As the EU’s most-powerful leader when she was chancellor, Merkel repeatedly clashed with Trump during his first term in the White House, from 2017 to 2021, which was marked by trade tensions and an aggressive rhetoric against Europe.
Merkel denied that her U.S. counterpart had a personal grudge against her.
“No, in his eyes I embodied Germany,” she told the Italian daily.
In the interview, Merkel also pushed back against lingering speculations that she played a role in former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s demise during at the height of the eurozone crisis in 2011.
“No, I deny it categorically,” she said. “I have never meddled in the internal affairs of a friendly country.”
She instead praised Berlusconi’s efforts to “reach common European compromises,” while conceding that cooperation with him “became more difficult” during the financial crisis.
