Angela Merkel was born on 17 July 1954, is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She previously served as Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union from 2000 to 2018. During her chancellorship, Merkel was frequently referred to as the de facto leader of the European Union (EU) and the most powerful woman in the world.
Following
her retirement, Merkel has written a memoir called Freedom, with her longtime
assistant and adviser, Beate Baumann. Angela Merkel spoke out about her
experiences with President-elect Donald Trump and other world leaders during
her time in office.
- Angela
Merkel’s first mistake with Donald Trump, she says in her new memoir, was
treating him as if he were “completely normal”, but she quickly learned of his
“emotional” nature and soft spot for authoritarians and tyrants. She stressed
that she was wrong about Trump since she first thought he was
"normal".
- During
their first meeting in 2017 in the Oval Office, where he attempted to humiliate
her by refusing to shake her hand before the cameras. “I whispered to him that
we should shake hands again,” she writes. “As soon as the words left my mouth,
I shook my head at myself. How could I forget that Trump knew precisely what he
was doing. He wanted to give people something to talk about with his behavior,
while I had acted as though I were having a conversation with someone
completely normal.”
- Now
unbound by diplomatic niceties, Merkel sizes up Trump as “emotional” and driven
by grievance and neediness, in contrast to her “factual” approach. “It seemed
that his main aim was to make the person he was talking to feel guilty. At the
same time, I had the impression that he also wanted the person he was talking
with to like him.”
Read more: 5 Hidden reasons why Trump will impose sweeping new tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico
- Rather
than trying to build bridges with traditional allies, Merkel writes, “Trump was
apparently fascinated with the Russian president”, and she notes that
“politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits had him in their thrall”.
- According to the former chancellor, Trump did not believe in cooperation. “He was convinced that all countries were competitors of each other, where the success of one meant the failure of the other. He did not believe that the prosperity of all countries could be increased through cooperation.”