ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
With less than three weeks until Election Day, Americans are focused intensely on the close race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Europeans are also watching closely. European leaders are focused on Russia's war in Ukraine and concerned about the long-standing economic and political ties between the EU and America. To help us dig into all of this, we're joined now by Markus Ziener from the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy think tank that focuses on relations between the U.S. and Europe. Thanks for joining us, Markus.
MARKUS ZIENER: Hello from Berlin. Thanks for having me.
SCHMITZ: So, Markus, for starters, remind us just how close the U.S. and Europe are politically and economically. You know, how important is this relationship from a global perspective?
ZIENER: I think it became very visible when President Joe Biden was here just the other day. Germany is very much in sync with the U.S., whether it's security, whether it's the economy. I think the trans-Atlantic alliance really is a cornerstone, and I think that works very well, you know, with the current administration. So I think the concern is very much about those two big issues - security and economics - when it comes to the upcoming elections.
SCHMITZ: Let's go into that a little further. You know, I know you can't speak for all Europeans, but, you know, what concerns would you say are top of mind for many Europeans, particularly European political leaders, when they're thinking about this U.S. presidential election?
ZIENER: I think there's three main issues. The one is security. The other one is economics, and then it's right-wing populism. And it all has to do with the fact that we already know what it means if Donald Trump is president because we already had one term with him, and we remember that it was very difficult in particular for the Germans to deal with Donald Trump at the time. It looked at if he had singled out Germany as an adversary, as an enemy, particular when we talk about security and how much Germany is spending on defense. He was criticizing Germany time and again for not doing enough. By the way, I think he had a point in doing so at the time.
SCHMITZ: I was going to ask you, was that justified?
ZIENER: Well, to a certain degree, it was justified because Germany was kind of very lenient when it comes to our defense. We were believing that after the Cold War, we don't have to spend that much money anymore in propping up our defense, and I think we were very wrong. And the problem is not really that we did that. The problem is that we didn't wake up after 2014, after the Crimea was taken by the Russians? I think at that time, we should have known that this was a game changer and that we have to rethink our security policy, but we didn't.
A couple of years later, I think we are in a different situation because Germany has, I think, at least to a certain degree, understood that we have to do more. But is this going to keep Donald Trump from criticizing Germany again for not doing enough? Well, it's not. No. The answer is no. Germany will be behind always in Donald Trump's eyes.
SCHMITZ: If Trump should win the U.S. presidency this time around and let's say he is able to withdraw funding for Ukraine, what would that - how would that leave Germany and how would that leave the EU? Would - can the EU fill that gap of funding to help Ukraine defend itself?
ZIENER: I think the answer is pretty clear. It's a no. Europe will not be able to fill that gap. We probably can provide some more support for Ukraine, but it's not going to compensate for what the United States is giving to Zelenskyy and to Kyiv.
SCHMITZ: Let's pivot to presidential candidate Kamala Harris. She is an untested leader, but I'm curious to know what you think European leaders think of how she would fare as U.S. president.
ZIENER: It's true we don't know that much about her. She was attending the Munich Security Conference earlier this year. And from that, we can take away that she is also an advocate of multilateralism, that she also said that she wants to move further when it comes to disarmament treaties and to negotiate. However, there are a lot of things we don't know really where she's standing.
But we can say, I guess, that she is - she will support the trans-Atlantic relationship, and she will not let down on Ukraine. I think this is something we know for certain, and she also will not withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, like - Donald Trump did that when he was in power. So in a sense, we know those kind of big cornerstones there where we think that, OK, we can deal with Kamala Harris. When it comes to the details, I'm sure we still have to see how she - how this plays out.
SCHMITZ: Europeans will be watching closely. That's Markus Ziener from the German Marshall Fund. Markus, thank you.
ZIENER: Thank you.
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