Partners in Hard Times

With the USA and Canada, we combine common experiences and values. We must create new networks and explain different perspectives.

The USA is and remains Germany’s closest partner outside of Europe. Today, this principle of German foreign policy holds just as much stock as it did 20 or 50 years ago. Relations between Germany and the USA and Germany and Canada have grown over decades and are close and reliable. That connects us every bit as much as historical experiences and common values.

I was born in Chicago and grew up in Germany. Two of my brothers live with their families in the USA, and they don’t only live there, they’re Americans. I would say they feel and think about 90 percent American. And they tell me — bluntly and openly — what they think about life, the world and even about politics. Through our direct family contact, a window with a direct view of America stays open for me. But that’s not my only source: I have good friends in the USA and Canada. As a child, I was there often and, of course, I have various contacts through my work. I know how closely interwoven Germany and the USA and Germany and Canada are — especially when it comes to civil society. But I have knowledge of our differences. The Americans are not simply “other Europeans,” and we’re not “other Americans.” I would like to explain that here, as I would there.

The things that are crucial to relationships between North America and Germany are our similarities: Every year, thousands of German high school students spend a high school year in the USA and Canada. German and American college and university students attend the colleges and universities of their respective foreign countries. The USA is Germany’s most important trading partner, outside of the EU. Germany is the USA’s most important trading partner in Europe. Together the USA, Canada and the EU generate more than 50 percent of the worldwide gross domestic product. Wherever Germany engages itself internationally, we do it in close cooperation with our partners on the other side of the Atlantic. For the stabilization of Afghanistan, peace in the Middle East, and freedom, constitutionality, and democracy in the Arab world, we stand together in opposition of the nuclear armament of Iran.

Our similarities have new requirements. In a fragilely-operating world, against the backdrop of several fallen regimes in the Arab world and the continuous economic and financial crisis, the USA wants to and must rid itself of more and more responsibility. They are dependent on partners who are able to take on and fill leadership roles. And they are no longer automatically looking to Germany and Europe. Many North American policymakers have a personal tie to Latin America and Asia, but not to Europe.

For Germany, that means that it’s our duty to live up to our responsibility as the fourth largest national economy in the world and the biggest state in the European Union. We know that, and we want that. That’s what we’re doing, to the best of our knowledge and belief; and the USA rightly demands it of us. But what this responsibility means for Germany, as we interpret it in the context of our own history and values, is something we are allowed to and must decide for ourselves. Often we agree with the USA, and sometimes we see things differently. Our world view and understanding are what we have to present to American policymakers and people in the country, alike, [to determine] if they now look first to the Atlantic, Pacific or Latin America.

Recently, Obama made it clear that the U.S. government is looking to Germany, when he honored the chancellor with a state dinner and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest American civil honor. As transatlantic partners, North America and Europe [and more specifically] North America and Germany can help critically shape the 21st century.

That’s true for foreign policy, as well as security policy. But in the current financial crisis, there must be hard, world-wide economic competition, and that has to apply especially to economic and financial policy. In topics of the future, like “e-mobility” and “green technology,” new standards and industries are emerging. Through close transatlantic cooperation, we can combine our economic strength and achieve more together. The exact same thing goes for sociopolitical questions, like integration, demographic development or job creation. We stand here before similar challenges, we share many common values, and we would like to learn from each other — through new networks between cities and regions, between research institutions and universities, but ultimately between people.

Harald Leibrecht is a representative of the Free Democratic Party in the German Parliament and coordinator for transatlantic cooperation in the German Federal Foreign Office.