Boris needs both Trump and Merkel — but they need him too

How should Boris Johnson approach his two most important international relationships — those with Donald Trump and Angela Merkel? These leaders matter because they are the only two who could make or break his premiership. 

The United States is both our indispensable military ally and our biggest single trading partner — but above all, it is by far the greatest cultural force in Britain. As for Germany: it is not only by far the largest and most powerful European country, but our economies are integrated to a greater extent than any other EU partnership. While the histories of both Americans and Germans have been defined by wars fought with and against the British, we won the Cold War together and remain closer allies than any other great powers.

We know what President Trump thinks of Boris, because he said so. Eager to be first to hail the new Prime Minister, he was effusive in his praise of “a really good man. Boris Johnson. He’s tough and he’s smart.” 

While this encomium from the leader of the free world is music to the ears of a fellow New Yorker, Trump added an explanation for his audience of young Republicans: “They’re saying Britain Trump. They call him Britain Trump…They like me over there, that’s what they wanted. That’s what they need. Boris will get it done.”

This instant segue from congratulation to self-congratulation spells trouble for Boris. It hardly needs pointing out that not everyone likes the Donald “over here”. And the perception of Boris as the British Trump could be damaging, not only at home but in relations with Europe — other than the Muslim world, the most anti-Trump region on earth.

Nor is it true that Boris is just Trump with a Hollywood Englishman’s accent. He shares the President’s “can-do-spirit”, to be sure, and they are both conservatives — but there the resemblance ends. Boris is a social liberal who is about to make history by appointing a Muslim man and a Hindu woman to two of the four great offices of state. A week ago, he described the President’s “go back” tweets as “completely unacceptable”. And though he was too diplomatic to call such sentiments racist, his feelings may be deduced from the fact that Boris’s wife Marina and their four children are all mixed race.  

Yet both men need each other. Johnson needs Trump to offer a free trade agreement that can pave the way for a hundred other deals. Trump needs Johnson to validate himself and his record as he enters an election year. And both leaders long for a strategic partnership comparable to that of Churchill and Roosevelt or Thatcher and Reagan. That, if it were to happen, could define their respective places in history.

What about Boris and Angela? From the German Chancellor yesterday there were no congratulations, but an ominous silence. No doubt the phone will ring from Berlin today when the new Prime Minister takes office, but it is a sobering thought that Chancellor Merkel has seen five British premiers come and go during her 13 years in office. The Germans like their leaders to stick around: there have only been eight in the 70 years of the Federal Republic’s history. Mrs Merkel may well wonder how long Boris will last. He may ask the same of her: no longer leading her party, she has promised to stand down before her term ends in 2022. And now there is a question mark about her health.

Both Boris and Angela, then, are politicians in a hurry. It is as necessary as it is urgent for them to establish a good working relationship. Only Mrs Merkel can enable Boris to deliver what he so badly needs: an orderly Brexit on substantially better terms than Mrs May was able to negotiate. The omens are admittedly bad. The German press has been more hostile to Boris than that of any other EU country. He is seen not merely as anti-European but (which is far worse) as unserious. Der Spiegel depicts him as Alfred E. Neuman, the goofy cover boy of Mad magazine. (Perhaps Trump have them the idea: he used it to mock the Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg.)

But Mrs Merkel is not so glib. Boris can rely on her to take him seriously, because the German economy, like the British, is teetering on the brink. A no-deal Brexit with weeks of disruption to trade could tip both countries into recession. Mrs Merkel, who knows her Wagner well, may see Boris as a fickle Siegfried who has drunk the Brexit love potion and betrayed her. But she has no desire to play the part of Brünnhilde, leaping onto his funeral pyre as Europe’s Valhalla goes up in flames.