You’ve been talking about design for quite a while now, about reviving the music scene, about awakening after months of the pandemic. A small group of leading figures from Detroit’s cultural scene came together to tell the guest from Germany about the needs, but also about the dreams in a city that is not only recovering from a pandemic, but also from the decline of an industry . International exchange is so important, says Ellie Schneider, head of the city’s design initiative. “We have more in common with cities that are on the other side of the world than ten minutes away,” she says. It is pretty much the keyword that Heiko Maas (SPD) has been waiting for. The German Foreign Minister begins with an exuberant thanks, which culminates in something like the statement that Detroit’s cultural workers are doing their best for world peace.
In the hip museum for contemporary art, that may sound like an exaggeration. But that’s why Maas came to work out the big picture on a small scale. “Thank you for what you are doing. You are not only doing it for your community, but for your society,” praised Maas. And then he comes to the point: “I hope this will support your president. He wants to heal the division in society. Your work does just that.” And that in turn is good for the whole world, because it needs a US government that is not only busy with domestic affairs, but also has time for the international. “We need your country”, Maas concludes his short speech.
This is about the political rediscovery of America
A little much pathos, maybe. But what this is about is nothing less than the political rediscovery of America – after years of rejection by Donald Trump and months of foreclosure due to the pandemic. Before US President Joe Biden receives Chancellor Angela Merkel in the White House this Thursday, Maas is exploring the terrain, like several ministers before him. Peter Altmaier was the first to come to Washington at the end of June. The economics minister and CDU politician spoke of a “transatlantic new start”, of the “momentum” that should be used. It was about tariffs, but also about ways out of the malaise around the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which was rejected by Biden and his predecessor Trump. Then Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) gave herself the honor. Together we will meet “both the familiar, but also completely new” challenges, she promised, and delighted the hosts with the news of the purchase of five maritime patrol aircraft of the type Boeing P-8A Poseidon. Thereupon Finance Minister and SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz – so the desired impression – made the new global minimum tax clear with his US colleague Janet Yellen.
Six months after Biden took office and two months before the federal election, praising the friendship and shared values that have been regained is no longer enough. The question of added value and the practical benefits of the partnership comes to the fore. It will also arise when Biden and Merkel appear before the press together in the White House. In America as in Europe, liberal democracy and multilateralism are under pressure to succeed – whereby for Biden it is about the future of his presidency and for Merkel above all about her legacy. The two would talk about the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and prosperity and international security “on the basis of our shared democratic values,” announced Biden’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“The idea of globalization only wins and reaches people if those involved realize the benefits,” says Maas. It is unusual for the Foreign Minister to be the immediate vanguard for the Chancellor, which is why Maas does not go to Washington. The main reason for the trip is a meeting of the UN Security Council on Libya in New York. He takes a whole day beforehand to look at the advantages invoked in Michigan, a state that Biden narrowly recaptured from Trump and that is deeply divided between province and city and often between black and white. In the small town of Kalamazoo he visits a factory of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, in which 80 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the Mainz company Biontech are produced every month. Maas describes the cooperation as “the best example of how we have to work in a global pandemic, namely together and internationally”. “That is what pharmaceutical companies do and we have to do that in politics too,” he says – it is precisely the global vaccination campaign that is putting the regained German-American harmony to the test.
In the patent dispute, he tries the balancing act between Merkel and Biden
US President Biden calls for patents to be released to help poorer countries. Chancellor Angela Merkel thinks little or nothing of this, which she is unlikely to move away from in the White House. “This is a discussion that we are having and that we do not want to refuse,” says Maas, who does not want to sound as apodictic as Merkel, but does not want to contradict her either. Such a patent release is not “brought to an end overnight”, he ponders instead. Therefore, the first thing to do now is to expand supply chains and create production locations “in the global south”. “You have to do both. You can also do it in parallel,” the Foreign Minister tries to let the conflict fizzle out, which does not want to go with his message.
The other day, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Berlin and both ministers were talking to young people in Clärchen’s Ballhaus, Maas raved about the fact that he was “always of the same opinion” with his new colleague. That is certainly not true, but it describes the desire to celebrate the community and its benefits after four terrible Trump years. In Dearborn near Detroit, Maas then visits Ford headquarters and talks for an hour with corporate boss James Farley about “the future of the automotive industry in general” and the future of the automotive industry in Europe in particular. Maas also reports to Farley about plans by the federal government for battery production – combined with the wish that future car production should take place “in close proximity” to battery production. So in Germany.