany enjoyed having an American overpartner during the Cold War, West Germany benefited most financially from the issue. East Germany’s market, on the other hand, was somewhat poor throughout the Cold War.
Perhaps the most obvious sign of Germany’s section was the Berlin Wall, a 96-mile split that cut through Berlin. In 1961, East German authorities constructed the roof to avert East Germans ‘ frights.
Merkel entered politics only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which represented the looming end of the Cold War that year and opened the door to German unity.
United States and Germany combined
In the 1990s, Merkel served as a politician and witnessed how former British Prime Minister George H. W. Bush persuaded France and the United Kingdom to put their worries about a fresh German rule over Europe to allow their original adversary from World War II to unite and reclaim their former country’s independence.
The United Kingdom, US, Soviet Union, and France were the four main Allied allies in Europe at the start of World War II, but they had originally denied Germany the right to self-determination.
However, the four Friends signed the Two Plus Four Treaty in 1990, an international arrangement that made it possible for Germany to consolidate as a completely independent state in October 1990.
Soon afterwards, Bush praised the transatlantic alliance between the US and Germany. The British leader praised the two nations ‘ shared “love of liberty” and expressed his desire for them to “partner in leadership.”
Bush’s terms signaled a significant change in how well-known internationally and how necessary it is for Germany to exercise its political and military dominance in international politics.
It was a turn, however, that some Germans did not necessarily allowed. Germans were hesitant to assume the powerful leadership position that the US desired for the nation.
Following two bloody war, it was widely believed in Germany that defense restraint had suddenly brought stability and prosperity.
In fact, in almost all the global crises since 1990 – from the conflict in Bosnia in 1992 to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 – Germany has shown a reluctance to take the result. Germany prefers to play a secondary role in navigating global issues, largely through its participation in the NATO and UN military alliance.
Germany’s foreign location nowadays
Germany’s approach to international issues drastically changed after Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and it suddenly assumed the leadership position that Bush had envisioned in 1990.
In a traditional speech on February 27, 2022, Scholz called the strike a” Zeitenwende”, meaning” a boundary time” in German, and announced a major boost in military spending.
This change has been welcomed by the US and other Eastern allies. NATO members had now agreed to dedicate a minimum of 2 % of their GDP to defense spending in 2006, but Germany– like additional European nations– did not follow through on this promise for many years.
In the wake of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict, it was only in February 2024 that Germany finally met its 2 % spending goal for the first time. That it did that wasn’t just a side effect of the issue itself.
Stress by American president, above all Trump, even played a key role. Trump’s repeated threat to “pay your expenses or we leave NATO” throughout his second term as president had apparently paid off.
The new German government may be required to keep Trump informed of the intercontinental alliance’s several benefits and the history of German-American relationships.
Sylvia Taschka is professor of training of story, Wayne State University
The Conversation has republished this essay under a Creative Commons license. Read the original content.