Angela Merkel found Trump's G7 shenanigans 'a bit depressing'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel found President Trump's behavior at the weekend's G7 summit in Canada "sobering and a bit depressing," she said in a new television interview.

"The situation isn't very nice," Merkel mused. "I don't think that ratcheting up the rhetoric is going to improve things," she continued. "Sometimes I get the impression that the U.S. president believes that only one side wins and the other loses," said Merkel, adding that she believes mutually beneficial arrangements are possible.

Merkel is not the first to identify Trump's zero-sum view of trade (and everything else). Negotiation experts and people who have negotiated with and against Trump described him as "confident, competitive, aggressive, impulsive, zero-sum, win-at-all-costs, transactional, unpredictable, often underinformed and ill-prepared, gut-following, ego-driven, want-it-and-want-it-now negotiator" in a recent Politico report, a pattern of behavior that was on full display in Quebec.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Read The Week's Paul Waldman on Trump's zero-sum presidency here.