2024-03-13 04:25:31
The Vice Chancellor travels to the USA. Robert Habeck will have some peace and quiet there because of some domestic problems. But the journey won’t be easy.
Robert Habeck should be happy to escape Berlin for a while this Wednesday. The Vice Chancellor is flying to the USA for four days. And in doing so, he puts an Atlantic distance between himself and the many problems at home.
Despite everyone’s best intentions being emphasized, the traffic light coalition cannot calm down. As if the migration debate and Taurus dispute weren’t enough, Vladimir Putin is also showing these days how easily he can eavesdrop on Germany’s generals during simulation games for Ukraine.
At least as painful for Economics Minister Habeck: his warning about the “dramatically poor” growth figures has been followed by many big words – but no big actions yet. The government agrees that something needs to be done for the economy. But what exactly? That’s where the unity ends.
Classic economic policy
First Washington, then New York, and finally Chicago: Robert Habeck won’t have much time to resign on the trip. According to the ministry, it will be about “current economic, energy and climate policy issues, especially in light of the current geopolitical crises”.
For an economics minister, this of course means classic economic policy: the USA is the most important foreign sales market for German companies. According to the ministry, around ten percent of all exports go to the USA.
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The volume of goods trade rose last year by around 1.1 percent to over 252 billion euros. Of course it should continue like this; that will be one of the topics when Robert Habeck meets Trade Minister Gina Raimondo in Washington.
Not so free trade anymore
However, there is likely to be more at stake with Trade Minister Raimondo, but also with Habeck’s other meetings with Finance Minister Janet Yellen and Energy Minister Jennifer Granholm. Robert Habeck has long been of the opinion that economic policy can no longer be understood and pursued without taking geopolitics into account, i.e. the great power-political cooperation and opposition. From China and the USA, from Russia and Europe.
Free trade, as Habeck sees it, is still a desirable ideal. In reality, however, one must recognize that Putin turned off Germany’s gas in order to destabilize it politically. And not because it wouldn’t have been economically viable for him to use one of Habeck’s examples. He concludes that a smart economic policy must be prepared for this. And we must never again become so dependent on energy policy.
The world order, endangered by war and crises, will therefore also play a major role in New York. There Habeck meets the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. Which in normal times would be a rather unusual appointment for an economics minister.
When Habeck spoke of trade war
At the beginning of last year, Robert Habeck himself even spoke of the need to “seek common ground” with the USA in order to overcome a situation in which we are threatened by a trade war in which the highest subsidies win. A few of the problems should now be ironed out. However, the large chunk of money alone continues to make it difficult for Germany to compete for companies. And expensive.
Robert Habeck’s conclusion here is that German economic policy must face this reality – and try to counteract it with investment incentives. So also with a lot of money.