The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

by John Bolton

The Trump-Merkel April 27 summit was a “working visit” rather than a “state visit,” so not as grand as Macron’s. Trump’s one-on-one with Merkel lasted only fifteen minutes before the larger Cabinet Room meeting, which he opened by complaining about Germany’s “feeding the beast” (meaning Russia) through the Nord Stream II pipeline, moving on to the European Union (EU), which he thought treated the US horribly. It was clear to me that Trump thought Germany was Russia’s captive. Trump also used a line I later heard countless times, that “the EU is worse than China except smaller,”10 adding that the EU was set up to take advantage of the US, which Merkel disputed (in English, as the whole meeting was). She also asked for three to four months’ delay in imposing global steel and aluminum tariffs Trump was considering, so the EU could negotiate with the US. Trump answered that he didn’t want to negotiate with the EU. Too bad he didn’t feel that way about North Korea, I thought to myself.11 Trump had already turned to Germany’s failure to meet its NATO commitment to increase defense expenditures to 2 percent of GDP, describing Merkel as one of the great tap dancers on NATO, which she was now doing on trade.12 Merkel kept pressing for an extension, even two months, on the tariffs, but Trump said it would be a waste of time, just like NATO. He asked when Germany would reach 2 percent, and Merkel answered 2030, innocently, which caused even Germans to smile and Trump to say that she ...