Merkel takes aim at Trump’s ‘America first’ and Brexit ahead of key G20 summit
German Chancellor Angela Merkel championed Europe, dismissed Brexit and said efforts to fight climate change are irreversible in a combative speech ahead of the Group of 20 summit that’s shaping up to be a confrontation over the direction of global policy.
Merkel, in a speech to lawmakers in Germany’s lower house of parliament on Thursday, noted that “the world has become less united” and acknowledged that discussions at the G20 meeting in Hamburg on July 7-8 “will be very difficult”.
“The discord is obvious and it would be dishonest to paper over the conflict,” she said.
Merkel is preparing to host world leaders including US President Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping of China amid a global shake-up that threatens much of the international order on issues established since the second world war. On the agenda for the meeting are free trade, climate change and migration. G20 nations, from Australia to Brazil, make up about two-thirds of the world population.
All the same, the G20 takes place “amid a particular set of challenges,” she said. “I’m convinced that we need the G20 more urgently than ever before, because we can only move things together,” Merkel said. “Whoever believes that you can solve problems through isolation and protectionism is making a grave error.”
The German leader reserved her most dramatic language for the Paris climate treaty after Trump pulled out of the global accord aimed at confronting climate change, which Merkel called it “irreversible and not negotiable.”
“We want to tackle this existential challenge and we can’t and we won’t wait until the last person on earth is convinced of the scientific basis for climate change,” Merkel said.
In response to Trump’s inward shift, Merkel played up new French President Emmanuel Macron as a key ally, saying the German-France axis will drive forward European unity, “regardless of Brexit”. She is due to host Macron in Berlin later on Thursday along with European leaders including the UK’s Theresa May and Paolo Gentiloni of Italy to align their position ahead of the G20.
“It’s clear to both of us that German and French interests are extremely closely linked when it comes to Europe’s future,” she said.
G20 members meeting in Hamburg next week must send “a signal of determination that they have understood their overarching responsibility for the world, and that they are willing to act upon it”, she said.
