Episode 117: Germany in 2025

The second Trump administration will take office in just over one month—how will it approach the European security order and trade with the European Union? What risks and opportunities does a new administration represent for Germany? How will relations with China affect Germany’s competitiveness and the transatlantic relationship? As Germany’s federal election campaign begins, it is clear that the next coalition will be made up of different parties than Chancellor Scholz’s “Traffic Light” coalition that broke up on November 6. Berlin faces major domestic challenges, such as diverging views on how to address Germany’s faltering economy. What can we expect from the political transitions in both countries, and how will that shape the international agenda? Host Jeff Rathke, President, AGI Guest Stefan Mair, Director, German Institute for International and Security Affairs Transcript Jeff Rathke Let me welcome all of our listeners to this episode of the podcast and let me welcome Stefan Mair. Stefan, thanks for being here. Stefan Mair Thank you for having me. Jeff Rathke Well, we are talking in person, which is great—not that we don’t like video calls as well. And we are talking on December 5, 2024. Stefan, you may remember this: this is actually your second time being a guest on this podcast. The first time was back in 2019– Stefan Mair And I was still at the Federation of German Industries. Jeff Rathke Exactly. And I’m sure we will come back to the topic that we were discussing then, which is the German relationship with China, which remains a quite interesting topic. Stefan is now the director of the German Stiftung Wissensschaft und Politik, which in English is the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. We are delighted to have you in that capacity. Stefan has been for over thirty years in some of Germany’s leading public policy institutions, including with the Federation of German Industries, where he was a member of the Executive Board, and also going way back to your start with SWP back in the 1990s. If I look at the last couple of weeks, naturally the U.S. election on November 5th was a major development that will affect the transatlantic relationship for years to come. But also, the day after the U.S. election, we had the dissolution, essentially, of the governing coalition in Berlin as Chancellor Scholz fired his finance minister, Christian Lindner. So we have these two things which set the stage really for the coming months and years, and I thought we might talk about the ways in which those may interact. The first thing, as we look at the U.S. transition that is taking shape, most of the cabinet positions have nominees now. We’ll see how quickly people get confirmed. We have essentially control by the Republican Party in the Congress as well as in the executive branch. As a candidate, Donald Trump talked a lot about his view of the world, his desire to use things like tariffs, his skepticism or even animosity toward America’s alliances. These are not new themes; we heard about them when he was president the first time. So, maybe to start there. From a German perspective, Stefan, what are the big opportunities and risks that arise? Stefan Mair I think from a German perspective, it’s quite difficult to think about opportunities. We mainly see the risks for the next month and two of them are quite obvious. And the impact of these risks, if they really realize, will be huge. First, of course, we are concerned about the support—both the financial as well as military support—to Uk...