Donald Trump has called Angela Merkel’s open door policy to refugees a “catastrophic mistake”, which he said Germany would pay for.

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In his first interview with mainland European media, Trump told the tabloid Bild that while he had “great respect” for the chancellor, calling her “magnificent” and a “fantastic chief”, she had made an “utterly catastrophic mistake by letting all these illegals into the country”, according to a translation from the German version of his interview.

“Do you know, letting all these people in, wherever they come from. And no one knows where they come from at all. You will find out, you’ve had a clear impression of that,” he said, referring to the December attack in Berlin in which 12 people were killed when a lorry driven by an asylum seeker from Tunisia careered into a Christmas market. “So I am of the opinion that she made a catastrophic mistake, a very serious mistake.”

When asked whether he would be willing, like his predecessor Barack Obama, to support Merkel’s re-election when she stands for a fourth term as chancellor next autumn, he said: “I respect her, I like her. But I don’t know her so I can’t say anything as to who I might support - in the case that I would support anyone.”

In the simultaneous interview with Germany’s Bild and the Times, he was pressed as to whether he would repeat his claim that Merkel’s refugee policy towards Syrians was “insane”. Trump replied: “I think that it was not good. I think that it was a big mistake for Germany. In particular Germany. Germany was (in earlier times) one of the strictest countries in the world regarding immigration rules.”

He said he would meet Merkel. “I respect her and I like her, but I think it was a mistake,” he said. “People make mistakes, but I think it was a really big mistake.

“I think we should have set up security zones in Syria. That would have been considerably cheaper. And the gulf states should have had to pay for them. After all, they have money like hardly anyone else has. The whole thing would have been considerably cheaper than the trauma that Germany is now going through. I would have said: create security zones in Syria.



“Look, this whole thing should never have happened. Iraq should never have been attacked in the first place, right? That was one of the worst decisions, possibly the worst decision that has ever been made in the history of our country. We managed to unleash something; it was like throwing stones into a bees’ nest. And now, it is one of the biggest screw-ups of all time.

“I have just looked at something … Oh, I should not show you it at all, because it’s secret - but I have just taken a look at Afghanistan. If you look at the Taliban there, they’re just getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year. And you ask yourself ‘what’s going on there?’”

The president-elect also suggested that travel restrictions on Europeans wanting to come to the US could be tightened. “That could happen, but we’ll see. I mean, we’re talking here about parts of Europe, parts of the world and parts of Europe, where we have problems., where they come in and cause problems. I don’t want to have these problems,” he said.

Asked if he intended to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that would be hugely controversial, Trump said: “We will see.”

It was put to Trump that Merkel and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, know each other well, that he speaks fluent German and she speaks fluent Russian. He was asked which of the two he trusted more. “First and foremost, I trust both of them,” he said.

Asked if he understood why eastern Europeans might fear Putin and Russia, Trump responded: “Of course. Indeed. I know that. I mean, I understand what’s going on there. I’ve been saying for a long time, Nato has problems. It is obsolete because, for a start, it was created many many years ago and secondly, because countries don’t pay what they should pay.”

Trump also told Bild that the US would impose a border tax of 35% on cars that BMW, a German company, plans to build at a new plant in Mexico and export to the US.



The US president-elect said BMW should build its new car factory in the US because this would be much better for the company.

A spokeswoman for the carmaker said a BMW Group plant in San Luis Potosí would build the BMW 3 Series starting from 2019, with the output intended for the world market. The plant in Mexico will be an addition to existing 3 Series production facilities in Germany and China.

The US president-elect went on to say that Germany was a great car producer, borne out by Mercedes-Benz cars being a frequent sight in New York, but there was no reciprocity. Germans were not buying Chevrolets at the same rate, he said, making the business relationship an unfair one-way street. He said he was an advocate of free trade but not at any cost.



The BMW spokeswoman said the company was “very much at home in the US,” employing directly and indirectly nearly 70,000 people in the country.

Asked in the interview conducted on Friday in New York city, whether there was anything typically German about him, Trump, whose grandfather was German, said: “I like orderliness. I like it when things are dealt with in an orderly way. That’s what the Germans are quite well-known for. But I also like order and I like strength.”

