Merkel makes waves with views on EU-US relations

Sophia Besch, a research fellow with the Centre for European Reform, has been tracking the Twitter chatter and tells DW it's been very interesting to see "who is alarmed and who isn't". Besch believes that despite the transatlantic nature of her remarks, Merkel was aiming squarely at German voters.

"There's this German pro-European movement going on right now mixed with the sort of traditional leftist anti-Americanism that the SPD [Social Democratic Party] is currently tapping into," Besch explains. "None of these comments are controversial for a German audience but in questioning the US security guarantees...the risk, of course, is that it's alienating the United States which is further undermining the alliance by doing that."...

...Besch adds that Merkel is also reacting to criticism that she has been too friendly with Trump. "That's playing against her domestically right now," she explains. "She wanted to give him a chance and that's what she's now being attacked for by the opposition."  It helps a great deal, Besch says, that next door in France it appears she now has a partner she can count on in new president Emmanuel Macron.

So while the remarks were targeting the domestic audience, Besch says, it "fits in with her broader European focus at the moment and her focus on the Franco-German push for more Europe."  But Besch warns that this rhetoric must be followed up with action. "This is dangerous if they don't follow up, if she taps into that anti-American rhetoric and anti-British rhetoric without then actually stepping up to the task of 'Europe taking its fate in its own hands' and becoming better on security."