LONDON — Americans think the United States’ relationship with Germany — Europe’s economic powerhouse and historically a vital U.S. ally since the end of World War II — remains strong.
But, Germans? Not so much.
Americans and Germans have a disconnect over how well relations between the two countries are faring, and also have diverging views over what constitutes the most important aspect of the relationship, according to results from a Pew Research Center poll released on Wednesday. Additionally, Americans and Germans continue to disagree on whether Germany spends enough on defense and security, according to the survey results.
According to the Pew survey, 68 percent of Americans say relations between the U.S. and Germany are good, while only 22 percent say they’re bad. But 56 percent of German respondents say the relationship is troubled, while 42 percent say it’s in good shape.
The more negative German view is likely attributable to U.S. President Donald Trump, who entered the Oval Office in January of last year, says Richard Wike, director of Pew’s Global Attitudes Research. The polls were conducted last October.
“Attitudes have worsened (in Germany) since (President) Trump entered the White House,” Wike says. And this poll’s results “fit in with the overall German opinion of America right now.”
For example, a Pew survey last spring found that the favorable view of the U.S. in Germany dropped from 57 percent to 35 percent after Trump’s election, and only 11 percent of Germans were confident that Trump would handle world affairs well.
[ READ: Germans say nein to Trump.]
The results aren’t surprising, says Sophia Besch, a research fellow and European defense expert at the Center for European Reform, a London think tank. “It’s down to the unpopularity in Germany of the current (U.S.) president.”
Diverging Views on the Relationship
The polls also asked respondents what they believe is the most important aspect of the two countries’ relationship. Forty-five percent of Germans pointed to economic and trade ties, while 35 percent chose shared democratic values. Only 16 percent of Germans said security and defense links are the most important aspects of German-U.S. ties.
By contrast, a slim majority of Americans, 34 percent, cited security and defense as the main ingredient of the relationship, although a nearly like amount, 33 percent, said it was economics and trade. Just 21 percent of Americans said it was shared democratic values. However, the overall American responses were driven by Republican respondents, 47 percent of whom named defense ties as the most important part the relationship. Democrats were roughly evenly divided over all three factors.
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Partisan divides also influence Americans’ responses over the top U.S. foreign policy partners. Among Democrats, the U.K. and China are seen as nearly equally important foreign partners, while Germany comes in a close third. Among Republican respondents, the U.K. is seen as a more clear-cut top foreign policy partner, followed by Israel and then China.
Since becoming president, Trump has hammered Germany and other NATO members for failing to meet an agreed spending target of 2 percent of their country’s economic output on defense. Currently, German spending hovers around 1.2 percent. It’s an issue that was, however, also raised by former President Obama, though not as vehemently as Trump.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that the Pew survey found that a plurality of Americans, 45 percent, say European allies should spend more on defense. Thirty-seven percent of Americans said European defense spending was at the right level, while 9 percent would like to see the allies spend less.
However, 51 percent of Germans in the Pew survey said Germany should keep its defense budget at the current level, while just 32 percent would increase it. Thirteen percent of Germans say defense spending should be cut. In the U.S., there’s also a stark partisan divide on the issue: 63 percent of Republicans said allies should up their defense spending, while only 33 percent of Democrats said they should.
The issue of defense spending was an issue in last fall’s national elections in Germany, with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party pushing for hitting the 2 percent target, while it was opposed by the center-left Social Democratic Party. “The Social Democrats said that spending more would be kowtowing to Trump,” Besch says.
However, she adds, the American view on defense spending is more realistic, and the debate in Germany over its defense budget often fails to admit how much the country and Europe rely on America’s military umbrella. She cited a recent poll that indicated how most Germans expect the United States to come to Germany’s aid if it were attacked. “It’s a bit hypocritical,” Besch says.
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Trump Shapes a Growing Gap over U.S.-Germany Relations originally appeared on usnews.com
