“Whether we like it or not, we will remain dependent on the United States of America for a long time,” Merz said at a business conference in Berlin.
In the end, the 45-minute-long meeting belonged to the “peaceful” category. Trump told Merz, “I’m friends with you”, and they appeared to bond over a shared dislike of Angela Merkel, the former chancellor and Merz’s political rival.
I think he may have misunderstood the situation.
He may be dependent, but not the rest of Europe, not even Germany.
I wonder in what ways he means dependence, because in a lot of ways we are getting less dependent on US but there are a few things we can’t do ourselves yet and it will take time to get it done. I hope he is saying we will have to rely on the US to appease Trump, knowing we should move away ASAP instead of him actually believing it. I’m afraid it is the latter.
My guess is financial services, given his past in blackrock
London and Paris can probably handle European financial services. My guess would be tech, we have no comparable chip design houses.
What do we do for CPUs/GPUs?
Guess what countries ASML and TSMC are from.
Neither of these companies design or sell the CPUs or GPUs we rely on. China has been trying to build a comparable CPU for years and is still years behind the curve.
Merz and his party are not good for Germany.
FT at it again. Merz is right that Germany is tied to the US at the moment, but this frames it as if Merz wants further dependence on the US. Merz is doing damage control, firefighting if you will. Habeck or Klingbeil would have done nothing else, but with less success, because their ideologies and manners might not be as pleasing to Trump. In a way, this is a very fragile and fake game, but with hard consequences.
