German Chancellor Angela Merkel advocated preserving the Iranian nuclear treaty and multilateralism, while US Vice President Mike Pence rolled out demands to European allies, including a demand to pull out of the 2015 JCPOA and ditch Russian gas.
Merkel’s speech clashed dramatically with Pence’s during the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
She criticized the US stance toward the Nord Stream 2 international gas pipeline.
Merkel’s speech received a standing ovation, with only Russian and Chinese representatives, as well as the US president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, remaining seated. Pence’s speech ended in an awkward silence, The New York Times reports.”The two speeches were a reminder of how far apart Europe and the United States are on a range of global issues,” the newspaper wrote.
“In contrast to Merkel’s visionary outward-looking speech that triggered warm applause, Mr. Pence delivered a stilted defense of Trump’s achievements to a sceptical audience,” noted Amanda Sloat, a scholar with the Brookings Institution in Washington DC and a former Obama administration official.