Berlin has long harbored wishful thinking for a Kamala Harris victory and the continuation of the Euro-Atlantic cooperation championed by outgoing US President Joe Biden. But Trump cut the cord first, and much faster and much more clearly than most expected.

For this eventuality, the German government had not prepared sufficiently, estimates Henning Hoff, analyst of the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP). “It was a mistake to bet exclusively on the Democrats,” Hoff tells Deutsche Welle. “Perhaps the special relationship that the chancellor had with President Biden was a little one-sided. The fact that contacts were not cultivated with the “camp” of the Democrats was an omission that is now being paid for.

The criticism of Trump in Berlin is not forgotten

Memories of Donald Trump’s first term as president remain vivid in Berlin. At the time, the Republican president had called into question the existence of NATO, while threatening to withdraw US troops stationed in Germany. He was highly critical of NATO allies for taking advantage of the US defense shield without themselves contributing financially to what this entails.

What is required now for the German government is to make up for lost ground. “We need as clear a message as possible that the Europeans and especially the Germans are willing to shoulder much greater burdens to ensure their defense,” Henning Hoff emphasizes. “If we continue the maneuvers and arguments of the press that ‘since we have established the Special Defense Fund, only a minimal increase in the regular defense budget is possible,’ that is something that hardly impresses anyone in Washington and even less a Trump”.

Ukraine: Peace by Dictation?

On the international agenda, the differences between Biden and Trump are expected to be felt on the issue of Ukraine. This is the most critical question for the German government: What will it do with the support of Ukraine? Today, the largest financier of Kyiv is the USA, followed by Germany. Trump says he wants to end the war – and quickly. Presumably, this means that it will force Ukraine to give up a large chunk of its territory, which has been seized by Russia.

As mentioned in Deutsche Welle before the election, security expert Niko Lange, “we can’t say that if Trump wins he will sell out Ukraine. After all, he is unpredictable, that is his special characteristic.” But in the event that Trump reaches an agreement with Putin to end the war against Ukraine, in Berlin they can use this agreement as an alibi. “They will be able to say that ‘we wanted to do more, but it can’t be done without the Americans.’ I think there is that risk,” Lange points out. The trade balance issue

On top of that, Germany is one of the US’s largest trading partners. Consequently, every decision that Washington takes on economic policy has implications for Germany. During the election campaign, Donald Trump had announced tariffs of 60% on imports from China and 20% on imports from the rest of the world. For German exports to the US this would mean significant increases, which would mainly burden the automotive and pharmaceutical industries. “It would be a real noose around the neck of our export industry,” says analyst Henning Hoff.

It is indicative that in a survey conducted by the IfO Economic Institute in Munich, two weeks before the US elections, 44% of the businesses surveyed expressed fears of “negative effects” in the event of Trump’s election, while only 5% saw “positive consequences’ and 51% estimate that there will be no significant change. An earlier IfO study predicted that Trump’s announced tariffs alone would add 15% to the cost of German exports to the US.

But there are further consequences. “It is possible that other trading partners, such as China, will react,” IfO analyst Andreas Baur tells Deutsche Welle. “And that would be perhaps the worst consequence, as it would cause an escalating spiral, eventually igniting a global trade war.”

But all this does not mean that there are no problems with the outgoing Biden-Harris administration. As Andreas Baur reminds us, Joe Biden has maintained – and even, in part, increased – all the tariffs imposed by his predecessor, Donald Trump, on vehicle imports from China. “The big difference is that, while Trump follows an ‘us against everyone’ rhetoric, Harris understands that the US needs allies,” says the German analyst.

Is Germany a “negative example”?

Climate protection is one of the declared and most important goals of the current German government. Its strong ally in the implementation of the climate goals was the Biden-Harris administration. In contrast, Donald Trump has repeatedly cited Germany as a “negative example” for policy making. This also applies to Berlin’s energy policy, which mainly invests in renewable energy sources.

In 2016, the current president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was foreign minister at the time, called Trump a “hate preacher”. “I’m afraid that much of what we saw in Trump’s first term will be repeated, the antipathy towards Germany has not been forgotten,” emphasizes political analyst Henning Hoff.

Edited by: Yiannis Papadimitriou