Donald Trump and Angela Merkel are meeting this week at the White House. Like most Europeans, the German chancellor struggles to disguise her disdain for the US president’s America First nationalism. Yet in Berlin Ms Merkel’s coalition is humming its own parochial tunes. Eurozone reform? Too expensive. A bigger contribution to European security? Politically off limits. It all begins to sound like, well, Germany First.
Mr Trump exults in the elevation of narrow national interests over global rules and institutions. Everything is a zero-sum game. He has disowned the Paris climate change accord and repudiated multilateral trade deals. He may soon blow up the international nuclear deal with Iran. Across the Atlantic, Germany speaks the language of a devoted multilateralist and guardian of the liberal international order. No one is keener on rules.
Leaders prioritise national interests. That is what they are elected for. The gap lies between those such as Mr Trump, who think in terms of might-is-right winners and hapless losers, and those who spy a landscape of swings and roundabouts — a positive-sum game in which national and mutual interests can be aligned. Ms Merkel champions this second group.