President Trump hosts German leader Angela Merkel at the White House on Friday, and the Christian Science Monitor says it could go a long way toward clarifying relations between the US and Europe under Trump. He's made disparaging comments about the EU, NATO, and Merkel herself, and analysts say this meeting isn't so much about resolving specific differences as about setting a tone for the path forward.
- An analysis at Deutsche Welle notes that the two leaders could hardly be more different in both personality and world view. She is often described as "calm and collected," even "bland," while Trump is, well, not bland. On politics, she favors global cooperation, while Trump advocates nationalism, and their views on immigration are generally at polar opposites.
- No shortage of topics could be on the agenda for what CNN calls this "odd couple," and its story takes a look at some likely ones—Russia, NATO, trade, climate change, refugees, and counterterrorism—and the thorny complications of each.
- During the campaign, Trump accused Merkel of "ruining" Germany with her pro-immigrant policies ("I don't know what went wrong with her"), and that rhetoric has the potential to complicate Friday's meeting, explains the AP.