Sigmar Gabriel and Angela Merkel at a December cabinet meeting | Adam Berry/Getty Images Germany: free trade’s reluctant champion Faced with Trump, Berlin realizes it has to take a political lead in fighting protectionism.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's protectionist rhetoric is finally turning Germany into the world's grudging defender of free trade.

On Monday, an unusually assertive Berlin emerged onto the battlefield. Germany launched a triple-barreled defense of an open international trade architecture and delivered extremely rare attacks on both Trump and China.

Rallying to the defense of carmaker BMW, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Trump to back off from levying punitive tariffs against companies producing goods in Mexico, arguing that they would backfire on the American economy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a similar warning to Washington: “Those who do not stand up for their ideals, ... who give up their fundamental values for a small short-term advantage, will not be successful in the long run,” she snapped back after Trump's threat to impose a 35 percent tax on any BMWs made in Mexico.

Meanwhile, Germany's ambassador to Beijing, Michael Clauss, struck a similarly pugnacious note. On the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech in Davos, the envoy told China to do more than pay lip-service to ending protectionism and actually deliver on pledges to open the country to foreign investment.

"It is not at all comprehensible to me why we need to fight such a battle, but we have to fight it out of principle, and I am willing to do so" — Angela Merkel

This is a radically new tone from Europe's export powerhouse, which has rarely been a vocal international cheerleader for liberalization in recent years. Indeed, trade has played badly in German domestic politics. Since 2013, the country has become the spiritual heartland of the anti-trade movement, with protests attracting hundreds of thousands of people to march against landmark EU deals with the U.S. and Canada.

As recently as last August, Gabriel clearly savored the political capital to be won from declaring the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the U.S. to be effectively dead. His party only backed the agreement with Canada — a supposedly uncontroversial partner — at the last minute, after a showdown vote at an extraordinary party convention in Wolfsburg last year.

Openly defending trade on the international stage was largely left to a liberal fringe of Britain, the Netherlands and Nordic countries.

Berlin's frustration with anti-trade forces was doubly evident Monday when the usually cautious Merkel also launched an unexpectedly withering attack on domestic opposition to trade deals such as TTIP. "It is not at all comprehensible to me why we need to fight such a battle, but we have to fight it out of principle, and I am willing to do so,” she said.

Election year

Germany's role on the global stage had already been expected to grow after the U.K., Europe's former spearhead in defending open markets and free trade, voted to leave the EU. German politicians are under extra pressure to defend their country from Trump's criticism — including about handling of the migration crisis — as Merkel seeks a fourth term as chancellor in the September 24 federal elections.

But standing up to the clamorous Trump is a difficult strategy. German backing for a trade agreement with the U.S. is finally edging back, and grew 6 points between the spring and fall of last year, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey. But that still means support in Germany stands at only 32 percent, compared with about 70 percent in Sweden and Denmark.

“As the biggest trading nation in Europe we have a responsibility to oppose protectionism, and should the United States backtrack we need to fill that gap,” said Michael Fuchs, deputy leader of Merkel's CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag.

Bernd Lange, a leading Social Democrat and chair of the European Parliament's trade committee, said that the country had received a "wake-up call."

“In light of Trump and his rhetoric, people see trade deals in a new light,” Lange said.

Germany's trade unions have now also tentatively shifted toward viewing them more positively in recent months. 2016 was a record year for national exports.

In America's sights

Berlin has declared the fight against protectionism as one of the top goals of its G20 presidency this year, which will bring leaders from the EU and 19 other world economies together at a summit in Hamburg on July 7-8.

The Germans know full well that new trade barriers erected by the Trump administration could cut close to its industrial heart.

“Trump will certainly pursue a tougher rhetoric toward Germany" — Stormy-Annika Mildner from the German industry association BDI

In 2015, the U.S. overtook France as Germany's biggest trading partner, with Washington buying €113.19 billion of German goods in 2015 to become the country's number one export destination.

“Trump will certainly pursue a tougher rhetoric toward Germany,” said Stormy-Annika Mildner from the German industry association BDI. “That's one of our concerns.”

Germany's export-dependent business community already noted with unease last year that the U.S. Treasury, months before the Trump election, put the country on a currency manipulation watchlist, together with countries such as China and Taiwan. The listing on the watchlist, the Treasury said, could be followed by measures “to address unfair currency practices.”

“Germany — along with other major exporting nations such as China — is bound to become a more forceful defender of open markets and fair trade,” said Dennis Snower, president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Volker Wieland, a member of the five-headed German Council of Economic Experts, said it is important that German society and politicians overcome “somewhat absurd” resentments against free trade and take the lead in fighting economic barriers.

“It’s good to see the government coming out in favor of free trade,” he said.