Allegedly heated comments by President Donald Trump about a key U.S. ally – Germany – generated a fresh swirl of confusion around an administration that has already had more than its fill.
During a meeting with European Union officials in Brussels, Trump allegedly said, “The Germans are bad, very bad,” according to Germany’s Spiegel Online, which cited unnamed sources in the room. He continued, the outlet said, by saying: “See the millions of cars they are selling in the U.S.? Terrible. We will stop this.”
On Friday, the report spread rapidly through the German press and social media, igniting a backlash, including one response by a German industry group saying Trump’s protectionist stance would make him “a loser.”But what did Trump actually say?
European officials – and Trump’s own administration – offered contradictory accounts.
Part of the backlash stemmed, perhaps, from a poor translation: In its German-language editions, Spiegel used the word “base” – which can mean “bad,” but is closer to the English word “evil.” In another report, another German outlet, Suddeutsche Zeitung, cited a similar quote from Trump, but translated the word he used as “schlecht” – a milder German word for “bad.”
In a later tweet from Spiegel Online’s main account, it clarified that Trump had indeed used the English word “bad” and not “evil.”
Yet even that remained in dispute, with the administration offering no clarity – once again highlighting the communication problems that continue to plague the White House.
One of the key figures in the room during the meeting, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said the Der Spiegel report was off.
“He didn’t say the Germans are behaving badly,” Juncker told journalists in Sicily ahead of the start of a G-7 summit between the leaders of the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Canada and Japan. “He said we have a problem, as others do, with the German surplus. So he was not aggressive at all. Bad doesn’t mean evil.”
Soon afterward, White House press secretary Sean Spicer appeared to leap on Juncker’s comments to debunk the story. Responding to a tweet about the Der Spiegel article by New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, Spicer wrote: “Except it’s not true: Juncker says Trump was not aggressive on German trade surplus.”
And yet, when asked on the sidelines in Sicily, White House Chief Economic Adviser Gary Cohn seemed to confirm that the president had indeed said something about “bad” German trade practices.
“He said they’re very bad on trade but he doesn’t have a problem with Germany,” Cohn said. “He said his dad is from Germany. He said, ‘I don’t have a problem with Germany, I have a problem with German trade.’ “
Another official with direct knowledge of the Thursday meeting told The Washington Post on Friday that Trump had never used the word “bad.”
