The China Mail - Transatlantic ties 'disintegrating': German vice chancellor

"The transatlantic alliance is undergoing a much more profound upheaval than we may have been willing to admit until now," Lars Klingbeil, also Germany's finance minister, said in a speech in Berlin.

"The transatlantic relationship as we have known it is currently disintegrating."

Klingbeil said he had become even more convinced of this in recent days. He paid a visit to Washington this week along with Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

The vice chancellor is from the centre-left SPD party that governs in coalition with the conservative bloc led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and his language is stronger than any used by Merz in recent times.

Klingbeil listed a string of reasons for his belief that ties between the United States and Europe, traditionally close allies, were radically changing.

While Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's former president who was captured in a US raid on Caracas, was a "brutal dictator", Washington's military action had violated "the principles of international law", Klingbeil said.

"And we should not view Venezuela as an isolated case," he said, noting the Trump administration had made threats against other Latin American countries.

He also cited Trump's threats to seize Greenland and his administration's comments in its national security strategy that Europe was facing "civilisational erasure".

"We are currently living in the midst of a historic period of upheaval ... in which all the certainties we could rely on in Europe are under pressure," said Klingbeil.

The United States and Germany, Europe's top economy, had long been united by a shared interest in free trade and open markets, said Klingbeil.

"That is no longer the case today. But that does not mean that we are abandoning free trade or open markets," he said.

"We must not abandon rules-based trade. We must defend this order, even without our American partners if necessary."

A.Sun--ThChM