IN THE aftermath of the G20 summit on July 7th and 8th, German politicians traded blows over who was at fault for riots by anti-globalisation activists that smashed up parts of central Hamburg. But a big global event in the heart of a city with a strong anarchist tradition was always bound to prompt protests. Officials’ deeper reasons for anxiety were different: Donald Trump and his attitudes towards Russia and Poland.
To some in Berlin, the president’s meeting with Vladimir Putin was a “Yalta 2.0”, a 21st-century equivalent of the summit in 1945 at which Americans and Russians divided Europe. Angela Merkel saw Mr Trump’s “back-slapping and face-pulling” display before the Russian president (as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a daily, put it) as undermining her efforts to confront Russia over Ukraine. An internal memo by the German foreign ministry summarising the G20 noted: “The summit went very well for Russia…As long as the US...Continue reading
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