Merkel for multilateral approach as Trump presidency nears

BERLIN / AP

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is stressing as she awaits Donald Trump’s inauguration that the world’s problems need solving in cooperation, rather than by each country individually.
Asked at a news conference Saturday about protectionist tendencies in the U.S., Merkel said she will seek a dialogue with the new president.
“I don’t want to get ahead of that, but I am very much convinced that we as partners benefit more if we act together than if everyone solves problems for themselves, and that is a constant fundamental attitude on my part,” she said.
Underlining the importance of the Group of 20 industrial powers, which Germany chairs this year, she said that the international response to the financial crisis “was not a response based on isolation, but a response based on cooperation, on common rules for regulating financial markets, and I think that is the promising path.”
Merkel has made clear that she’s unhappy about the possible demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement as a result of Trump’s desire to withdraw the United States. Trump has criticized Merkel’s decision to allow large numbers of migrants into Germany.
Merkel said there are contacts “at adviser level” with Trump’s team, though there was no immediate word on any plans for a meeting beyond the summits of the Group of Seven and G-20 in May and July respectively. Merkel will host the latter summit in the German city of Hamburg.
“We’ll wait for the inauguration and then we will talk about this,” she said at a news conference. Trump will be inaugurated on Friday.
Merkel is seeking a fourth term in an election expected in September. Leaders of her conservative Christian Democratic Union met Friday and Saturday in Perl, in western Saarland state, to kick off the election year — which also features three state elections, the first in Saarland in March.