20
JAN
2025
Donald Trump's efforts to strengthen the position of the USA primarily in the great struggle of the descending West to preserve its global dominance and to shift the weights within the transatlantic alliance clearly in its favor – at the expense of the countries of Europe – is reflected, for example, in the demand that the United States should take possession of Greenland. The island - an autonomous area of Denmark - not only has large stocks of raw materials, including strategically particularly important rare earths. It also has a geostrategically outstanding importance in the currently strongly swelling struggle for influence over the Arctic, which is increasingly opening up to the maritime trade, the exploitation of natural resources and military operations due to climate change. Trump's publicly announced attempt to snatch control of Greenland from Denmark takes into account the plan to expand the United States' position in the Arctic at all costs. In addition, from Washington's point of view, the associated weakening of not only Denmark, but the entire EU would have the advantage of countering the plans, especially in Berlin and Paris, to become a world power on an equal footing with the USA with the help of the EU [1], to counteract another piece.
Trump is aiming for a shift of forces within the transatlantic alliance, not least with the plan to impose additional tariffs on all imports into the USA - including those from the EU. The business-oriented Institute of the German Economy (IW) from Cologne assumes that this will reduce the economic performance of the Federal Republic of Germany by up to 1.5 percent each in 2027 and 2028. 2] Accordingly, in a recent survey of 500 German executives, 80 percent of respondents judged that the German economy would be damaged by Trump's actions. 68 percent say "something", 12 percent even predict "great damage". 3] However, 75 percent of the executives from the business community surveyed are of the opinion that "too much criticism" of Trump is being criticized in Germany. 44 percent of them expect that the tech oligarch Elon Musk will not only eliminate government personnel, but also annoying rules for companies with the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the USA. Individual companies would have the opportunity to make investments profitably "in the USA and no longer in Germany", Moritz Schularick, President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), recently noted. For the Federal Republic, of course, this is "an additional burden". 4]
Although the German government claims that it is much better "prepared" for Trump's political practices than at the beginning of his first term. 5] However, experts warn that Berlin and the EU are in a considerably "worse situation" today than they were then. For example, Gabriel Felbermayr, ex-president of the IfW and current director of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO), points out that the EU is currently suffering from a "pronounced weakness of growth" that makes it vulnerable. 6] In addition, the Ukraine war increases "the bargaining power of the Americans" - "and thirdly, the nimble of Russian gas has aggravated our dependence on American LNG". In fact, the USA has now become the second largest natural gas supplier to Norway in the EU with a share of around 20 percent. 7] In 2024, Germany imported around 13.5 percent of its natural gas from the United States [8]; 86 percent of the German terminals, through which more than eight percent of all German supplies were imported, were fed with US LNG. As soon as Trump threatened to limit LNG export licenses, liquefied gas prices rose in Europe, while those in the US fell, Felbermayr notes. Trump has "a few more levers" in his hand today than eight years ago. 9]
Marcel Fratzscher, President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, also classifies the Federal Republic of Germany as "miserably prepared". Germany is "a small country compared to the USA," says Fratzscher; one will "be lost in this conflict if we do not succeed in speaking with one voice in Europe". In Berlin, however, they have been operating "for at least half a year ... Nabelschau": It is only about domestic political issues, "not about how we want to position ourselves globally, how we can strengthen Europe". But that would be "urgently necessary to have a minimum level of protection from Donald Trump". 10] Instead of a "strategy" of the federal government or the EU Commission for a solidarity in the disputes with the Trump administration, one is "a great division of Europe", explains Fratzscher; he "fears" "that Europe will be divided apart". One is "prepared as well as possible" for Trump's second term, although one has "really had enough time" to "prepare in detail" for a "wise counterattack" at EU level against Trump's attacks, which have been clearly foreseen for a long time.
Former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel is now calling for a rapid change of course on the occasion of Trump's inauguration. One must prepare for "a completely different US president" than at the beginning of 2017, writes Gabriel in a text for the Springer sheet "Bild", which was published yesterday, Sunday. At that time, "Trump was poorly prepared"; the "professionals in Washington" had "quickly entared him". This time, however, he follows a "clear plan". 11] His advance against Greenland, for example, is merely "a foretaste of his well-known strategy of trumpeting out political provocations in order to better enforce serious demands afterwards". Although it is clear that "we Europeans ... need the USA as a partner: economically, politically and also militarily". That is why we have to cooperate with Trump. At the same time, however, one should "work above all on the economic, political and military strength of Europe ...". It is inauspicious that the EU has "no political center", since "the power triangle France-Germany-Poland", which "could act as the center of Europe, ... has been criminally neglected by the federal government for years". "The next chancellor," Gabriel demands, must therefore "above all, turn the rudder of foreign policy around". It is about "finally making the EU a power that is also seriously or even perceived by Donald Trump".
[1] S. to "More courage to world power" and In the shadow of Trump.
[2] Thomas Obst, Samina Sultan, Jürgen Matthes: What threatens transatlantic trade relations under Trump 2.0? Of tariff increases and retaliatory measures. IW Report 42/2024. Cologne, 24.10.2024. S. The Transatlantic Rivalry.
[3] Heike Göbel: Elites hope for a change of government. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 17.01.2025.
[4] Moritz Schularick. In: International Politics January/February 2025. S. 8.
[5] Berlin sees itself well prepared for Trump. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 18.01.2025.
[6] "EU should send Orbán to Trump". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02.01.2025.
[7] Malte Küper: LNG: The importance of US imports for the German gas supply. IW Brief Report No. 43. Cologne, 12.07.2024.
[8] Klaus Stratmann: Germany threatens serious consequences due to gas deal with the USA. handelsblatt.com 09.01.2025.
[9] "EU should send Orbán to Trump". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02.01.2025.
[10] Christina Lohner: "Germany and Europe are the worst possible prepared for Trump". capital.de 19.01.2025.
[11] Sigmar Gabriel: The next chancellor must turn the foreign policy helm around. bild.de 19.01.2025.