Why Is the World Obsessed with the U.S. Election? Ask Germany

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DW: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump have held their only planned debate of this year’s presidential campaign.

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France24: Donald Trump et Kamala Harris ont repris la route de la campagne...

(Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have returned to the campaign trail...)

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BBC News Brasil: Vice-presidente Kamala Harris e ex-presidente Donald Trump...

(Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump...)

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TBS News Dig: 11月5日のアメリカ大統領選挙に向けて、民主党のハリス副大統領と共和党のトランプ大統領

(In the run-up to the U.S. Presidential election on November 5, Vice President Harris of the Democratic Party and President Trump of the Republican Party...)

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Al Jazeera: ما هو الانطباع الأول عن أداء كامالا هاريس في مناظرتها الأولى كمرشحة للرئاسة؟

(What is the first impression of Kamala Harris’s performance in her first debate as the presidential candidate?...)

We are getting closer and closer to the U.S. presidential election, and we’re thinking about how the outcome will affect our lives - the job market, healthcare, even the future of our democracy. But U.S. citizens are not the only ones whose lives will be shaped by the outcome of our upcoming election.

I was recently in Germany, and the thing I found most surprising about my trip was just how much Germans seemed to know about our political system, and our upcoming election. I saw it on the news. I read it in the papers. I heard it in conversations at restaurants, heck I was asked about it several times. I came home wanting to understand why, and to get a peek at what this high-stakes American election means to the rest of the world.

I’m Gabrielle Sierra, and this is Why It Matters. Today, we use the lens of Germany to examine why the U.S. election matters abroad.

Gabrielle SIERRA: Let's dive into it. While here, we in the U.S. are glued to election coverage, what do everyday Germans think about the U.S. election and what does it mean to them? 

Liana FIX: For an everyday German, the U.S. elections do matter. And that's something that in the United States, many people forget that what happens in the United States is paid attention to by the entire world and especially in Europe.

This is Liana Fix, CFR’s fellow for Europe and friend of the pod. She’s a native Berliner, an expert on German and European policy, and a frequent contributor to international and German media.

FIX: So, what Germans and Europeans know about U.S. elections is entirely not comparable to what you as Americans usually know about European elections. I mean, that's the case for multiple reasons because the United States is so important economically, politically. Especially now with Russia's war against Ukraine, the United States matters as a protector of Europe. So, the US elections are possibly the most important news event for Germany towards the end of the year.
 

Stefan KORNELIUS: America matters, and that's the most important thing for us. America's a huge country, with a huge impact on world affairs, European affairs, global affairs.

This is Stefan Kornelius. He’s the political editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung, which is Germany's second largest daily newspaper. 

KORNELIUS: I fully understand if you live in Kansas or South Dakota, Europe is so far away. It's even further away than Washington, and Washington is far away already. But don’t be fooled. World affairs do affect domestic affairs, do affect your standing in the world. It goes down to the deepest, deepest roots of our democracies, of our way of life. We are talking about not only one election cycle. We are talking about a really historic moment. And the entire history of a country is on the line. 

Quick history lesson here, so the United States’ has been Germany’s most important ally since World War II. After that war ended, then U.S. President Harry Truman began implementing the Marshall Plan. It was a program that spent $13 billion, or $150 billion in today’s market, to rebuild Europe, including a destroyed Germany. 

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Harry S. Truman/British Movietone: The signing of this act is a momentous occasion in the world’s quest for enduring peace. This measure is America’s answer to the challenge facing the free world today.

Over the past seventy years, that relationship with Germany has only grown both economically and militarily. Germany is now the United States’ fifth largest trading partner in the world, and top trading partner in Europe. As a member of organizations like the Group of 7 and NATO, Germany’s role in upholding the global balance of power is significant, and directly tied to its relationship with the United States.

We’ll dive more into that later, but for now, I really wanted to understand more about what everyday Germans thought about the U.S. election. So we sent Liana on a fact finding mission in Berlin, speaking to people about the U.S. election and how read-in they are.

SIERRA: Do you think there's any chance that a single person you would've spoken to didn't know who was running in the U.S. elections or that our elections were coming up?

FIX: No, I don't think so. Everyone knew about it. Everyone knew the candidates.

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Tagesschau: 

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Tagesspiegel: 

FIX: And that gives you a clear picture of just how relevant the U.S. elections and how much time in German news programs the U.S. elections take on.

SIERRA: Okay tell me more about your reporting - where were you, who did you talk to, and I’m curious, how much influence Germans think the U.S. and this election has on their lives? 

FIX: I was in Berlin, but in the eastern part of Berlin. And I do think it's interesting because this division between West and East Germany is still there even so many years after German reunification in 1990. So, what people in East Germany think about the U.S. elections might be slightly different than what people in West Germany think. In West Germany, many West Germans are very critical of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. In East Germany, I got some interesting voices. For example, I talked to a lady in her 60s who told me that actually she follows very closely what happens in the United States, but that she's not entirely against Trump because she has friends who live in America and who don't think that everything is bad about Trump. And she said, because she's a mother, she doesn't want rearmament. And although Trump will not end the wars immediately, that's what she said, she thinks perhaps there might be a rapprochement between Trump and Putin both getting closer to each other and she says it's not clear whether that's good or bad, that's still up for debate. And so, the U.S. elections from the perspective of those East Berliners I talked to are a question that is framed as a big question of world order, of the world being in danger. Let me quote someone else I talked to Rolph, he's in his 50s. He said he would prefer Harris to Trump, because if Trump gets elected, all what is happening in the world will become more dangerous. And another lady I talked to, Annemarie, she's 88 years old. She said, "I'm afraid of war and Trump would be terrible for Germany." So war and peace is big on the minds of Germans and the U.S. elections seem to be related to that.

SIERRA: Obviously Germans are not a monolith - can you tell me a bit more about how German views on the U.S. election break down across different groups?

FIX: It matters in particular when it comes to the party that you are affiliated with. So, those who vote for the traditional German parties like the social democrats or the conservatives or the green parties are probably much more likely to be critical of Donald Trump and more supportive of Kamala Harris. But if you look at those who are more leaning towards left-wing and right-wing populists, you can also see that those are less critical of Donald Trump as a candidate and the potential president again of the United States.

Earlier this month, the far-right party Alternative for Germany won the most votes in the eastern state of Thuringia, marking it the first victory for a German far-right party in a regional election since World War II.

FIX: So we had two regional elections in Germany, in Saxony and in Thuringia. And the surprising results, perhaps not so surprising for those observing German politics, but still for the outside world is that the AfD has become the strongest political actor in one German state Thuringia, and the second strongest in the other. So the extreme right AFD is very critical of support for Ukraine, for example, they're more open to any Russia links, and they basically want to have Germany out of the west, so they are not as supportive of the Transatlantic Alliance and of NATO as the Germany centrist parties. So just on a political level, it's definitely more extreme in its right wing positions than, let's say, Donald Trump is as a populist, right, but obviously they are taking some cues from our elections, from Donald Trump about putting your own country first, which is big on the agenda of the AfD. They're always arguing, why should we care about other Europeans? Why should we care about Ukraine? Why don't we put our own country first? So there is a sense of nationalism and of re-nationalization in Germany, which is particularly sensitive because of its second World War history. Those populists actually learn from U.S. elections the way how U.S. elections are conducted. Not only the candidates and the outcome, but the level of populism or the level of sobriety in elections influences how elections in Germany and how campaigns and parties think about elections in Germany and in Europe too. The U.S. has not only hard power, it has a huge amount of soft power in Europe.

SIERRA: How do you think this election is different or similar to elections in the past in terms of mobilizing people around the world?

FIX: I think the U.S. elections can mobilize not only U.S. Americans obviously, but the way how the election has been energized by Kamala Harris coming back into the fold is so inspiring that it also has repercussions in Europe. So, we see on social media many memes about Kamala Harris that are repeated from the United States. You see many terms like brat for example, that are analyzed in German, prominent, sophisticated German newspapers who write long articles about why this is a big thing. So, this is in the same way that the election of Barack Obama had an electrifying effect on Europeans, perhaps it could be repeated with Kamala Harris.

SIERRA: I have to ask you, is there a super long word in German for ‘brat summer’?

FIX: Well, I could come up with one.

SIERRA: Let's do it. Right now.

FIX: Germans are very good at this. Well I would say it’s ‘Im Sommer die Macht übernehmenden Gören’ which translates to ‘the brats took over power in the summer.’

Germany’s focus on the U.S. - whether its brat summer or nuclear security - isn’t new.

Germany sent troops to support the American war effort after the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001. In fact, Germany was one of the first countries to send its own troops to support the United States, and sustained that effort despite European antagonism to the U.S. role in the Iraq war. And over the course of twenty years, Germany sent more than 90,000 members of its armed forces to the country, making it the second-largest troop provider after the United States. And of course most recently, the U.S. and Germany continue to stand together with the West in supporting Ukraine.

And while we’re looking at the importance of U.S. elections in Germany, many other European nations - France, the UK, you name it - are just as concerned about how the election will affect their future.

KORNELIUS: Watching the world right now, we're all dismayed, we're all confused about those various power bases. We do see the Chinese coming up in huge force, really investing a lot to get their foothold in Europe, trying to buy their way in. Russia provoking war, waging war, and destroying international order which rests on the idea of rules and regulations. And now there's the balancer in this game, of big powers, and that's the United States. Whenever you create a vacuum, whenever the United States decides not to be part of that game, this will be filled immediately, and the players who fill it will be the bad guys.

SIERRA: Is there anything specific about Germany that you think makes people so attuned to the U.S. election? 

KORNELIUS: Well, there's a historic knot between the United States and Germany. And this is often forgotten in the United States, how much American interest is rooted in Germany, how much of America's self-perception and its power, basically, in the world, has to do with the country having its footprint in Europe. Being a superpower isn't decided in Washington alone. It's being decided on how many friends you have, how many alliances you hold, how many give and takes you do have. And whether you have loyal allies, which are basically on your side politically, and secondly, whether you can count on America as being an ally.

Germany is the largest European economy in the NATO alliance, which could be why one of the most prominent national security fears that Germans have is that Donald Trump would abandon NATO, the alliance that the United States created with Canada and ten European countries in 1949.

As president, Trump threatened to deny the protection of NATO allies if countries failed to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. And on the campaign trail, he has only continued to double down on this threat.

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AP Archive: One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, “Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us.” I said, “You didn’t pay. You’re a delinquent.” I said, “Yes, let’s say that happened. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay, you gotta pay your bills.”

FIX: After World War II, NATO was basically the organization that brought Europe together in a peaceful way. So, the hegemony of the United States, because obviously the United States is the most important contributor to NATO, prevented that we had a return of these kinds of tensions and rivalries between France and Germany and other European countries that led to the two World Wars that we have seen. So, just historically, NATO and the big U.S. role in NATO has brought peace to the European continent, and that's not a small deed. The second function that NATO always had throughout the Cold War was to defend Europe against the Soviet Union and against Soviet aggression and to prevent that the Soviet Union could further advance into Europe. Now, this has obviously received an update by 2022, which doesn't sound too different from Cold War times, because now the main role of NATO in Europe is to support Ukraine and to prevent that Russia attacks any NATO member in Europe. So, all NATO members have promised each other if one of us is attacked, everyone will come to the help. That's especially important for Europeans because let's say if Poland gets attacked, it doesn't really matter for Poland if the Baltic States come to help Poland or Germany does, but it matters if the United States does. So, for Europeans, the promise of NATO is the promise of U.S. protection primarily. That is so important for Europeans, because for a long time, they have neglected their own protection and that means that today they could not survive in a land war against Russia, for example, without the help of the United States. There's so many gaps for Europeans that there's no plan B, any plan B would take a decade at least and cost so much money that Europeans would have to reduce, for example, social welfare, which is apparently very important to Europeans and instead invest massively in defense.

SIERRA: How might the results of the election impact the NATO alliance?

KORNELIUS: Well, there is, in both parties, a clearly stated goal that Europe has to take much more responsibility on its own.

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Barack Obama/The Telegraph: Our freedom isn’t free, and we’ve gotta be willing to pay for the assets, the personnel, the training, that’s required to make sure we have a credible NATO force and an effective deterrent force.

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Donald Trump/BBC News: I have been very very direct with Secretary Stoltenberg and members of the alliance in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations.

KORNELIUS: They have to pay up for their security. Which I think countries do. If you watch the increase of defense spending over the past months, it's breathtaking. There is almost no nation anymore in Europe which doesn't pay at least 2 percent of its gross-national product for defense. Those numbers will increase. The efforts which have been made to be self-reliant in military production, in procurement, in defense spending are just amazing.

That’s a major change from just two years ago, when only six out of NATO’s thirty countries spent more than 2 percent of GDP on defense. But this year, twenty-three project that they will do so. And although Germany has not reached that level since the 90s, this year they are projected to hit NATO’s defense spending target. Still, the United States and some European countries have proposed raising the benchmark to two and a half, or even three percent.

KORNELIUS: This is due to the sheer necessity. We do feel threat from Russia, especially those countries which are bordering Russia. We do feel the impact of Ukrainian refugees mostly coming to Germany for various reasons. There's a huge instability in European societies. And also, kind of huge fear. And if this fear is unleashed, then it might lead to domestic unrest. It might lead to countries rallying against each other. So you look for people to blame. In this very small pattern which Europe provides, nation states might very easily turn into enemies.

FIX: Then the question of financing comes in. The European Union, especially Germany, have been very insistent on not taking on too much debt completely in contrast to the United States. No one in the United States understands why Europeans are so strict about this, but it's sort of a lesson about the financial crisis and so on, where especially Germany, the Netherlands and so on, said, "Well, you can't just spend without end and just use debt.

Beyond Donald Trump’s threats to abandon NATO, he’s also proposed a fiscal plan that could dent America’s economic relationship with its allies. It includes a universal tariff on imports which could profoundly affect the trade relationship with Germany, increasing the price of the approximate $150 billion worth of goods Washington imports from Berlin. Cars and medicine make up about a quarter of that total.

SIERRA: Do you think a Trump election would bring Europeans closer together, or drive them further apart?

KORNELIUS: It'll go both ways. Donald Trump has clearly stated his aims with Europe. He thinks we are those guys who live off American wealth and American security. So this leads to a huge rallying effect of most European major powers, which are hanging in this together, and are inclined to build up their own defense against Russia, and their own answer to Donald Trump. However, there are European nations which are sympathetic to Trump. Most of all, this is Hungary, which we all do see with Viktor Orban. He can destabilize the European Union. He has a vote in the European Union. He can stop decision making in the European Union by raising his veto. Also, the Slovaks have the same problem. All small countries, all depending on European money/German money. And this kind of behavior might force Europe to be much more harsher within its own ranks. Yes, Donald Trump will have an impact. And this impact will be in splintering, in driving the European Union apart.

An example of this splintering is Poland, which shares a close to 150 mile border with Russia. And on the other side of Poland is Germany, which shares a 290 mile border. In 2020, Poland was the only European country surveyed by Pew where a majority of people had a positive view of then President Trump. 

FIX: In Poland, there's a little bit of a different attitude, and that is because Poland is now the frontline state. So, they care about security above everything. But Poland also had a particular relationship with Donald Trump in his first term, which was a better relationship than Germany had. So, for example, Poland would hope that the United States would place more soldiers, more weapons, more missiles in Poland as a protection against Russia, and therefore thinks it has a kind of special relationship with the potential Donald Trump if he returns to the White House. And this kind of idea of a special relationship with Donald Trump is what Poland banks on and that's why they hope that it will not become as bad as many fear if Donald Trump returns.

SIERRA: I’m curious now how Europeans think about President Biden, because he dropped out of the presidential race in July. Is he considered a lame duck on the global stage? You know, how will this impact his relationship with EU leaders for the remainder of his term and even leading up to the election?

KORNELIUS: President Biden has a long record of being a foreign policy mind, of just basically living for foreign policy, and especially transatlantic relations. Nobody questions his ability to govern, to do the right decisions, even if you saw his dismal performance now during the campaign and we all know for better that he has good reason to have dropped out and it's really reinvigorated the campaign, and our perspectives. Nevertheless, Joe Biden will be serving the term. And there is no questioning from the European side that he will not be able to. But we do see now a shifting point. He's the last of a generation which was basically brought up in the Cold War Era, which was highly influenced by World War II. And Kamala Harris, from California, hasn't got that much European links and roots, definitely will bring in a new era.

SIERRA: Can Kamala Harris maintain the longstanding relationships with EU and Ukrainian leaders that Biden has emphasized as a pillar of American security?

KORNELIUS: Well, I think she has to make a choice whether she wants to or not. And using Europe as an ally will need give and take, will need listening to European concerns. But also, will definitely need to put more pressure on Europe to stand up to its commitments. I guess there's a huge preparedness in Europe to do this. Times have never been so good for increasing European security. And since America's demand is also now stretched, the United States is basically on the edges in the Middle East and the China threat is real. The Europeans do know that they have to live up to these commitments.

FIX: I'm actually concerned that if Kamala Harris wins, Europeans will go back to business as usual, and we'll think, "Oh, now the United States is back to normal. We can stop investing in our own defense. We are in a safe haven again." Because even with Kamala Harris, the challenge that the United States is faced with when it comes to China is so big that sooner or later Europeans have to do more for their own security because the United States, regardless of a Democratic or Republican administration, will be so consumed by the China challenge. My concern is that as it was the case after the election of Joe Biden Europeans will be hugely relieved and forget everything that they promised to do when they were scared of Donald Trump.

SIERRA: So, twist, does that mean that Trump actually could be better for NATO than Harris?

FIX: Yeah, if there were not the fear that he would withdraw entirely, I think Trump played a role together with the threat from Vladimir Putin's side in incentivizing Europeans to spend more. I think it's really difficult to say its otherwise. So, I don't think Europeans will necessarily spend less under Kamala Harris, but they might be less motivated to increase what they're spending now. So, for example, to move towards 2.5 or 3 percent. Whereas if Donald Trump comes and says, "Well, either you spend 2.5 percent or 3 percent or I will leave NATO," which Kamala Harris would never do, that incentive is of course bigger. So, it's a brutal way of blackmailing that might perhaps in fact be more successful on defense spending to be honest.

SIERRA: Yikes, a dangerous game.

FIX: Yeah. Absolutely.

In 2023, the German Marshall Fund found that Europeans expressed little faith in America's future influence. While 64 percent described the United States as the world's most influential actor today, only 37 percent believed that this will be the case in five years.

SIERRA: What concerns do Europeans have about the future role of the United States?

KORNELIUS: The background of a growing isolationism in the United States is basically driven by the Republicans and the Trump movement. And this causes fear. It tells us, well, the country's no longer interested in the world, or it is interested, but to such terms which we cannot agree upon and where I do think they will not work anyway. That will increase America's isolationism. Now the United States, it's such a huge mass of country, such a huge number of people, and such an economic might, that isolationism probably isn't that badly felt within the country. You can easily isolate yourself without even noticing. But it is felt across the borders, by those countries who economically and security-wise do depend on the United States to some extent. And this is why fear was growing that this isolationism leads to a growing disconnect between us, even under Democratic leadership. And the Democrats were bowing to these isolationist tendencies, which was also fueled by fear of migration. We have the same phenomenon in Europe. People do fear that there's too much migration and they want to build borders. They want to push back people. And this isolationist tendency has led to an increased suspicion of how America will handle its future. America has plenty, and this kind of greatness, this kind of plentiness, comes also from the fact that this is a global country. That this is a country which basically feeds off the world. And if you give up the world, you give up a part of your identity, and you will collapse domestically. This is sort of a domino effect, which probably will not be felt immediately. But over time, it will.

In November, the choices we make here will shape the lives of millions who will never cast a vote in an American election, just as they have for decades. And that’s a reminder of the power our vote holds, not just at home, but everywhere.

SIERRA: How do Europeans feel about the fact that the U.S. election has this much influence, or potential influence, in Europe?

KORNELIUS: I think they take it much more as a given than they would feel angry about it. America always gave a sense of security. You can rely on it. This is a like-minded country. This is a country which has European roots, which brought its democratic culture from the European revolution and its own revolution, and built that up as a role model for the world. We lived through an American century. We lived through a century where all institutions after World War II were set up on the American idea of sharing power, of global governance, the UN system, the World Bank system, all of this. We all agree that this all needs renovation. This all needs, kind of, remodeling because the world has changed, and the kind of power we have amassed in the Northern Hemisphere, and mostly the Western countries as we call them, needs to be shared, needs to be rethought. Now all of a sudden, the idea of the Western world is being questioned by Donald Trump. And this makes people feel uneasy and this is why these elections have such a dramatic, historic impact not only for America, but also for the rest of the world.

As is tradition, our amazing interns from this summer will read us out today. Take it away Ethan Wickes and Emily Hall Smith. 

Ethan WICKES: For resources used in this episode and more information, visit CFR.org/whyitmatters and take a look at the show notes. If you ever have any questions or suggestions or just want to chat with us, email us at [email protected] or you can hit us up on X, better known as Twitter, at @CFR_org.

Emily Hall SMITH: Why It Matters is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely that of the guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

WICKES: This episode was produced by Asher Ross, Molly McAnany, Noah Berman and Gabrielle Sierra. Our sound designer is Markus Zakaria. Our interns this semester are me, Ethan Wickes...

SMITH: And me, Emily Hall Smith. Production assistance for this episode was provided by Mariel Ferragamo. Robert McMahon is our Managing Editor. Our theme music is composed by Ceiri Torjussen.

WICKES: You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your audio. For Why It Matters, this is Ethan...

SMITH: And this is Emily, signing of.

WICKES/SMITH: See you soon!