and he kind of in russian involvement in any kind of link between his campaign and russia leading up to his election and the demonstrations that started off after his election by basically giving him elect on human rights so there is a lot of recovering from these early beginnings to be done and there are some very pressing issues on the table at this working that point of a beautiful well i think of one thing we shouldn't forget i mean in this last days we've been emphasizing whole whole loyal mccall was to trump or at least what a strong relationship they had i mean the speech he gave in front of congress was pretty pretty well perhaps subtle somewhat subtle but he was very strongly opposed to the kind of nationalism and isolationism and the near mercantilist stance of the trumpet ministration and so we'll see what the ripple effects of this will be also the merkel obama relationship that has often been hailed or there's a certain nostalgia that has come up in the last couple of months in the beginning wasn't quite so rosy when obama came to berlin the first time he was in the low to

speak in front of the brown brigade and the spy scandal that happened in the first of ministration of obama was also fodder for was a pool of discord so. there's a bit of a distortion in the way we see transatlantic relations i think you're watching that piece of news live from the lead and the box that you see just that you're looking at the podium where a press conference from will be held in the next few minutes hopefully between donald trump and german chancellor angela merkel who is in washington at the moment for a three hour meeting clay richardson is in washington claire what just donald trump one from germany. well you fundamentally see as a lawyer he feels very threatened by the german auto industry for one and i think

that one of the biggest issues we're going to see and one of the thorniest things that one of the nuts until america is going to have to crack on this trip is of course to try and find a permanent exemption from the steel and aluminum tariffs that he put into place in march he granted a temporary exemption to some of the united states key allies like in mexico and in canada and indeed the european union but those are set to expire on monday and if europe cannot cannot get a permanent exemption from those they are saying that this could ultimately escalate into a full blown trade war so they're going to be coming to washington d.c. and trying to follow up on what message was earlier this week to try and find find an agreement to avoid this avoid this from happening. why is emanuel going to go to the united states to argue with donald trump about trade issues why is the german chancellor going to argue about these trade issues when

this is a european much. because those are the two leaders the key leaders in europe certain the adult needs to be able to do business with germany although we've course have the german side stressing that this is going to michael she said in her statement that this was the first foreign trip since she was or outside of europe since she was reelected into a fourth term so there's a lot of diplomacy going on there's also a lot of perma see going on between brussels the european union and washington and certainly she will not be wanting to come up with a bilateral resolution of this potential first sought in a potential trade war she will want to emphasize once again as she has done in the past that if you want to talk trade you have to talk to brussels you have to talk to all european partners and we understand that there was close cooperation that continues to be close cooperation between a man whom i call and the german chancellor on this issue who clearly see eye to

eye on this what we did see is him preparing the ground for potential compromise when it comes up to the iran nuclear deal which is very important to the europeans because it actually offers a base for future diplomatic resolutions of other countries with nuclear issue you're talking that we could see that some of the german friends and daughter are going to. address president donald trump of taking the stage let's see what's being said. today i'm honored to welcome chancellor angela merkel back to the white house over the past year i have enjoyed getting to know the chancellor very well through many productive calls discussions and meetings we have a great relationship chancellor i want to congratulate you once again on your election victory fourth term in office it's really something congratulations.

we're also pleased to have our newly confirmed united states ambassador to germany richard grinnell outstanding man and he's with us today and richard congratulations do a great job and you will thank you for. this confirmation was long overdue we've been waiting a long time for richard to get his clearance and he got it and it's going to be special but we have a lot of people that are awaiting approval and the democrats have been treating its extreme lee unfairly and they can have to move it along for decades the alliance and friendship between germany and the united states has advanced the cause of peace prosperity and freedom today our nations face a wide array of shared challenges and opportunities and i am confident that we will meet them together with the same strength and resolve that has always defined the

united states german friendship this afternoon i want to congratulate the republic of korea on its historic summit with north korea where encouraged by president moon and kim jong un's expressed goal of complete denuclearization of the korean peninsula. i will be meeting with kim jungmann in the coming weeks we look forward to that and hopefully it will be productive i want to thank chancellor merkel for her leadership in our campaign of maximum pressure on the north korean regime which has helped us to reach this important step this moment where we are right now taking a long time many many decades to get here let's see what happens we seek a future of peace prosperity and harmony for the whole korean peninsula unlocking not only a brighter future for the people of korea but for the people of the world however

in pursuit of that go we will not repeat the mistake of past administrations maximum pressure will continue until denuclearization occurs i look forward to our meeting should be quite something in our meetings today the chancellor and i discussed iran iranian regime feels violence bloodshed and chaos all across the middle east we must ensure that this murderous regime does not even get close to a nuclear weapon and that iran ends its proliferation of dangerous missiles and its support for terrorism no matter where you go in the middle east where it is a problem moran is right there as we are radek a take what little remains of isis in syria we must also ensure that iran does not

profit from our success to prevent this outcome it is essential that our coalition and regional partners step up their financial and military contributions to the end efforts some of these countries are immensely wealthy and they're going to start paying for it and paying for this tremendous help that we've given them. the chancellor and i also had a productive discussion about the security of europe and the responsibility of european nations to properly contribute to their own defense we addressed the need to strengthen nato and the nato alliance by ensuring that all member states honor their commitment to spend two percent and hopefully much more of g.d.p. on defense it is essential that our nato allies increase their financial contributions so that everyone is paying their fair share we look forward to seeing

further progress towards improved burden sharing a lot of people of stepped up a lot of countries have stepped up and they're going to have to continue to do so tremendous amount of additional money has been raised for nato over the past sixteen months and i'm proud to have helped but they have to keep going in this age of international crime smuggling terrorism and traffic it is also essential that we have strong border security and immigration control this is fundamental to national defense also vital to our security and that of our allies is america's ability to maintain a strong and robust manufacturing base which we really are doing in the united states we have additional steel plants opening steel plants are expanding aluminum is doing great lot of things are happening that were never going to happen before.

that's why we must have a fair and recep prickle trading relationship with our friends and partners we have a trade deficit in goods with the european union of approximately hard to believe one hundred fifty one billion dollars a year including a fifty billion dollar annual trade deficit in orders and auto parts i'm committed to working with chancellor merkel to reduce barriers for united states exports to remedy these trade imbalances and deepen our economic ties we also welcome the chancellor's partnership in promoting major reforms to international organizations like the world trade organization which has not treated the united states well to protect sovereignty and ensure fairness

the close cooperation across multiple fronts military intelligence economic academic is critical to the defense of our civilization as we know it and the close friendship between the german and american people in riches the lives of millions and millions of our citizens jessica thank you again for visiting the white house it's an honor to have you our alliance is strong and thriving and together we will overcome shared obstacles seize upon shared opportunities and build an incredible future for our country and our people thank you very much thank you cancer thank you very much. you're going to measure village finding food in funk you heard the dung vias the holes all make their colleague. also told this is mine everything is this

opportunity you have an exchange of views this is my first visit after the election to a country outside of europe and i thought it was very important to underline that for germany the transatlantic ties of prime importance we are very much aware of the fact that these a transatlantic ties are for us of their crucial indeed existential importance these transatlantic ties have been a great contribution to our reunification the first part of my life i spent on the other side of the iron curtain and the fact that it was possible to for a country to reunite is essentially due to the united states and their contribution and this will be most important also for our future cooperation cooperation that is more be needed than ever in view of the turbulence is all over the world so germany will continue to be of reliable partner in nato in our alliance is a reliable within the european union all the more so since today we fight against

nuclear reservation of iran against terrorism against isis in iraq in syria against terrorism in afghanistan or in africa and we depend. on each other. today we meet at a point in time where it has become very clear that the strength of the american president and. where he really saw to it that the sanctions against north korea abided by our respect it has opened up new possibilities open new ways and this last meeting between him and the south korean president moon is a first step on a road that will hopefully lead into a better future we germans only too well what it means after years of decoration a separation if he is of division into. i have these fast contacts but we will continue to be vigilant to see to it that the nuclearization is stopped on north

korea and that a nuclear free zone is established on the korean has been and so that we think that this is essential we will have to see also and fight against the iranian attempts to become nuclear will go on and we are of the opinion that the j c p o a is a fast step that has contributed to slowing down their activities in this particular respect to also establish a better verification and monitoring process but we also think from a gem point perspective that this is not sufficient in order to see to it that iran ambitions. and that contained it is most important to see that iran after all is trying to exert its geopolitical influence in syria in lebanon and in iraq and where we have to see to it that this attempt at influence is such a card is contained and that beyond j.

subpoena a reliability can be established and i think that europe and the united states of america ought to be in lockstep on this all to work together very closely also to end the terrible bloodshed in syria and to bring about a solution filled the region as a whole beyond that and over and above that we also address the tasks that we see ahead on defense germany in two thousand and nineteen is going to be a mark a. shelf one point three of its g.d.p. on defense that has been an increase over the past two years and we haven't yet met the target where we should be but we are getting closer to the target to the guideline that we've said as far south and wales on trade i think it's most important to see that very close relations on trade exist between germany and the european. union on the one hand and the united states on the other we want fat trade we want a trade that is in line with the multilateral trading system of the w t o but

we also acknowledge that for many many years has not been able to bring about international agreements as so bilateral agreements may well replace that that's something that you see on behalf of the european union already have done and have negotiated with a number of countries of the past two years so i can well envisage such negotiations with the united states as well. but obviously. that has to be reconciled and i would also like to point out that germany on the one hand has a very close free trade relations with you the president obviously is not such as five with a trade surplus so we have already been able to reduce that trades up as it is with the united states was still have a long way to go but dozens of cars are excluded from germany tonight and since but from the u.s. to the rest of the world thousands of cars that are built here in the states are

exported to the rest of the world with creating american jobs and i believe that the workers here have very good working conditions so that again is another one that ties that countries together we will continue to discuss those trade issues we will have a nato meeting in the summer we will meet again there and let me say in conclusion that of our from the political relations that are very close and what we sometimes may look at if you issues differently but ing and generally around on the basis of friendship on partnership we are linked by ties in the world of science in the world of culture we still have a large hosts the largest number of troops ever since nine hundred forty five about seventeen million members of the u.s. military was stationed in germany and a lot of them have established very close ties very close friendships with germans and i'm delighted to see that. now the ambassador can very soon when he's in germany work on this space is and we're delighted that we finally have an

ambassador thank you. will take some questions. like berman yes. like. thank you mr president chancellor merkel ask a couple questions of the president first i want to ask you to step over here i want to ask you about a couple comments that you made in the oval office earlier in which you said about north korea that they played the u.s. in the past like a fiddle but that's not going to happen to us do you as a relates to hopefully getting peace on the korean peninsula denuclearization of the korean peninsula do you feel as if you need to be the closer in that deal do you want to be the closer in that deal or do you think that's something that is shared by all of the major stakeholders all of the the world leaders within that region and secondly indulge us if you might you said that the relationship with

north korea has been strong or one of the words you use have you spoken with kim jong un himself or do you plan on speaking with i don't want to comment on that do you plan on that we have a very good working relationship and we're setting up a meeting and things have changed very radically from a few months ago you know the name calling and a lot of other things. we. we get a kick every once in a while out of the fact that i'll be watching people that failed so badly over the last twenty five years explaining to me how to make a deal with north korea i get a big big kick out of that but we are doing very well i think that something very dramatic could happen. they're treating us with great respect and you know what's going on with south korea and i think president moon of south korea was very generous in saying that we helped make the olympics a great success because of the fact that as you know there was

a tremendous animosity it was a tremendous problem going on and all of a sudden people started buying tickets because whole different feeling when north said we'd love to go to the olympics so a lot of good things are happening with respect to north korea president obama told me when i had the one meeting with him he said that's your biggest problem that's going to be the most difficult thing you have and honestly i wish it was handled earlier i wish it were handled by another administration years ago i'm not just talking about president obama i go back to any administration you want but over the last twenty five years this should have been handled a long time ago not now the should not have been left for me to handle but we will handle it we're handling it well and hopefully they'll be peace for north korea and south korea germany i mean everything is included japan the chancellor has been very helpful in the maximum pressure campaign as i said really very helpful so have

many other nations president xi of china has been really good at the border everyone surprised at how tight he clamped down everyone said that he just talked about it he wouldn't do it when he did it and he did it out of a relationship that we have and also out of the fact that we're negotiating trade deals and i think that's also very important to him hopefully will come up with something that's good for both countries. so i think some very good things can happen with respect to north korea we're setting up meetings now we're down to two countries and it's to a site and we'll let you know what that site is you have a question for the chancellor just just a follow up or quickly do you do you feel like it's your responsibility for this to eventually get settled between north and south korea i think i have a responsibility i think other presidents should have done it i think the responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of the president of the united states and i think we have i think i have

a responsibility to see if i can do it and if i can't do it it will be a very tough time for a lot of countries and a lot of people it's certainly something that i hope i can do for the world this is beyond the united states this is a world problem and it's something that i hope i'm able to do for the world ok. and chancellor. chancellor merkel sorry. sorry sorry thank you very much i'm just wondering if you've been given any assurances that the european union will be exempt from steel and aluminum tariffs come tuesday the may first deadline to the president trying to tell you what he may or may not to thank you. the president of the and the president will decide that it's very clear we had an exchange of views on the current state of affairs of the negotiations and the respective assessments on where we stand on this and the decision with the present

. help was ok mr osprey's. thank you i have a question for the chancellor but i'd like to start with a question on iran for you mr president after a long day of talks with you president my craw went to congress warned of a new war in the middle east and asked the world and the united states to respect the sovereignty of all countries including around in the absence of a new agreement are you prepared to use military force to rein in the nuclear program in iran or do you have another plan b. that is not an agreement and not military force i don't talk about whether or not i'd use military force it's not appropriate to be talking about but i can tell you this they will not be doing nuclear weapons that i can tell you ok then i'm going to be doing nuclear weapons you can bank on it ok. what is comes out in the

farnum ya body goes it's all getting very year ago people in berlin very much concerned about president not being ready to show toughness against russia and now you've come to washington with the concern that a new round of sanctions against the so-called all the gods may well be detrimental to the german economy have you asked the president to exempt german companies from these sanctions and are you generally about worried that the. united states because the parents president is trying to be tough as with president putin may well change completely and may well be treating russia too harshly without coordinating with you well we discussed ukraine and here we walk together very closely against the illegitimate actions of russia due to for example annexation of crimea and also the situation they caused in eastern ukraine i'm very pleased to say that we

work very closely with the american administration in comp come complementing the men's format and the sanctions very much are a thing of the congress and that we work together with the president of the administration have also and very. closely with the treasury and we exchanged views on what sort of secondary effects that may have and looking at the conflicts we have with russia for example in syria there is a wide degree agreement and no one is interested in not having good relations with russia but wherever there are conflicts of the things happening as for example in ukraine we have to call a spade a spade and the principle of entire territorial integrity of a country such as ukraine is one that needs to be a pallet and that needs to be. enforced. but madam sounds like the exchange was it satisfactory on these issues between america and europe is. as close like my blind

ass you want yes whenever i have questions i cannot says questions and i believe that the exchange is that again sanctions have been adopted by congress we appointed out to the world off effect that was at the believe that the file finance minister and the treasury have talked about this yesterday when they met with evan the finance ministers at the financing for syria conference yesterday and whenever i have problems i can talk to. the. mr president two questions for you the first one on ronnie jackson it's been one day since he bowed out i know it's only been less than twenty four hours have you have a new nominee for the secretary for the department of veteran affairs and my second question is on the u.s. embassy set to open in jerusalem in three weeks have you decided if you do plan to

attend and also can you confirm if treasury secretary stephen newton is leading a delegation that can include your son in law. and evocate from. ronnie jackson admiral dr is one of the finest band that i've met over the last long period of time high quality high quality family i just met them and i explained what happened i explained that washington can be a very mean place you don't know about that chance. a nasty place the false accusations that were made about him by senator tester from a great state i don't think that state is going to put up with it these were false accusations a bad a great man about a man who has a son who's a top student at annapolis about a man that's given his life to this country and to the military

a brave man who would have been a great leader to say the kind of things that he said. you had president obama giving him an a plus report you had president bush giving him an a plus report you have president trump giving him an a plus report and to make statements of things that most people said never happened never even happened calling them names was to me a disgrace an absolute disgrace and i think it's something we learn from i called them today i said in a certain way you're not in a very big way you're american hero because you've exposed the system for some horrible things i've had it happen to me with the russian collusion hoax it's a hoax but i came into the job understanding that things happen he

didn't he's a great doctor is a great admiral he didn't really think a thing like this could happen and i think it's a disgrace i just want to comment on that and actually i'm glad you asked the question i think this man has been treated he's an american hero and i think he's been treated very unfairly. as far as the nomination have you put forward a nomination and i have many people that want that position if you can believe it with all of this being said we have some excellent people some very political people some people that. a thing like that wouldn't happen or if it did happen i guess they'll handle it somewhat differently. but we have many people that want that job we're very proud of the job we've done for the veterans the veterans have been we've gotten accountability approved which is something that for years for years they've been trying to get as you know they can get it approved we got accountability so that when somebody treats our veterans badly we can fire them so

fast almost as fast as they fire people in germany. we'll get rid of them and i will tell you we're getting choice we're putting choice and very very strongly we have tremendous support in the senate for that but i do have a lot of people who want the job we're getting we're doing a great job over there in the for the vets and you know that was one of the things that to me was the most important tremendous support from the vets we're getting great reports but getting the things such as accountability done will be soon getting choice meaning of a veteran stands on a line and can't get to a doctor for various reasons they're going to a private doctor in this country is going to pay they're not going to wait nine weeks on line for a cure to something that could have been very easy to cure and then they end up dying from it so we're going to win i'm very proud of what we've done and i will tell you your new head of the v.a.

is going to be very exceptional we have some exceptional people that want to do the job before get the chancellor merkel i wanted to backtrack to the u.s. embassy opening up in jerusalem you said in the past that you would like to go so they came to me this is a little bit of a governor somebody said could i tell this story and they came to me with a proposal for a one billion dollar embassy injures and the papers mike pence can tell you the papers were put before me to sign an application for more than one billion dollars to build an embassy is there what are you talking about a billion dollars you know most embassies are like a single story and they said yes or it's one billion dollars and i had my name half cent and i noticed the figure and i just didn't i never got to the word trump i had donald signed but i never got to the workshop. and i called my ambassador who is a great lawyer. most people in business know david friedman he's the best hitter to

israel and loves israel loves our country loves israel too and i said what's this one billion he said i can build it for one hundred fifty thousand dollars assuming he said i can build it for one hundred fifty thousand dollars the embassy we have a building we have the site we already own the site we own the building i can take a corner of the building and for one hundred fifty thousand dollars we can fix it up make it beautiful open our embassy in stead of in ten years from now we can open it up in three months and that's what we did but i said david let's not go from a billion dollars to one hundred fifty thousand let's go to three four hundred thousand and that's what we did we would take a piece of the building it's going to be beautiful and it will be somewhat temporary but it could be for many years because by the time they build it the other way it's going to be many many years they're looking for sites we already have a site and we have a great site to say it's better than any thing you could imagine but that's the way

government works they're going to spend a billion dollars and we're going to spend much less than a half a million could have done it for much less than that but i said let's make it really nice so that's what it is i may go very proud of it jerusalem has been a subject that's been promised for many years as you know the embassy in jerusalem it's been promised for many many years by presidents they all made campaign promises and they never had the courage to carry it out i carried it so i may go it's getting ready to open. and i do want to tell that story though because there are a couple of people that got to see it including mike but others where literally they were going to spend a billion dollars or we're spending a tiny tiny fraction of that in the hundreds of thousands of dollars instead and it will be very nice maybe it'll be nicer than a billion dollar bill to pay for the chance it was all chancellor i want to ask about the iran nuclear deal you just heard president trump say that iran will iran

will not be restarting the nuclear program you can bank on it do you fear that if the u.s. backs out that iran will restart their nuclear program and also you're the second european union leader or european leader to stop here at the white house this week what improvements did you recommend to the president needs to be change in order to keep the u.s. in the deal. well i set out my position and that is that i believe. obviously if this agreement is anything but fact it will not solve all the problems with avon it is just one piece of the mess a one building block if you like on which we can build up this structure and that when the united kingdom france and germany what together with the american colleagues. this was brought about and we will now see what sort of decisions are made by american

a partner as i said at the holders of egypt obviously is of prime importance to us because it's not this house kilometers away as it is the case for example between the usa and syria but syria and iran are countries that are right on our doorstep so that is of prime importance for us and we will continue to be in very close talks on this cold winds mrs jones peace. as you know christine i'm doing this from hina suppose madam chancellor. you used to describe america as a destination all of your sort of which you have a wanted to be and now it's said in germany by you that europe actually has to take its destiny in its own hands and that you cannot rely on the united states supporting you all the time have you talked with the president about this. development and this i'm happy to that have been that drifting apart and should not

you in many ways to live also on this promise of significantly increasing the defense spending and address to you mr president a lot of people irritated by the way that you fulfill this most important job but that is this and the rest of the world with such an aggressive twitter. messages and so on i want to ask you whether and certain facts that you make does this mean that in the future there will be less compromise struck by the united states less reconciliation and how will you decide on the first of may when it says about a possible extension of the exemption for terrorists what is your position on this mr president will there be a trade war with this big blocky europe all do you see an opportunity off actually not going into such a trail a blip fifth well i think for a lot of people in germany but also in many other countries people wish and love to

go to the united states and we have just said there are of more than forty million people who have their votes in germany in the europe here in the united states also for many people in germany in europe america is a great country and even though we may see matters if at the onset but it's get issues we have to address and we have to talk about this. this land of freedom is a great country obviously still remains very attractive and want to so i continue to to say that and i said yes germany and europe have to take that as cindy listening to their our hands because we can no longer as we used to during the period of the cold war during the years when the germany was divided rely on america coming and helping us america is still helping us but step by step we will simply have to increase our contribution to and america has been

very much engaged very broadly engaged and pos of the world that are far away from america and the people here of america to have said well what's in it for us so the president is saying you ought to have some bad sharing so in a way we're maturing well we're growing out of a role where after the second world war people rather happy for germany not becoming to engage not too active because during the period of national socialism we created such incredible injustice in the world and but this post war period is at an end it's more than i suppose but here it is is well that that's essentially seventy years ago so we as germans have to learn to and as you more responsibility we're proud to be the second largest troop contributor and nato we've done a lot of the past three years obviously from the president's put perspective not perhaps fast enough but i would say as german chancellor we have made important steps in the right direction and we will continue to do so we cannot rely if

conflicts on austell doorstep for others to step in and we ourselves don't have to given a contribution and this contribution will have to increase in the next few years to come that has something to do with military engagement offensive and then with combating and tackling root causes of flight but also was of it in is to become more engaged in diplomacy germany for example for the first time. it is part and parcel of the so-called small group that has just had a meeting in paris and syria together with the us with the like a with saudi arabia and we want to give our contribution to this as well it's our obligation it's our duty i don't think that. we ought to complain about this we have to land as a pick country as an economically successful country as the president says you know economically successful but militarily and politically you don't wish to do so much we have to learn to assume our role and there are differences of opinion we as friends can discuss that. thank you chancellor we need

a reciprocal relationship which we don't have. the united states right now has a trade deficit with the european union of one hundred fifty one billion dollars and the chancellor and i have discussed it today at length and we're working on it and we want to make it more fair in the chancel wants to make it more fair same thing with nato we have a far greater burden than we should have other countries should be paying more and i'm not saying germany alone other countries should be paying more in europe and yet we pay by far more than anybody else and nato is wonderful but it helps europe more than it helps us and why are we paying a vast majority of the costs so we're working on those things it's been unfair and i don't blame the chancellor and i don't blame germany out or even blame the european union i blame the people that preceded me for allowing this to happen there's no way we should have a trade deficit of one hundred fifty one billion dollars so we're going to make it

reciprocal we're going to make it a much more fair. situation and i think in the end everybody is going to be very happy i think both countries i view this as many countries but looking at it as one bloc will will really benefit there's tremendous tremendous potential between the european union and the united states and i think that's going to happen there's also tremendous benefit to nato when people pay what they have to be paying some countries actually pay more than this of us that they think the united states is i've been told by numerous country poland being one poland is great i mean they pay actually a little bit more than they're supposed to be paying or have to pay because they feel the united states is more than carrying the load and perhaps they feel it's not fair but it's something we very much appreciate. but i believe that

you know when i look at the numbers in germany and some other countries they may not like donald trump but you have to understand that means i'm doing a good job because i'm representing the united states. is representing germany she's doing a fantastic job my predecessors did not do a very good job but we'll try and catch you ok we'll try we're going to we're going to have a reciprocal relationship and it's going to be something that benefits all of us ok thank you very much everybody thank you thank you thank you very much. so you've just been watching that joint press conference between the chancellor of

germany i'm going to merkel of course there you have president of the united states donald trump mr trump spoke first to talk about the great relationship between the two countries among the issues he touched on with iran of course at nato border security and immigration i don't the merkel as you would imagine started off her speech with her thanks to her hosts the united states and talked about the united states as being talked about germany's relationship with the united states being a reliable partner she also talked about the iran nuclear deal with her to is the j.c. p.o.a.'s trade as well which was a big issue there so let us see what we can pick out of the last only thirty or forty minutes or so with me here in the studio are professor bodies foreman who is professor of political science at a part college in berlin d.w. chief political editor is here as well and in the washington claire richardson w a

correspondent so well welcome to you all let me start with you may have a cook from points jumping out at you. that donald trump at the end characterized the recent relationship is not reciprocal and that that is something that she where he wants to see movement on and he basically declared all of his previous this is a complete failure and it sounds like he feels that the europeans got getting a better deal he says that the e.u. is certainly or you the europeans more than the you are getting a better deal out of nato and that you want to see commitments fulfilled that we've heard all about before what does the about the same time is that he didn't really clearly say what his plans are on the iran nuclear deal he actually got the chance to admit that she or basically now declare that she also feels that this is not enough the existing agreement is that what you knew from germany well it's in that

clarity it is new where there was there had been talks before about an expansion that this really is kind of a baseline agreement to continue on from but it's certainly getting more concrete where these additions could potentially be that ballistic missile program that also was mentioned by him on a macor and maclin macor last week already so clearly they have been preparing the ground for this this is a movement that and you don't have donald trump completely ruling out that he might sign it sign off on it for another couple of months so that it could be seen as a as a potential silver lining there and german chancellor basically saying on that trade deadline that is running out on monday night this exemption that the european union enjoys on those tariffs on steel and aluminum that are currently hitting china very heavily that she said he will decide the president will decide this of course a great quote that will go down very well with his own audience and him once again

creating this cliffhanger lead it leaving a potential decision on not open with the germans ahead of this trip having said that they pretty much expect this. exemption to end which could potentially be a firing sought in a potential table a clear richer symbol will google company or your highlights in a moment let's let's pick up this point the. deal president trump does seem to be bumping europe sort of france and germany at least some way along towards his way of thinking well this is certainly a problem that he's created for germany and france when my phone was here earlier this week he said that we signed this deal at the behest of the united states it's an agreement that russia china germany and britain all believe to be the best way to stop iran from getting a nuclear bomb but trump has repeatedly called it the worst deal ever created and what was most notable about this meet this speech at this press conference that we

just solve a tween americal and trump is what we did not see any sort of reassurances from trump that he is not going to withdraw the united states from the deal and we heard merkel call it anything but perfect and we've heard that kind of rhetoric coming out before but we didn't hear him make any promises that he's going to continue to extend sanctions relief to iran but let us see here chance to look cool in her words talking about the iran nuclear deal. it is most important to see that iran after all is trying to exert its political influence in syria and lebanon and in iraq and where we have to see to it that this attempt at influence is carved is contained and that beyond just a reliability can be established and i think that europe and the united states of america ought to be in lockstep on this all to work together very closely also to

end the terrible bloodshed in syria and to bring about a solution for the region as a whole. body is full and it's interesting the way the. the wording is happening around the iran nuclear deal no one is saying everyone is now say well we never said it was perfect it's you know it needs a bit of work but no one is saying at the same time it's hard to change the tribes they were not trying to change it we're just trying to add things to it. i think it's something we've seen with them a constitution that's been mentioned before it's the attempt to say well we're going to give you what you want but a shift in the policy this is an important policy point for domestic reasons also for trump he wants to be seen as a strong leader the midterm elections are coming up a lot of the speech of trump the remarks he made were directed at it domestic audience he was criticizing the democrats he was criticizing obama as he always is it was also interesting that there's a shift in the strategy of merkel i think in the first the first time they met in

washington is that there was a lot of critique of the way that trump was dealing with the media and was dealing with the justice the branch of justice the judicial branch this does didn't happened at all she used even the language that trump use this fair trait as she used the policy points that are important for him korea as she reminded him that fifty four millions of his voters have german roots so that he better think also of the transatlantic relations in this regard and so i think it was a very strategic subtle move by her to take this new position about to claridge's and in washington so what jumped out at you. certainly the fact that we didn't hear reassurances on iran or these tariff exemptions from donald trump and by all accounts based just on what we heard them say now it looks like this charm offensive we've seen from the european leaders not iran and medical coming to the united states trying to bring donald trump to see eye to eye with

them on these issues at least from we've what we've just seen here does not seem to have gone as they have planned now this. with regard to the iran deal for example. trump is concerned about some specific things like a sunset clause that would allow iran to resume some nuclear activity after certain years he's concerned that it doesn't address the testing of ballistic missiles and we heard mccaughan earlier this week talking about adding on potentially new measures that they could just gus that would allow trump to claim a political victory at home. while still preserving the existing deal but come monday we're what we without any sort of serious promises coming from trump it looks as though we're going to not see the european union receive that exemption on it's still an aluminum tariffs and it's also not clear what he's going to do on may twelfth with the iran deal. but it is your position can you really see the president trying to do all this low being you know not just from from france or

germany but from the from the world's biggest trading bloc and you really see tony what i'm so yeah no. well most psychologists but i think that what we've seen before primary campaigns even two years ago is when trump is being cornered she kicks into all sorts of different directions and i think this is something that merkel has realized in the macaw have realized that they have to give him the impression that he's in charge and this is taking that he's taking the final decision of course is a powerful man but they're trying to suggest certain certain options so i think they're trying to nudge him into certain into certain decisions even with a struck the eight year old mccain because well and also i'm going back is not someone who's pretty good at any kind of application of a tom offense but. certainly give him credit for both korean leaders having agreed to formally and this state of war on the korean peninsula she certainly gave him credit for that as really being progress and at

the same time i think it's also a question of whether the glass is half full or half empty i mean once you kind of says that he's going to not extend this exemption that would have really been blown all efforts out of the water this is that fill a cup with a couple of hours and a couple tweets away from actually learning what will happen with this trade deal and at the same time one has to emphasize that as far as german industry is concerned certainly these new sanctions on russian oligarchs hitting domon industry much harder because that is an entry point for derm an industry and those sanctions are not pegged to ukraine they are much more general sentients which undermines the whole idea of applying thank sions pressure to achieve a particular aim so that is something that still is much more concerned about and that all only was mentioned here really on the sidelines so there's a lot of discussion still going on and what we did also see here is donald trump

emphasizing how good the relationship is we all saw over the last year that the relationship really isn't that good that it pretty much. of an all time low and both leaders despite claiming that they speak all the time they went for months without speaking on the phone there are official records on this so that simply is not true but they speak all the times that if they are now in a position where i'm going to merkel says she feels she can pick up the phone to him at any time that could be seen as progress in bilateral relations that if it's true well enough to be true it's a dozen times to the but if it's about perception right it's about the perception of good relationships it's ignoring the kinds of tensions that existed and trying to move on from their safe it's a safe face saving measure and this is when you say why spend these miles why waste on this i mean this is this really is very important to have direct access to the president to the in a circle and also for the advisers to meet each other advisors change all the time

certainly in the tempered ministration they need to reestablish relationships to make progress outside the public eye let's talk about what today's issues which of course was the meeting in north korea had president trump praised germany for its assistance. but as for what has germany been doing with regard to north korea. well that we don't know i was actually surprised that he was mentioning this point the journal hey let's just say that that's also so interesting that he was talking about a maximum pressure campaign as though there was any kind of a foreign policy agenda that's not something we've seen in the first one and a half years of donald trump's administration and this is also something we probably should forget that the foreign policy vision doesn't really exist many of the things are contradictory many of the things that trump did on one day are the opposite of what he did a couple of weeks later so i think this is what merkel brit recognizes that ok he wants to be perceived at home as somebody who is in church as somebody who knows

how to lead and so you know grant him that but at the same time try to negotiate behind closed doors a final brief word to you claire richards in which is that in washington. they this veterans affair saga just round it up for us who went and and why has donald trump seemed very upset about it if you can do that briefly for me please. he did seem upset about that was the first question we saw coming from the u.s. and journalists in that press conference if i was even more significant eye to what we heard today was trump speaking about the confirmation of the new it german ambassador richard grinnell he's the conservatives who work for national security advisor john bolton and he's just been put into office after more than a year and a half of that post being anti now if this was close that has been vacant for more than a year and it was well that's going to leave this to there because i think right

there yes we are at sinclair richard so in washington bush foreman and michelle acosta thank you you're watching the defense. lawyer. and.

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this is d w news live from berlin tonight marigold tells trump the iran nuclear accord is not enough to curb the islamic republic's nuclear ambitions after a. transfer says that the deal has slowed down the wrongs of nuclear activities but she says it's not sufficient. to this this means that she has not convinced to change him.