‘Farewell visit’? Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet as she prepares to leave office
former President Donald Trump, who tussled over everything from NATO dues to the U.S. president’s Twitter taunts.
But there will be contentious issues on the agenda when Biden and Merkel sit down for a private one-on-one meeting. Among the toughest: the sharp split between the U.S. and Germany over Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline that would run from Russia to Germany and that the U.S. fears will give Moscow increased leverage over Europe.
A senior administration official said Biden will raise his objections over the pipeline with Merkel and press her on “the importance of developing concrete mechanisms to ensure that energy is not used as a coercive tool against Ukraine” or other allies.
This official, who briefed reporters on the Biden-Merkel meeting on the condition of anonymity, defended the White House’s decision to forgo imposing sanctions on German companies involved in building the pipeline, a move that sparked bipartisan criticism from lawmakers in Congress. Biden’s advisers said the pipeline wasnearly completed before he took office and it was too late now to stop it.
The decision to waive sanctions has given the U.S. “diplomatic space” to work with Germany on the negative impacts of the the pipeline, the administration official said, although the source said the White House did not expect to announce any breakthroughs on the dispute.
Merkel has her own objectives for the visit.
“In part this is a farewell visit, in part she is signaling continuity and stability in the German-U.S. relationship,” said Johannes Timm, a senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a think tank in Berlin.
a priority to repair America’s relationship with its European allies in the wake of Trump’s antagonistic approach to the bloc, which was marked by punitive tariffs, diplomatic slights and red-hot debates over multilateralism and NATO.
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Trump clashed repeatedly with Merkel, and before his term ended, he ordered a drawdown of U.S. forces from Germany in what many viewed as a public rebuke of her. Biden has halted that reduction of forces and will use this meeting to highlight the “robust partnership” between Washington and Berlin.
Trump blasts US ally Germany as ‘captive to Russia’ in tense opening of NATO summit