Angela Merkel sought advice from Pope Francis in dealing with Donald Trump when he was first elected US president, hoping to find a way to convince a man she believed had the competing mentality of a real estate developer to not to abandon the Paris climate agreements.
In her memoirs, excerpts of which were published in the German weekly Die Zeit late Wednesday night, the former German chancellor detailed her difficulties in dealing with Trump, who, she said, seemed fascinated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. and other authoritarian leaders.
“I saw everything from the perspective of the real estate developer I was before entering politics,” he wrote. “Each plot of land could only be sold once and, if he didn’t get it, someone else would. “That’s how he saw the world.”
Pope Francis, when asked in general terms by Merkel for advice on dealing with people “with fundamentally different views,” immediately understood that she was referring to Trump and his desire to abandon the climate agreements, he wrote.
“Fold, fold, fold, but make sure it doesn’t break,” he told Merkel, according to his account.
When Trump first took office in 2017, Merkel was one of the world’s longest-serving elected leaders and the European Union’s most influential by far, having shaped Germany and the continent’s response to the debt crisis. of the euro zone, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
As much of the world fretted over Trump’s presidency, Merkel’s unflappable demeanor and frequent invocations of values such as freedom and human rights led some to dub her the true “leader of the free world,” an appellation traditionally reserved for the presidents of the United States.
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Angela Merkel remembers in her memoirs the tricks to deal with Trump
Written before Trump’s re-election, the book expresses the “sincere hope” that US Vice President Kamala Harris would defeat her rival.
His memoirs, titled “Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021,” will be published in more than 30 countries on November 26. A week later he will present the book in the United States at an event in Washington with former President Barack Obama, with whom he forged a close political relationship.
Germany’s first female leader remained popular with voters at the end of her 16-year rule, but her legacy has come under increased scrutiny, with some blaming her governments’ huge bets on Russian energy for both the invasion. of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 and Germany’s current economic downturn.
Merkel has not regretted her policies toward Russia and has kept a low profile since leaving office.
In published excerpts from his memoirs, he talks about his numerous meetings with Putin and says that he struck him as a man desperate to be taken seriously.
“I saw him as someone who did not want to be disrespected, ready to lash out at all times,” he wrote. “That may seem childish and despicable to you, you may shake your head at it. But it meant that Russia never disappeared from the map.”
At one point, he appears to suggest that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was scheduled to occur after his departure from office. “You will not always be chancellor and then they will enter NATO,” the Russian president said about Ukraine. “And I want to avoid it.”
Some leaders in central and eastern Europe have been delusional, according to Merkel: “It seems that they want the country to simply disappear, to not exist. “I couldn’t blame them, (…) but Russia, heavily armed nuclear, did exist.”
With information from Reuters.
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