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A Difficult Friendship with Obama

A Wall Separates Merkel and the Land of Her Dreams

By Dirk Kurbjuweit

Angela Merkel is traveling across America this week. It's a country she loves, but the German chancellor is still having trouble connecting with Barack Obama. Her political style couldn't be any more different from that of the US president. She's fighting to prevent the US from disregarding or dominating the Europeans.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is traveling around the United States this week. She loves the country, but she has a few problems with its president, Barack Obama. Her political style is vastly different from that of the US president, but she also has something else to contend with: Washington's disregard for and attempts to dominate Europeans.

 

When Merkel is no longer Germany's chancellor, she will fly to America. She will land in California, rent a car, drive to the beach and gaze out at the Pacific Ocean. That, at least, was her plan in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and she still clings to that vision: America, the Pacific and a long road trip across the entire country.

Merkel is in the United States this week, as chancellor, and she will hardly be in a position to satisfy her wanderlust. But at least she'll see the Pacific, when she visits Los Angeles and San Francisco after spending time in Washington.

She is traveling to a country whose stunningly beautiful aspects hold an almost childlike fascination for Merkel, but whose political realities represent a cause for concern. During her visit, she will encounter representatives of opposing camps in the country's deeply divided political landscape. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, Merkel will meet with protagonists of the American dream, including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, filmmakers at Warner Brothers and some of the Silicon Valley's best and brightest.

Tensions with Obama, But No Open Quarrels

But first she'll be in Washington, where Obama runs the show. She will see him at a nuclear summit attended by 40 other heads of state. The two years in which Merkel has interacted with Obama have been filled with tension, even if there has never been an open quarrel between the two leaders. He is precisely the president she didn't want to see in office, because he is the antithesis of her. This sentiment has been palpable from the very beginning, and it hasn't gone away.

But Obama isn't the only source of Merkel's concerns about America. She is also vexed over Washington's policy, which fluctuates between disregard for and dominance of the Germans. This isn't just the result of the president's personal characteristics, but of the respective roles of the two countries: the United States, a superpower being challenged by China, and Germany, which wants to be a medium power, but only plays this role economically, not politically. Merkel is confronted with this underlying conflict again and again.

Continues @ Spiegel.de

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I hope the President does not botch this relationship.

-- Edited by Sanders on Monday 12th of April 2010 11:39:37 PM