By Miranda Murray, Madeline Chambers and Sarah Marsh
BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as a “competent and experienced” politician who could well win the U.S. election, but he stopped short of endorsing her over Republican Donald Trump.
Scholz had been unusually direct in his endorsement of U.S. Joe Biden before the latter dropped his reelection bid last weekend and endorsed Harris as the Democratic Party’s candidate to face Trump in the November election.
Many German politicians fear Trump could impose higher tariffs on imports if he returned to office, and they have raised questions about U.S. support for the NATO military alliance.
Germany was frequently the focus of Trump’s ire during his first term due to its trade surplus with the United States and low spending on defence. Berlin has however in recent years upped its defence spending.
“The election campaign in the USA will certainly be exciting, now with a slightly new line-up and a new constellation,” Scholz told an annual summer news conference on Wednesday.
“I think it is very possible that Kamala Harris will win the election, but the American voters will decide.”
Scholz said he had met Harris several times.
“This is a competent and experienced politician who knows exactly what she is doing,” he said. “She knows what she wants and what she can do.”
Separately Scholz defended his government’s economic policy and assured he would be standing for reelection in next year’s federal vote despite poor poll ratings.
Asked if like Biden, he might consider renouncing his bid for reelection, he joked “thank you for the very nice and friendly question.”
“And no, the SPD is a very united party. We are all determined to go into the next general election campaign together and win. And I will run as chancellor to become chancellor again.”
Scholz, 66, has seen his personal popularity, along with that of his coalition, plunge since taking office in late 2021. Polls frequently place him behind the leader of the opposition conservatives.
The chancellor has battled an array of major crises, in particular Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting influx of more than one million refugees and end of cheap Russian gas imports upon which the German economy relied.
(Reporting by Miranda Murray, Madeline Chambers and Sarah Marsh; Editing by Kirsti Knolle and Angus MacSwan)
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