"Ten times Trump asked her if he could negotiate a trade deal with Germany. Every time she [Merkel] replied, ‘You can’t do a trade deal with Germany, only the EU…’ On the eleventh refusal, Trump finally got the message, ‘Oh, we’ll do a deal with Europe then,’" the source said, as quoted by the media outlet.
As a result of the talks with Merkel, Trump reportedly came to the conclusion that the deal with the European Union was more important for the United States than the deal with the post-Brexit United Kingdom.
During his election campaign Trump criticized multilateral trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), saying he would prefer to have bilateral trade relations with other countries.
