US President Barack Obama called German Chancellor Angela Merkel an “outstanding” ally yesterday and said she might get his support if he were a German citizen and she decided to run for a fourth term as leader of Europe’s largest economy.
Obama praised Merkel as a leader who had shown “her integrity, her truthfulness, her thoughtfulness”.
“Chancellor Merkel is perhaps the only leader left among our closest allies that was there when I arrived,” he said of the chancellor who has been in office for 11 years. “It’s up to her whether she wants to stand again ... but if I were here and I were German and I had a vote, I might support her.”
Merkel, whom many expect to stand again, declined to show her hand, despite Obama’s words of support.
She said she would announce her decision at the appropriate moment, but “that is not today”.
“Chancellor Merkel has been an outstanding partner,” Obama told reporters in Berlin when asked if he wanted her to run again, praising her integrity and their shared core values.
Merkel told a joint news conference that it was difficult to say goodbye to Obama after their close partnership over the past eight years.
“The parting is hard for me,” she said, before adding that the US constitution limited a president’s time in office to a maximum of eight years and that she had to accept this.
Obama smiled at journalists and winked.
He said that Merkel faced “big burdens” if she chose to run again. “I wish I could be there to lighten her load somewhat, but she is tough.”
Merkel, in power since 2005, is expected to announce on Sunday whether she will run for chancellor again in next year’s federal election, the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland media group reported on Wednesday.
Close Merkel aides have said she is moving toward another run, and one lawmaker in her conservative party this week told CNN that she would definitely put herself forward.
Obama also said that he hoped Donald Trump would “stand up” to Russia but added he was “cautiously optimistic” about his successor in the White House.
In the press conference, Obama and Merkel stressed their common stance for a strong Nato, free trade and action on climate change, as Western leaders brace for potentially radical changes with Trump moving into the Oval Office in January.
Citing the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, Obama stressed that he hoped Trump, who has voiced admiration for President Vladimir Putin, “is willing to stand up to Russia where they are deviating from our values and international norms”.
He said Russia was a military superpower with “influence around the world” but cautioned Trump against the temptation to “cut some deals with Russia” that hurt smaller countries because it may seem “convenient at the time”.
“And that will be something that I think we’ll learn more about as the president-elect puts his team together.”
Despite adopting a sombre tone during his sixth and last visit to Germany as US president, Obama said he was nevertheless “cautiously optimistic about my successor and the shift from campaign mode to governance”.
He said “there’s something about the solemn responsibilities of that office ... that forces you to focus, that demands seriousness”.
“And if you’re not serious about the job, then you probably won’t be there very long,” Obama added.
In the three-day visit to Berlin, Obama dined with Merkel at his hotel late on Wednesday, before a meeting today including the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
A poll conducted for German broadcaster ARD, released yesterday, showed Merkel’s conservatives would get 32% of the vote if the elections were held on Sunday, down one percentage point from a poll taken on November 3.
The centre-left Social Democrats, junior partner in her “grand coalition”, would get 23%, up one percentage point from the last poll, while the pro-environment Greens would get 13%, also up one point, the poll conducted by Infratest dimap showed.
The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party dropped one percentage point to 12%.