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Wary of Big Business, Germans Protest Trade Deal as Obama Visits Obama Joins Angela Merkel in Pushing Trade Deal to a Wary Germany
(about 13 hours later)
HANOVER, Germany — When it comes to the United States, Germans often veer between admiration and scorn. Rarely was that more clear than in the contrasting ways that two groups prepared to greet President Obama this weekend here in this comfortable German city, site of the world’s largest industrial fair. HANOVER, Germany — President Obama said on Sunday that he was confident the United States and the European Union would succeed in negotiating a new trans-Atlantic trade deal by the end of the year, saying the benefits of such an agreement were “indisputable.”
Undeterred by the scandal caused by Volkswagen’s lies about emissions from its diesel vehicles in the United States, Germany’s export-driven businesses showed off their wares in eager anticipation of the fair’s opening on Sunday and the first visit by a sitting American president. He is scheduled to help open the fair. Mr. Obama said images of plants moving overseas and jobs lost created a narrative about trade agreements that “drives, understandably, a lot of suspicion” in places like the United States and Germany. But, he added, well-designed trade deals can have greater benefits.
Mr. Obama kindled good will himself with an unusually glowing appraisal of Chancellor Angela Merkel, telling Germany’s best-selling newspaper, Bild, that he was proud to call her a friend. In particular, he lauded Ms. Merkel’s “real political and moral leadership” in welcoming about a million refugees last year. “It is indisputable that it has made our economy stronger,” he said. “It has made sure that our businesses are the most competitive in the world.”
None of that impressed the tens of thousands of protesters who gathered in Hanover’s Opera Square on Saturday. Their goal, as proclaimed in hundreds of banners and chants, is to topple a proposed trans-Atlantic trade deal between Europe and the United States, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Mr. Obama’s comments came as he stood next to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany during a news conference in Hanover as they prepared to preside over the opening here of the world’s largest industrial trade fair.
Germany depends on exports for its wealth and the United States for its security. Yet many Germans do not see the free trade agreement as a good thing. The president’s visit to Germany was intended to bolster negotiators seeking to wrap up a trans-Atlantic trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, an accord that Ms. Merkel supports but that is highly unpopular in her country.
Monica Orth, 54, a therapist for teenagers, is one of many here who see the proposed deal as a plot by big businesses — often American — to lower consumer standards, bypass national justice systems and generally undermine Europe’s way of life. Ms. Merkel is among Mr. Obama’s closest and most trusted counterparts, and the president is eager to support her during difficult political times. Ms. Merkel has struggled in recent months to confront a surge of migrants and a weakening economy.
“I don’t want Monsanto and Bayer to determine which seeds I eat,” said Ms. Orth, a slight but determined woman from Bonn. As two friends nodded in agreement, she added, “Democracy is a really valuable thing, and I don’t want big business to take that from me.” The chancellor greeted the president at the Schloss Herrenhausen, the former summer residence of the Royal House of Hanover. They stood in front of a line of German troops in gray overcoats and green berets as the national anthems for the two nations played before returning inside for a private meeting.
At least a dozen other protesters who were interviewed echoed her words. All accused corporations like Monsanto — the American biotechnology corporation reviled by some for using genetically modified seeds that it says help battle disease — or the German pharmaceutical company Bayer of trying to force upon them products they do not want. Mr. Obama said he hoped the trade negotiations could be completed before he leaves office.
In a way, these Germans should be a source of American pride, fierce believers in the democratic creed the Western Allies spread after Nazism collapsed. “I don’t anticipate that we will be able to complete ratification of a deal by the end of this year, but I do anticipate that we will have completed the agreement,” he said. Once negotiations are finished, he said, “people will be able to see exactly why this will be good for our two countries.”
But popular sentiment in Germany often turns against America, admired for its liberty and technical prowess but also mistrusted by many for its commercial and military dominance. Earlier, his commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, told an audience of 350 business leaders that “we have a rapidly closing window to make progress.”
“We must ask ourselves: What is the cost of delay?” she said. “Now is the time for U.S.-German leadership.”
She also noted that Europe and the United States needed to keep working hard to preserve digital freedom while also heeding privacy concerns.
“If done wrong,” she warned, “we put at risk the thriving multibillion-dollar trans-Atlantic manufacturing economy.”
Yet when it comes to the United States, Germans often veer between admiration and scorn. Rarely was that more clear than in the contrasting ways that two groups prepared to greet Mr. Obama here this weekend.
Undeterred by the scandal caused by Volkswagen’s deceit about emissions from its diesel vehicles in the United States, Germany’s export-driven businesses showed off their wares in eager anticipation of the fair’s opening on Sunday and the first visit to this city by a sitting American president. Mr. Obama is set to help open the fair.
Mr. Obama kindled good will with an unusually glowing appraisal of Ms. Merkel, telling Germany’s best-selling newspaper, Bild, that he was proud to call her a friend. In particular, he praised Ms. Merkel’s “real political and moral leadership” in welcoming more than a million migrants last year.
None of that impressed the tens of thousands of protesters who gathered in Hanover’s Opera Square on Saturday. Their goal, as proclaimed in hundreds of banners and chants, was to topple the trade deal, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Germany depends on exports for its wealth and on the United States for its security. Yet many Germans do not see the free trade agreement as a good thing.
Monica Orth, 54, a therapist for teenagers who lives in Bonn, is one of many here who see the trade pact as a plot by big businesses — often American ones — to lower consumer standards, bypass national justice systems and undermine Europe’s way of life.
“I don’t want Monsanto and Bayer to determine which seeds I eat,” Ms. Orth said. As two friends nodded in agreement, she added, “Democracy is a really valuable thing, and I don’t want big business to take that from me.”
At least a dozen other protesters who were interviewed echoed her words. All accused corporations like Monsanto — the American biotechnology corporation reviled by some for using genetically modified seeds that it says help battle disease — or the German pharmaceutical company Bayer of trying to force on them products they do not want.
In a way, these Germans should be a source of American pride, fierce believers in the democratic creed that the Western Allies spread after the defeat of the Nazis.
Yet popular sentiment in Germany often turns against the United States, which, though admired for its liberty and technical prowess, is also mistrusted by many for its commercial and military dominance.
“Anti-Americanism plays a certain role” in the opposition to the trade accord, said Christian Bluth, a researcher at Bertelsmann Stiftung, a German research institute that recently commissioned a poll suggesting even stronger rejection of the deal than the latest survey by ZDF, a public-service television broadcaster, which found in mid-February that at least half of Germans rejected the proposed trade agreement.“Anti-Americanism plays a certain role” in the opposition to the trade accord, said Christian Bluth, a researcher at Bertelsmann Stiftung, a German research institute that recently commissioned a poll suggesting even stronger rejection of the deal than the latest survey by ZDF, a public-service television broadcaster, which found in mid-February that at least half of Germans rejected the proposed trade agreement.
“What I personally find very difficult to understand is why Germans are so full of fears about trade and the future, at a time when they have it good and unemployment is relatively low,” Mr. Bluth said in an interview.“What I personally find very difficult to understand is why Germans are so full of fears about trade and the future, at a time when they have it good and unemployment is relatively low,” Mr. Bluth said in an interview.
Anton Hofreiter, a leader of the Greens party who observed Saturday’s protest, said anti-American beliefs were not the guiding force of the campaign against the trade pact. Yet he noted that demonstrators were wary that Mr. Obama had come to Europe in part to cut a quick trade deal. Anton Hofreiter, a leader of the Greens party who observed Saturday’s protest, said anti-American beliefs were not the guiding force of the campaign against the trade pact. Yet he noted that demonstrators were wary that Mr. Obama had come to Europe partly to make a quick trade deal.
Michael Froman, the United States trade representative, may have stirred those concerns when he told Handelsblatt, the German business daily, on Friday: “We have a unique chance if both sides can show the political will to seal the deal. If we don’t manage it now, fears will arise that the deal will never go through.” Michael Froman, the United States trade representative, may have stirred those concerns when he told Handelsblatt, a German business daily, on Friday: “We have a unique chance if both sides can show the political will to seal the deal. If we don’t manage it now, fears will arise that the deal will never go through.”
Although negotiations for the trans-Atlantic pact are underway and will resume on Monday, the presidential election in the United States may make an agreement impossible in Washington this year. France and Germany face elections in 2017 that are also likely to freeze the chances for a deal. Although negotiations for the trans-Atlantic pact are underway and will resume on Monday, the presidential election in the United States may make an agreement impossible in Washington this year. France and Germany will have elections in 2017 that are also likely to freeze the chances for a deal.
When asked why they so feared a pact likely to enhance Germany’s trade prospects, or why they distrusted American regulators, who after all uncovered the Volkswagen scandal when European regulators did not, protesters insisted that they would be deceived, describing the trade talks as secretive. Protesters who were asked why they so feared a pact likely to enhance Germany’s trade prospects, or why they distrusted American regulators, who uncovered the Volkswagen scandal when European regulators did not, insisted that they would be deceived, describing the trade talks as secretive.
Even a special room created in Berlin to allow legislators to view negotiating documents has not helped. Opposition lawmakers said that strict security in the room only increased their lack of trust in the talks.
As a leading commentator, Nico Fried, noted in the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday, “It sometimes seems easier to get the conflicting parties in Syria to agree on peace than for the friendly trans-Atlantic partners to produce a trade agreement.”As a leading commentator, Nico Fried, noted in the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday, “It sometimes seems easier to get the conflicting parties in Syria to agree on peace than for the friendly trans-Atlantic partners to produce a trade agreement.”
Mr. Obama’s reception at the industrial fair is likely to be more polite. On Saturday afternoon, Volkswagen, Siemens and other successful German companies showed off their latest contributions to what is known here as Industrialization 4.0 — the race to apply and keep up with the digital transformation of industries. Forging pacts and confronting challenges like Syria, Ukraine, a resurgent Russia and climate change appears to be more complicated in the 21st century than it was in the decades of the German-American friendship that followed World War II.
For someone like Peter Weckesser, the chief operating officer of a Siemens subsidiary, there is “huge potential” in doing business with the United States, particularly as it tries to reinvigorate its industrial sectors and seeks the kind of modern production design and management that Siemens is promoting. Even so, a hint of that less complicated era hung over the trade protest on Saturday. While the crowd chanted against big business, and workers toiled overtime to prepare the fair site a few miles away, a large banner advertised the evening show at the opera house.
With or without a trade deal, Mr. Weckesser and other businessmen noted, the industrialized world has become more intertwined, and America offers both a large market and lessons from its enviable technological advances.
Ms. Merkel, a trained physicist who grew up in communist East Germany, is a keen proponent of technical progress.
That is likely to make her visit to the fair with Mr. Obama a highlight. The chancellor, in office since 2005, is now Mr. Obama’s longest-serving ally.
But forging deals and dealing with challenges like Syria, Ukraine, a resurgent Russia and climate change appears to be more complicated in the 21st century than it was in the decades of the German-American friendship that followed World War II.
Even so, a hint of that less-complicated era hung over Saturday’s trade protest. While the crowd chanted against big business, and workers toiled overtime to prepare the fair site just a few miles away, a large banner advertised the evening show at the opera house.
No weighty German opera here; instead, it was a performance of the 1961 Broadway musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”No weighty German opera here; instead, it was a performance of the 1961 Broadway musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”