Donald Trump Thinks Countries Are In "Competition" With Each Other: Ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Former Chancellor of Germany Wednesday described US President Donald Trump as an attention seeker. At an event organised by the Greek newspaper Kathimerini in Athens to promote the Greek translation of her memoir "Freedom", Merkel disclosed how Trump refused to shake hands with her in the Oval Office in March 2017, per a report by Politico.

She explained how she considers it a mistake of saying, 'Donald, we should shake hands,'. He didn't. "He wanted to draw attention to himself. That's what he wants: to distract and have everyone look at him," Merkel said. "You can see this in what he is doing with the tariffs. Ultimately, he must deliver good results for the American people. He has to prove his abilities, at least to his own country."

Merkel added that Europeans "must stand united and not be intimidated when Trump imposes more tariffs on the bloc, but we should retaliate with tariffs of our own."

"I'm not saying we should break off relations with the US, but we must negotiate. Even the US cannot survive alone," she said, adding: "I see a problematic development. When Vice President [JD] Vance says, 'we are partners, and we will only support you if you agree with our concept of freedom,' which means no rules and no controls, that is indeed a threat to our democracy."

Merkel and Trump have had a conflict-ridden relationship and in her memoir she said that for Trump, all countries were in competition with each other and that the success of one was the failure of the other. She added, "He did not believe that the prosperity of all could be increased through co-operation."

She added that Trump has always judged everything from the perspective of the "property entrepreneur" he had been before politics. "Each property could only be allocated once. If he didn't get it, someone else did. That was also how he looked at the world", Merkel said.

Last month, when German chancellor Friedrich Merz was in the Oval Office, Trump criticised Merkel heavily for opening up the country to refugees. Speaking about the travel restrictions he had placed on 19 countries, Trump said, "We want to keep bad people out of our country ... of course, you have a little problem too with some of the people that were allowed into your country," in reference to the attacks in Germany involving refugees.

Merz replied to him saying, "Yes we do," and Trump continued, "It's not your fault ... It shouldn't have happened. I told her it shouldn't have happened, but it did. But you have your own difficulty with that, and we do."

Although Trump did not name her, he was referencing to Merkel.