Germany’s new foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has signalled a cooling in German relations with the United States and vowed on Saturday to forge stronger ties with the unpopular Socialist regime in France instead in welcoming migrants.
In his first foreign visit, Gabriel told Reuters in Paris how much he disliked Trump’s decision to halt the US refugee program. The German foreign minister fumed against the American president’s executive order to ban asylum seekers from several Muslim countries.
“Europe has no reason to fear the future – we have no reason for subservience or restraint,” Gabriel said. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault – with little political clout left – reaffirmed Germany’s foreign policy non-starter by saying, “If Germany and France are moving in the same direction and are thinking in the same direction, then Europe is moving forward.”
Gabriel said Trump’s ban on Muslim immigrants from countries linked to terrorism, contradicted America’s Christian traditions of “love thy neighbour”.
In his new role as Germany’s foreign minister, Gabriel is scheduled to travel to Brussels on Tuesday for talks with European Commission officials.
The German and French foreign ministers said they plan to hold a joint meeting with Trump’s nominee for US secretary of sate, Rex Tillerson, once he has been officially appointed, “to discuss the issue [of migrants] point by point and have a clear relationship”.
“This [restriction on migrants] can only worry us,” Ayrault pontificated. “Welcoming refugees who flee war and oppression is part of our duty,” Ayrault added.
“Clarity, coherence and, if necessary, firmness are needed to defend our beliefs, our values, our vision of the world, our interests, French, German and European,” Ayrault added.
The two men’s “vision of the world” included a strong stand for maintaining anti-Russian sanctions, after the new US administration indicated it may soon lift US sanctions placed on Russia. Gabriel voiced his support too for Kiev’s nefarious involvement in the east of Ukraine.
Gabriel had said earlier that Germany would step into global markets the US has abandoned and would take on a bigger role on the international stage if the Trump administration continues its shift toward “protectionism”.
Speaking on his first day in his new post in Berlin, Gabriel had said Germany’s “arms will remain outstretched” to the US to continue the trans-Atlantic alliance, but his words sounded all the more empty during his French visit.
At a gathering of southern European Union leaders in Lisbon Saturday French president Francois Hollande urged the formation of a united front to provide a “firm” response against Trump.
During his phone conversation with Trump Hollande called on the US president “to respect the principle of accepting refugees” AFP reported.
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