Regarded by many elites, including themselves, as the solitary guarantors of the global liberal order, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany are the toast of the town in every Western capital. But a fair assessment of these two would be far less flattering.
For all the criticism President Trump gets for undermining the West and the cause of peace, we believe a lot more is owed to the leaders of the greatest powers in continental Europe. Macron and Merkel are to blame for many of the ills of today’s world.
Let’s start with the Franco-German relationships with China and Russia.
Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia are the main enemies of liberal democracy in the 21st century. Putin blackmails and steals the sovereign territory of other nations. He murders journalists and political opponents and supports Bashar Assad’s slaughter in Syria. Putin threatens American military personnel and diplomats and uses nerve agents against American allies.
China is working to steal the South China Sea, and its brazen theft of intellectual property is already a thing of legend. Xi continues to imprison millions of innocent people, while pursuing an economic policy built on bribes, extortion, and rampant protectionism.
How have Macron and Merkel responded to these challenges? By facilitating them. Albeit quietly, France is now supporting efforts to reduce sanctions on Russia. And in return for economic patronage, Paris closes its eyes to Beijing’s imperialism in the Indo-Pacific.
Germany? It also ignores Chinese expansionism. And Germany simultaneously supports Putin’s energy-dependence strategy. Endorsing Putin’s Nord Stream II pipeline, Merkel has chosen appeasement of Putin over Europe’s freedom and security. Nor does Merkel’s government spend more than pennies on defense. In contrast, President Trump opposes Nord Stream II, has ordered the U.S. military to uphold freedom of navigation rights in the South China Sea, has sent arms to Ukraine, has countered Assad’s brutality in Syria, and is pressuring China to respect trade rules and end its domestic repression.
Our gripe with Monsieur Macron and Frau Merkel isn’t just about their foreign policies. We also lament the two leaders’ hypocrisy in European affairs.
Where Merkel claims to be a global leader against man-made climate change, Germany is missing its carbon reduction targets by many years. Where Macron sings the song of economic morality and innovation, his domestic reform program largely ignores the vested interests that most hamper France’s economic growth potential. Macron’s true focus is on tax-gouging American technology firms, which have innovated their way into France’s economy.
Where Germany claims to seek a European Union that is mutually beneficial, it continues to use its undervalued Euro currency to protect exports at the expense of smaller European economies. And where both leaders claim a rising tide of pernicious nationalists is responsible for EU-skepticism, they are the ones who created it by tolerating the EU’s defining corruption, waste, and thinly veiled authoritarianism.
Merkel bears outsized blame for the vast migrant flows that have created nationalist movements by destabilizing states such as Italy. These are not the policies of visionaries for the human interest. They are testaments only to political arrogance.
President Trump, unfortunately, criticizes Merkel and Macron by shooting from the hip. His ill-considered and scattershot “counter-punching” at them doesn’t help.
It’s too bad, because Macron and Merkel deserve plenty of well-aimed, very specific criticism.
America, and the whole world, would be well-served by competent, humble leadership in France and Germany. God willing, one day, such leadership will show up.
