>>18543393Elected because he was basically Merkel 2.0.
He believes in all of Merkel's policies, including appeasement of Russia, whoring out their technology for China for some quick bux, leaving defense to the US so they can be "unaligned" and trade with everyone, and a massive trade surplus with the rest of the EU to bankrupt them and thus rule them.
Everything would have continued the same way if the world didn't change. He still wants to do these things, but he's under pressure by things forcing his hand otherwise. The objective now is merely survival, wo wait things out, hoping nothing bad happens.
Things are kind of out of his hand now.
In the beginning he wanted to talk back to Biden and still open Nord Stream 2 despite the invasion. Then he was told Trump would have quit Nato, and he would have had to deal with the nuclear threats alone.
He tried to fix the military, but money alone doesn't seem to be enough, as the entire thing was gutted under Merkel and her predecessors.
Germany's surplus has been spent on paying the hugely increased price of gas. This still works though, as this also drives up costs for other EU countries, so he is still bankrupting them.
Looks like China now has copied enough of their technology, German sales in China are declining, Chinese car brands are taking over in Asia, and even appeared in Europe.
