The frontrunner to become Germany’s chancellor has urged EU leaders to come up with joint proposals to Donald Trump to try and mitigate possible US trade tariffs on EU goods.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Friedrich Merz, whose party is leading in the polls, described Trump as a predictable president who liked to do deals.
“The predictability of this president is clear, and has always been clear,” he said. “Let’s figure out where we are having approaches in common.”
Merz underlined how Europeans had stood firm during Trump’s first term, suggesting the EU should be ready to retaliate with trade tariffs on US products.
“Remember, the tariff debate we had in 2018 when Trump’s first administration was in office,” he said. “We had these tariffs on [EU] steel and aluminium, and the common response was tariffs on Levi’s jeans, on whisky and on Harley-Davidsons. And within six months, the problem was resolved.”
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