this is. a tough talks for. washington out of japanese leader he's on what is being billed as a working meeting with u.s. president donald trump it's expected to be short also told straightforward also on the program. leaders of north and south korea. to confirm that commitment to a nuclear free korean peninsula book will actions follow works. also coming up

writing about migration and balance for us african literature festival many feel for us of taking stories of displacement and exile two of them will join us in the studio. pulling together again at last album recall two huge songs for a virtual tour a t.v. special. welcome to the program. germany's chancellor angela merkel has arrived at the white house for talks with president trump the two leaders are set to discuss the iran nuclear deal u.s. trade tariffs on berlin's military spending this is the chance of a second visit to washington since mr trump took office on her first since she was reelected germany's chancellor in september. so far chancellor merkel has been

unable to establish anything like a good personal rapport with donald trump in contrast to the french president emanuel mccraw who just completed a lavish three day state visit to the u.s. capital but the u.s. president brushed off perceptions that the pair don't get a law. thank you very much it's a great honor to have chancellor merkel and i will say that you can rest assured she was going to win that election and congratulations on winning and by the way in a formal congratulations that a very great victory we're working on a lot of different subjects including trade including nato including military of all types and we have a really great relationship and we actually have had a great relationship right from the beginning with some people didn't understand that but we understand it and that's what's important but very extraordinary woman and it's an honor to have you at the white house thank you very much anderson thank

you and thank you for the welcome and congratulations on my reelection you know it took a while to form a government but it was very important to me to come to washington on my first visit outside europe to deepen our cooperation i'm looking forward to the talks. so who wants watts and will they get it with me to discuss this is a bar is for a man who is professor of political science at the bard college and then the w.'s chief political editor. is here as well the w.'s at washington bureau chief alexandra fundament is where you'd expect to find her in washington welcome to you all let's start with you alexandra a phenomenon we saw in that report that mr trump at pains to to impress upon us what a great relationship they had very have between the that did they do did they get off to a better start today than their last meeting. i was in the oval doing the meeting between the german chancellor and the you asked

president and i have to say that it was quite different in that what we saw last year during their first meeting in the oval office it was much friendly they seemed to be much relaxed talking to each other we just heard the u.s. president saying that it isn't on their to. the german chancellor and there was a very warm shake shake there were shaking hands for a couple of seconds but it was nothing awkward nothing strange a quiet nice atmosphere from my perspective what is form and what does chancellor merkel hope to achieve in this three hour meeting that emanuel mccraw couldn't in a three day state visit well i think that maybe it was a good year also of afterward we just heard two to cheat two to choose a format that's a little less or lower profile where the attention of the spotlight is not quite so much on the discussions they have as much as it was on my call and i think this

might help burkle to perhaps negotiate behind closed doors in a way where the expectations are pretty low so i think the expectation management for this type of talk was cleverly chosen let's see what comes out of it. what does chancellor merkel need to bring home to germany actually absolutely nothing because the expectations were low it pretty much to ground zero ahead of this ship and the key issue of trade she cannot negotiate on so it will already be an achievement if she hits home with chunk that she won't be divided and that he needs to address brussels to talk about the trade deficit of course we have this deadline coming up for this exemption that european union currently enjoys one could almost say of steel and aluminum tariffs the other issues of course on the table at the iran nuclear deal way europe is very anxious that trump won't let them. it go on beyond

the may twelfth deadline and we heard from mike impale his new u.s. secretary of state his country at the nato foreign ministers meeting saying that he doesn't expect it to carry on so we the stakes are really very high in this meeting but in terms of a concrete take away those expectations were lowered from the german side certainly from the first minute ok so germany wants nothing but to get out of one with result but if they could i wasn't expecting anything other than a warm alexandrov a moment what does donald trump want from germany. there are actually two key sticking points to important issues for the u.s. president first of all he is not satisfied with germany's spending on military as we know he would like to see germany spending two percent of its g.d.p. on defense that is a very important issue for him and then he also has been very critical of germany's

surplus so with the united states and the german car industry was an industry that he has repeated to be singled out to talk about this for trade practice their t's accusing germany of. those two points or germany's military spending and germany's trade surplus. any chance of any improvement from germany on either of those seventy was certainly trying to get some facts and figures across and they actually look very different from the german side where germany has invested far more in the u.s. than the u.s. has invested in germany it's responsible for more than six hundred thousand jobs in the auto industry particularly in the u.s. so those are facts and figures the chance of will be trying to get across a certain her stuff who will be there during that to crusoe lunt also we already saw germany give a bit of ground today with foreign minister saying that germany will step by step

work towards fulfilling its commitments meaning that two percent target on nato and again might compare was asked about this at the nato meeting and he was asked whether germany is doing enough and he said no he expects don't need to fulfill its own commitments we understand that the americans that are pushing very hard to get a very detailed and concrete plan how demi plans to do this and we had this call once again ahead of that next nato meeting that's coming up this summer on the issues to come up today that we expect to come up. then they came up with emmanuel mccall the iran nuclear deal try terrorists climate change why are these being addressed by individual national leaders macro and medical rather than by the e.u. well some of the target is in sort of the good cop bad cop strategy even though i don't know if that was really the intention i think the what both mccoy and burkle have tried to signal over the last couple of months was that they're standing

strong together that the german french relationship is strong and it's becoming the engine of the e.u. again so i think that's a symbol for trump also to see that he won't be able to put a wedge between the french president and the german chancellor so he's under phenomena in washington what movement do you think will save any from the american side anything. well at the moment if i understood your question correctly we don't think the any indication that the president could change his mind on any of the important issues for the europeans when we talk about trade when we talk about tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum and when we talk about the rand deal really no indication that mccrone. was successful but we'll of course have to see you both the both leaders

the german chancellor and the u.s. president are going to tell us and the very short press conference. because i struggled to work out the point of meetings like this each side knows the other's perspective that is you know there's a view point no one's going to change it's a three hour meeting that may as well have just picked up the phone. you know because they're still trying to establish some kind of a working mode we understand that there are high level talks going on you asked about the european union i mean the e.u. trade commissioner is in constant talks with the united states states but as expectations were low it ahead of this visit there were also noises coming out of washington that if the european union was willing to give some kind of ground then there might be a continuation of the extension on the trade tariffs so there seems to be a bit of room for maneuver i think it's very unlikely that merkel would be able to go home and get take the credit for that and frankly she doesn't really want to because he doesn't want to be seeing negotiating for the european union and also on

the iran issue we saw him on a call offering a kind of segue way out of where these talks are stuck right now talking about potential additional agreements on top of the iran nuclear agreement both actually held a joint conference press conference last week in berlin where they emphasized the whole issue of ballistic ballistic missile program of iran containing iran in the region these could be potential out on that could sway the u.s. president will remain within this. we went but from the figures we're getting from his u.s. secretary of state it doesn't look that way right now about d.w. such a political that is america thank you boris for money from the very bottom college in one q in washington i was on the phone thank you. and of course we will be doing a live to the your press conference in washington between the president to trump and chancellor merkel after meeting later in the program now to one of the jones who is looking into the business aspects of that meeting in washington well as you

can imagine your guests have already mentioned some of that germany of course is a major export nation and that is why trade issues will be high on the agenda at those talks in washington especially the issue of u.s. import tariffs such tariffs would have huge implications on a variety of industry sectors including the car industry the second look at what's at stake for the german economy here now in twenty seventeen german companies sold goods to the united states was almost one hundred until that billion euros mainly cars machinery and pharmaceutical products in the opposite direction the united states sold about sixty one billion euros in goods to germany mainly computer technology pharmaceutical products and vehicles i created a trade deficit of around fifty billion euros and that's going to be certainly one bone of contention there between america and donald trump today but the lack of parity in trade will likely remain in the foreseeable future despite the turmoil so

far the markets have taken us trade policy in their stride but how are investors handling the tariff uncertainty in the face of the looming may first deadline our frankfurt market correspondent and i devised this to say. yeah it is kind of an interesting one because nobody is really very much. afraid we have seen a rather benign market today so it seems that investors are not overly varying about a looming trade war it is an interesting fact that even on wall street people are divided on whether they really think that the we're heading into a scenario we're going to see more protectionism which then who are its global economic growth and also the earning potential of companies or whether donald trump is just bluffing for now so we don't know the u.s. president is not very predictable but what we know is that if the europeans were

launce those terrorists with terrorists then we are heading clearly into scenario form with more protectionism which then also would were to most likely equity markets and investor sentiment we have seen that back then when china was introducing its countermeasures about the markets really it was selling off and that's something we should keep in mind perhaps that's something we got to see at the beginning of next week i was on a device bus there from the federal stock exchange more business to come first a big day from rules and south korea. thank you so much the leaders of those two countries have formally agreed to end the state of war between the sixty five years after the fighting actually stopped at a historic meeting kim jong il moon je and said they would sign a formal peace treaty by the end of this year and work towards a nuclear free korean peninsula and they insisted they did not want to repeat the

mistakes of the past. an extraordinary moment in korean history after decades of hostilities and the threat of a nuclear confrontation a new era of peace is declared on the peninsula. moments before the leaders signed a historic declaration which aims to end the longstanding conflict key points include replacing the armistice with an official peace treaty plans to denuclearize the peninsula the reunification of separated families and a follow up summit in the north this autumn after the signing ceremony in the peace heist south korea's president made to his.