A leaked briefing memo signed by Germany’s ambassador in Washington, Andreas Michaelis, expresses deep concerns about the viability of democracy in the Trump administration. Dated January 14, a week before the inauguration, the confidential text quickly became an open secret.
Press reports about the memo appeared on both sides of the Atlantic, including direct quotations, although the full text remains withheld from the public. The embassy has effectively used trusted press outlets to broadcast a message without taking full responsibility by hiding behind a fiction of secrecy. Call it diplomacy by leak.
What Did the German Ambassador Say?
The ambassador serves up dire predictions that are nothing new, familiar repetitions of the world-is-ending warnings issued by the Harris campaign and repeated in friendly editorial pages.
“Basic democratic principles and checks and balances will be largely undermined, the legislature, law enforcement, and media will be robbed of their independence and misused as a political arm, Big Tech will be given co-governing power,” asserts the Ambassador as reported by Reuters, as if one had never heard this before.
This sort of German hysteria about American democracy is tiresomely familiar. However, promoting this angst over the Ambassador’s signature ups the ante and will only add to a toxic tone of relations between Washington and Berlin. Michaelis’ ambassadorial effectiveness has probably come to an end. One can only hope that bilateral ties will eventually heal.
Method to the Memo Madness
Yet, there is a political method to this diplomatic madness. The cable was likely leaked with an eye to its impact in Germany in the lead-up to the federal election scheduled for February 23.
The Green Party, currently a governing coalition member, faces significant challenges to maintain its political standing. The leaked memo appears intended to improve the Greens’ electoral prospects.
Michaelis is well connected to German Foreign Minister Annaliese Baerbock, one of the Green Party’s iconic leaders. The disclosure of the ambassador’s diatribe, which was sure to be expected if not orchestrated, promotes the Greens as the torchbearers for anti-Trump sentiment in Germany.
Flaunting their anti-Trump credentials through the cable leak, the Greens can now try to attract voters who might otherwise align with anti-American factions on the extremes of the right and the left. For those German voters who despise President Trump, the Greens now become an attractive choice. The leak seems likely to have been calculated as an electoral strategy to push the party over the finish line.
The accusations in the Michaelis text are harsh. The ambassador predicts domestic deployments of the military as well as the curtailing of the First Amendment. His tone will not be conducive to improved bilateral relations, to say the least.
German-American Relations Damaged?
The reverberations of his attack on the incoming administration may instead damage prospects for productive and collaborative bilateral relations.
This is unfortunate because there are significant areas of overlap between American and German national interests. Cooperation is both possible and needed. It will be up to the next German government, presumably under the leadership of Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, to build a positive relationship with Washington despite Michaelis’ legacy. Identifying possibilities for productive cooperation would have been a more constructive use of a diplomatic cable.
There are two areas in particular where German and American agendas overlap. The first involves the familiar debate concerning defense spending and NATO. Throughout the first Trump administration, the president and his ambassador, Richard Grenell, pushed hard on Berlin to increase its defense spending to meet the 2% of GDP agreed upon in the Wales Pledge of 2014.
Yet Chancellor Merkel consistently resisted, even as she cemented Germany’s dependence on Russian energy. Only after the Russian invasion of Ukraine did Germany begin to take steps to increase its defense capacities. Today, the international security situation on Europe’s eastern front is even worse, as Russia cuts undersea cables in the Baltic and Belarus weaponizes immigration on the Polish border.
Germany should appeal for greater defense cooperation with the U.S. by committing to increase its own spending significantly. Demonstrating a clear will to defend European security might build a bridge to the Trump administration and, in any case, behoove a German government more than moralizing about the state of American democracy.
The second area of cooperation involves trade.This is difficult terrain because the U.S. trade deficit with Germany has been a long-standing concern for President Trump. Germany and the rest of Europe worry rightly about protectionist trade policies and a tariff war. Yet a German Chancellor and diplomatic corps could make the case that, whatever the trade imbalances in transatlantic commerce, both countries suffer from the deleterious impact of China. China’s economic strategies have significantly eroded German manufacturing, particularly in the vital automobile industry, just as they have harmed the U.S. economy.
Berlin would do well to explore aligning with Trump’s China policy, potentially in return for better transatlantic terms. Specifically, this might involve agreeing—ideally at the EU level—to impose a unified tariff regime on exports from China that complements Trump’s policies. Germany and the U.S. should be allies in the coming trade war with China rather than working at cross purposes.
A Path Forward
The transatlantic partnership is too important to be sacrificed to short-term electoral gains or obscured by German appetite for anti-Americanism. Lectures from German diplomats about American domestic affairs are unproductive on this side of the Atlantic, while they reinforce stale stereotypes in Europe.
A more helpful dialogue would explore areas of cooperation because both nations share the same adversaries. Russia threatens the international order on Europe’s eastern flank, while China undermines the security architecture in the western Pacific and the prosperity of Western economies everywhere.
Germany and the U.S. need diplomacy capable of meeting these challenges, preferably through collaboration.
About the Author: Dr. Russell A. Berman
Russell A. Berman is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of German Studies at Stanford University. He served as Senior Advisor on the Policy Planning Staff of the State Dept in the first Trump administration.
