WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on Trump's meeting with Germany's Angela Merkel (all times local):

President Donald Trump is saying the United States is "not going to be played" when it comes to peace talks with North Korea.

Trump sat alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House on Friday and said that talks on the divided Korean peninsula have "never gone this far."

Trump spoke hours after Kim Jong Un became the first North Korean leader to visit south of the demarcation line between the two Koreas, meeting with President Moon Jae-in.

They pledged in a joint statement to seek a formal end to the Korean War by year's end and to rid their peninsula of nuclear weapons, without specifying how it would be achieved.

Trump credited his own leadership for why talks will "be different" in these negotiations.

President Donald Trump is welcoming German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House.

Merkel arrived Friday for a private meeting and a working lunch. The two are expected to discuss global trade and security issues.

Trump greeted her outside the White House with a handshake and a kiss on each cheek.

The visit comes as Trump weighs withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear accord, an agreement Germany believes should stay in pace. Another concern for the German leader is that a European Union exemption from Trump's new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum is set to soon expire.

Merkel's trip comes after French President Emmanuel Macron was treated to the first state visit of the Trump administration, complete with a glitzy state dinner.

President Donald Trump's visit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House will be less than three hours.

There are likely to be fewer hugs on display than earlier in the week, when Trump played host to French President Emmanuel Macron for a lavish, three-day state visit.

But Merkel's message will likely be similar to Macron's: That America and Europe need to bury the hatchet on key issues, from global trade to international security.

In the hours before Merkel's arrival at the White House, Trump himself took note of their limited schedule. Merkel is scheduled to have a 30-minute Oval Office meeting with Trump, followed by a working lunch and joint news conference. </s> President Donald Trump meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Photo by Chris Kleponis/UPI | License Photo

President Donald Trump meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Photo by Chris Kleponis/UPI | License Photo

President Donald Trump greets Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel as she arrives at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

President Donald Trump speaks at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

April 27 (UPI) -- Though she's in Washington, D.C., to persuade President Donald Trump to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday she agrees the accord is not sufficient to curb Tehran's bad actions.

Merkel spoke about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action during a news conference with Trump in the East Room of the White House. She is the second European leader to visit the White House this week with the expectations of pressuring Trump to keep the United States in the deal ahead of a May 12 deadline.

Trump has repeatedly called it a bad deal and said he wants out of it, while British, French and German leaders have negotiated with U.S. officials in recent months to keep the pact together.

"We are of the opinion that the JCPOA is the first step that has contributed to the slowing down of activities," Merkel said. "But we also think ... that this is not sufficient in order to see to it that Iran's ambitions are curbed and are contained.

She said the agreement "is anything but perfect" and that "it will not solve all the problems of Iran." She described the JCPOA as one piece in the plan to limit Iran's bad actions.

But Merkel said it's of "prime importance" to Germany to tackle the threat of Iran as it exerts "geopolitical influence in Syria."

Merkel said she anticipates more discussions with U.S. officials on the deal.

RELATED Jewish leader warns against wearing yarmulkes in German cities

French President Emmanuel Macron visited earlier in the week and after multiple days of talks, he told reporters he wasn't optimistic that the United States would stay in the deal.

"My view -- I don't know what your president will decide -- is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons," he said, adding it would be a "big risk" and "very insane in the medium to long-term" to pull out of the accord.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium and reduce its number of gas centrifuges. Some of the restrictions on Iran are scheduled to be lifted after 10 and 15 years. </s> German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her experience at recent international summits featuring US President Donald Trump showed her Europe can't "completely" rely on the United States and other longstanding allies.

"The times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over," Merkel said at a campaign event in Munich. "I experienced that in the last a few days, and therefore I can only say that we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands."

Trump addressed NATO members on Thursday, pointedly instructing member nations to increase their defense spending. Then at the G7 summit on Friday and Saturday, leaders including Merkel failed to convince Trump to commit to stay in the Paris climate deal. Trump tweeted from Sicily on Saturday that he would make a final decision next week, and the US took a separate stance on climate from the other nations in the official G7 communique.

Merkel met with former US President Barack Obama in Berlin prior to the NATO summit on Thursday. Along with Obama, Merkel has been one of the most prominent voices from Western nations countering nationalist movements of the kind represented by the Brexit campaign and Trump's policies.

At the Sunday campaign event, Merkel said that Europeans would continue to work in friendship with the US, the UK and others wherever possible, including Russia, but stressed her view that Europeans must be self-reliant.

"We need to know that we have to fight for our own future and destiny as Europeans," Merkel said. She went on to express solidarity with the UK against terror, following a deadly attack at a concert in Manchester, England, last week. If her party is successful in German elections this fall, Merkel would stand for a fourth term as chancellor. Merkel closed out her Munich speech drinking a mug of beer surrounded by supporters doing the same. </s> German Chancellor Angela Merkel is making a brief "working visit" at the White House with US President Donald Trump Friday.

The brief trip, which follows French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to the United States, comes amid heightened tensions between Berlin and Washington over US trade policy and Trump's opposition to the Iran nuclear deal.

Read more: US-German conflicts — what you need to know

Macron's US visit: French President Emmanuel Macron Emmanual spent three days in the US earlier in the week in a state visit to the US. The French president used his trip to lobby Trump to stay in a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and refrain from slapping tariffs on goods from allied countries.

Read more: France's Emmanuel Macron urges Donald Trump not to ditch Iran deal

Protecting free trade from Trump: The US enacted tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in late March, but temporarily exempted European imports from the measures at the last minute. Germany's exporting companies have called on Merkel to convince Washington to maintain the exemption beyond the May 1.

Protecting the Iran deal from Trump: Trump has repeatedly criticized the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and threatened to withdraw the US from it unless changes are made by May 12. The agreement suspended international sanctions in return for Iran promising to halt its nuclear program. Merkel and Macron want to save the deal.

Merkel's cheeseburger: The German chancellor ate a cheeseburger with bacon and French fries after she arrived in Washington on Thursday evening, according to a waiter from "J. Pauls" restaurant. The waiter, who told German broadcaster n-tv about the meal, said Merkel washed it all down with a Pinot Grigio.

Read more: Can Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron save the Iran nuclear deal? </s> (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin). President Donald Trump claps as the car with German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives Friday April 27, 2018, at the White House in Washington.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci). President Donald Trump meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, April 27, 2018, in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on Trump's meeting with Germany's Angela Merkel (all times local):

President Donald Trump says he'll make sure Iran does not use nuclear weapons, adding, "You can bank on it."

Trump is speaking at a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The president was asked if he would use military force to reign in Iran's nuclear program, if the U.S. drops out of the international nuclear deal with Iran.

Trump says he won't discuss the use of military force, but he says: "They are not going to be doing nuclear weapons. You can bank on it."

President Donald Trump is calling on NATO allies to increase their defense spending. Trump's holding a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Trump's pressing European nations to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense - as he has urged since his campaign.

Trump also complains that the World Trade Organization has treated the U.S. poorly. He calls for "fair and reciprocal trade relationships with our friends and allies."

Merkel says Germany will continue to be a reliable partner within the NATO alliance.

Germany's latest budget will take defense spending to 1.3 percent of GDP. Merkel acknowledges that's far short of the 2 percent goal but says Germany is still aiming for that over time.

President Donald Trump says he is looking forward to a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying it "should be quite something."

Trump spoke Friday at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He congratulated the leaders of North and South Korea after a historic summit and said his meeting with Kim will be in the "coming weeks."

Trump says a "maximum pressure" campaign will continue "until denuclearization occurs."

Trump spoke hours after Kim Jong Un became the first North Korean leader to visit south of the demarcation line between the two Koreas, meeting with President Moon Jae-in. The leaders pledged in a joint statement to seek a formal end to the Korean War by year's end and to rid their peninsula of nuclear weapons.

President Donald Trump is saying the United States is "not going to be played" when it comes to peace talks with North Korea.

Trump sat alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House on Friday and said that talks on the divided Korean peninsula have "never gone this far."

Trump spoke hours after Kim Jong Un became the first North Korean leader to visit south of the demarcation line between the two Koreas, meeting with President Moon Jae-in.

They pledged in a joint statement to seek a formal end to the Korean War by year's end and to rid their peninsula of nuclear weapons, without specifying how it would be achieved.

Trump credited his own leadership for why talks will "be different" in these negotiations.

President Donald Trump is welcoming German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House.

Merkel arrived Friday for a private meeting and a working lunch. The two are expected to discuss global trade and security issues.

Trump greeted her outside the White House with a handshake and a kiss on each cheek.

The visit comes as Trump weighs withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear accord, an agreement Germany believes should stay in pace. Another concern for the German leader is that a European Union exemption from Trump's new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum is set to soon expire.

Merkel's trip comes after French President Emmanuel Macron was treated to the first state visit of the Trump administration, complete with a glitzy state dinner.

President Donald Trump's visit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House will be less than three hours.

There are likely to be fewer hugs on display than earlier in the week, when Trump played host to French President Emmanuel Macron for a lavish, three-day state visit.

But Merkel's message will likely be similar to Macron's: That America and Europe need to bury the hatchet on key issues, from global trade to international security.

In the hours before Merkel's arrival at the White House, Trump himself took note of their limited schedule. Merkel is scheduled to have a 30-minute Oval Office meeting with Trump, followed by a working lunch and joint news conference.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> “Since the U.S. announced that it would exit the Paris agreement, we cannot expect any easy talks in Hamburg,” Merkel said, referring to the Group of 20 summit scheduled for July 7-8. “The dissent is obvious and it would be dishonest to cover it up.”

Despite the withdrawal of the United States, the world’s second-largest polluter, the EU remains committed to the Paris climate accord, she said. But she was blunt about the obstacles posed by American retreat from the deal, which was signed by 195 nations in an attempt to forge global consensus around limiting greenhouse gases.

BERLIN—In forceful remarks before Germany’s Parliament on Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to defend the international climate agreement spurned by the Trump administration, anticipating a difficult meeting of the leaders of the world’s major economies next week in Hamburg.

She said talks in Hamburg must “serve the substance and aims of the Paris accord” and insisted that she would not countenance calls to revise the agreement. She deemed the pact “irreversible.”

Without naming him, Merkel appeared to lament U.S. President Donald Trump’s uncertainty about human-induced climate change, saying, “We can’t, and we won’t, wait until the last person on Earth is convinced of the scientific evidence for climate change.”

Her pledge echoed a rare joint statement from Germany, France and Italy rebuking Trump’s call to revise the agreement, which he said would have paralyzed American businesses and prevented the U.S. “from conducting its own domestic affairs.”

A chasm separates Merkel and Trump — and not just on climate — as they head into the conference in the northern German port city of Hamburg. The German leader has said she also intends to make free trade and the shared burdens of managing the global refugee crisis focal points of discussions. These principles stand in uneasy relationship with the doctrine of “America first” that guides Trump’s foreign policy.

One of her goals, Merkel said, would be “to send a clear signal for free markets and against isolationism,” adding: “Whoever believes that the world’s problems can be solved by isolationism and protectionism is making an enormous error.”

Merkel, who heads Europe’s most powerful economy, was preparing for the annual summit by hosting European heads of state in Berlin. In her speech Thursday morning, she reviewed the results of the European Council meeting last week in Brussels, where leaders began the protracted process of cutting Britain loose from the EU.

But she looked past that undertaking to affirm the strength of the European bloc — the longevity of which has been tested over the past year — and other multilateral institutions. The long-serving German chancellor was adamant that the business of strengthening the continent would not be bogged down by negotiations over the terms of the British exit.

Especially important, she said, were avenues opened up by Franco-German co-operation, including new ideas to stabilize the euro zone. Merkel has said she is receptive to some of the ideas offered by French President Emmanuel Macron, such as installing a single finance minister and common budget for the euro zone.

Elmar Brok, a member of the European Parliament and a close ally of Merkel’s, said working with France is critical to each of her European objectives — from reform of the economic union to greater co-operation in security and defence.

Trump’s election and the decision of British voters to leave the EU were repudiations of Merkel’s vision of a liberal, integrated West. But they may end up giving new impetus to her longer-term European aims, Brok said.

“She has a great chance right now,” said Brok, a member of the European Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs and its former chairperson. “There is a new European consciousness that we have to be stronger.”

At the same time, these efforts must be coupled with a sustained commitment to a close partnership with the United States, said Jurgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesperson for Merkel’s ruling coalition in Parliament.

Hardt said Merkel’s speech was not a rejection of Trump’s government but a rebuttal of his idea that the American people are best served by an inward-looking policy.

“It’s not a fight against the U.S. but a fight for common values,” he said, noting that Germany still depends on the United States to buy its exports and defend it militarily. “We want a trustful partner in the U.S. on security but also on trade and economic issues — to the benefit of U.S. citizens and European citizens.” </s> BERLIN — A combative Chancellor Angela Merkel set herself on a collision course with President Trump and his “America first” agenda on Thursday, predicting “very difficult” talks over climate change and trade when she hosts a summit meeting of 20 global leaders next week.

Speaking before Parliament on a day when she also gathered European Union leaders in Berlin to form a common front, the German leader made no bones about the “obvious” disagreement with the United States.

“Whoever believes the problems of this world can be solved by isolationism and protectionism is making a tremendous error,” Ms. Merkel said, in what will most likely be her final address before Parliament before closing out her third term in office.

In the midst of an election campaign, the chancellor has been criticized by her main opponent for not standing up more forcefully to the American president. Her tough tone to some degree served as domestic political posturing, intended to enhance her appeal as a global leader uniquely qualified to guide Germany after more than 11 years in office.

But there was also little doubt that Ms. Merkel was trying to gird Germans and her European Union partners for a more conflictual relationship with the United States, which she said could no longer be counted on as a “reliable” ally after Mr. Trump’s visit to Europe in May.

Those divisions are likely to be full display during the Group of 20 summit meeting that begins July 7 in the German city of Hamburg, where Ms. Merkel will welcome not only Mr. Trump but also President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and other leaders from industrialized and emerging nations.

Global trade, as well as measures to halt climate change, migration, terrorism and international pandemics are all on the agenda. For the chancellor, however, the most important single message of the gathering is ensuring multilateral cooperation through international institutions. Those include the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, both of which will are taking part in the meeting.

The stage for conflict at the gathering was set in March, when a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 ended in discord as the United States broke with its allies and forced a rewriting of the final joint statement. Among other things, the United States delegation insisted that a pledge to support the 2015 Paris accords on climate change be dropped.

In the months since, Washington has only toughened its stance, repeatedly criticizing Germany over its trade surplus and formally announcing that the United States would back out of the Paris climate agreement.

Combating climate change is an issue close to the chancellor’s heart, and on Thursday she saved some of her most pointed language to address her differences with the Trump administration. “Since the decision by the United States of America to quit the Paris climate accords, we are more determined than ever to make it a success,” Ms. Merkel told lawmakers.

“We will and must take on this existential challenge,” she said, “and we cannot and will not wait until every last person in the world can be convinced of climate change by scientific evidence. In other words: The climate treaty is irreversible and is not negotiable.”

Ms. Merkel said she would not pretend that differences with Washington on this stance do not exist. “It would be disingenuous if we tried to gloss over it,” she said. “At any rate, I will not do that.”

On global trade, German impatience with Washington’s stance could be seen this week, when the secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, canceled a trip to Berlin, where he was supposed to appear alongside of Ms. Merkel at an economic conference. Instead, Mr. Ross appeared via video link, repeating the administration’s criticism of the German trade surplus, but calling for the resumption of talks on a trans-Atlantic trade agreement. After his talk went on more than twice as long as the 10 minutes originally scheduled, organizers at the Christian Democrats’ Economic Council pulled the plug on him to allow the chancellor to take the stage.

The decision to cut the secretary off midsentence “had nothing to do with the content of the speech — we were just running behind schedule, and we told that to our contact on the American side,” said Klaus-Hubert Fugger, a spokesman for the council.

Mr. Trump is not the only challenge Ms. Merkel will face at the summit meeting, which the chancellor had hoped would demonstrate Germany’s role as an open, tolerant global leader. Trouble has also been brewing around the Turkish president, who has also clashed openly with the chancellor and her government, most recently by refusing to allow lawmakers to visit troops stationed at Incirlik Air Base. The German government relocated them in Jordan.

On Thursday, the German government rejected a request by Mr. Erdogan to hold a rally while he is in the country for the gathering.

An estimated three million Turks or Germans with Turkish heritage live in the country, and officials in Berlin fear stirring up conflicts linked to Turkish domestic policies. Ms. Merkel’s government has condemned Turkey’s crackdown on dissent since a coup attempt against the Turkish leader last July. And this year, Germany refused to let politicians from Mr. Erdogan’s party address campaign rallies in the country before a Turkish referendum, a decision which the Turkish president criticized as “Nazi style” behavior.

Hamburg is home to about 90,000 Turkish immigrants and their descendants, many of them ethnic Kurds, and security officials in the port city are seeking to prevent any clashes between Mr. Erdogan’s supporters and opponents in Germany. Hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected to descend on Hamburg during the summit meeting, taking part in mass demonstrations that have been planned surrounding the event.

On Wednesday, Germany’s highest court ruled that city officials had to allow demonstrators to camp in city parks. The police had sought to prevent such tent cities, arguing they could harbor protesters planning violence. Protesters say the camps are necessary to allow them to demonstrate an alterative, anticapitalist style of living.

In closing her address to Parliament, the chancellor acknowledged the right to protest but urged those taking part to show restraint.

“We know that there will be protests, and that is more than legitimate in a democracy,” Ms. Merkel said, adding her hope “that these demonstrations will be peaceful.” </s> German chancellor Angela Merkel gave her strongest indication yet that Europe and the US under president Donald Trump are drifting apart, saying reliable relationships forged since the end of the second World War “are to some extent over”.

Speaking at a campaign rally in a beer tent in Munich on Sunday, Dr Merkel offered a glimpse of her world view after Mr Trump’s nine-day trip, during which he hectored Nato allies for not spending enough on defence, called Germany’s trade surplus “very bad,” and brought the US to the brink of exiting the global Paris climate accord.

Dr Merkel, who met Mr Trump during the Nato meeting in Brussels and the Group of Seven (G7) world leaders’ summit in Taormina, Sicily, said Europe must now plot its own course.

“The times when we could fully rely on others are to some extent over – I experienced that in the last few days,” Dr Merkel told supporters in the Bavarian capital a day after the G7 meeting ended. “We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.

“Of course we need to have friendly relations with the US and with the UK and with other neighbours, including Russia, ” she said. Even so, “we have to fight for our own future ourselves”.

Richard Haass, president of the US Council on Foreign Relations, called Dr Merkel’s comments a “watershed” in a Twitter message, saying the scenario is “what US has sought to avoid” since the second World War.

Mr Trump spurned overtures by mostly European leaders to commit to the Paris climate treaty at the weekend G7 meeting, a development Dr Merkel called “very unsatisfactory”. After first meeting Mr Trump in Washington in March, Dr Merkel has had little success in finding common ground with her new American counterpart.

Despite Dr Merkel’s commitment to working towards Nato’s goal for each member country to spend the equivalent of 2 per cent of its economic output on defence by 2024, Mr Trump dressed down the leaders of the alliance at a summit meeting on May 25th for “not paying what they should”. He spoke shortly after Dr Merkel gave a two-minute speech lauding the alliance’s common purpose.

The German leader has hit back repeatedly as the Trump administration lambastes the country’s trade surplus with the US. On climate, meanwhile, European officials have braced for a US exit of the first global agreement that sets commitments on limiting global warming – one put together in 2015 by almost 200 countries.

Relations between Germany and the US became strained in 2002-2003 when then chancellor Gerhard Schröeder refused to support the US invasion of Iraq under president George W Bush. Dr Merkel’s comments, though, signalled a broader transatlantic split.

Dr Merkel made a pitch for European unity at the Munich rally, citing election victories over nationalist movements in France and the Netherlands as evidence that European Union voters were retreating from a populist surge.

Dr Merkel’s line on reliability, Europe’s need to plot its own course, and her pledge to “fight” in Europe’s interest drew extended applause from supporters dressed in traditional lederhosen and dirndls. Saying she’ll stand up for the EU project of “peace and freedom”, Dr Merkel singled out this month’s victory of Emmanuel Macron over nationalist Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential race.

“I wish Macron all the best for his country, that people have jobs again and that people have a future – that young people can believe in Europe again,” Merkel said. “Wherever Germany can help, Germany will help.”

The venue for Dr Merkel’s comments, a beer tent festooned with blue and white bunting set up by the chancellor’s Bavarian allies in the Christian Social Union (CSU), revealed the German leader in campaign mode 17 weeks before elections. Seeking her fourth term, Dr Merkel (62) brandished a tankard of beer after projecting herself as a defender of global stability after almost 12 years in office.

“We thought that after meeting with the US president, she would need a pause to recover,” Horst Seehofer, the Bavarian premier and chairman of the CSU, said at the rally. He feted Dr Merkel for “representing our fatherland excellently” abroad.

The praise by Mr Seehofer, who pilloried Dr Merkel throughout the country’s refugee crisis for not doing enough to stem the flow of migrants, marked a turnaround. After three recent state election wins by her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she’s rebounded in the polls as she aims for victory in the September 24th election.

Dr Merkel’s CDU and the CSU jointly have a 13-point lead over the Social Democrats, according to an Emnid poll published on Saturday, capturing a turnaround after the German SPD under Martin Schulz had largely pulled even with the chancellor’s faction in February and March. – (Bloomberg) </s> FRANKFURT AM MAIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that she was considering how to protect "strategic" EU industries from Chinese investment, drawing closer to the position of French President Emmanuel Macron.

"Europe must work hard to defend its influence and above all to speak with one voice to China," Merkel told business weekly WirtschaftsWoche.

"Seen from Beijing, Europe is more like an Asian peninsula. Obviously, we see things differently," she added.

While the Chinese and European economies were increasingly intertwined, Merkel said, there remain points of contention about strategic industries and government procurement.

Citing the example of recent German investment in microchip manufacturing, Merkel argued that "if countries like China then want to buy up what has been built with large subsidies, we have to react," possibly by defining some industrial branches as having strategic significance for Europe.

Equally, "we are willing to allow the Chinese to take part [in bids for government contracts] in Europe, but then we want access in the other direction to their procurement," she said.

"We have to deal with China's claims and demands in such a way that there is a harmonious development to everyone's advantage."

At an EU summit last week, leaders failed to agree on handing more power to Brussels to control foreign investments in strategic European industries, despite a charm offensive by the recently-elected French leader.

But Merkel, who has closed ranks with Macron in a bid to revive the traditional Franco-German "motor" of the EU following Britain's decision to quit the bloc, noted that heads of government would soon discuss the idea again.

The chancellor welcomes leaders of industrialised and emerging economies to the northern port city Hamburg next week for a G20 summit.

She has been straining to unite European neighbours around free-trade and climate-friendly policies as a counterweight to United States President Donald Trump.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has sought to champion both topics since Trump took office, aiming to align more closely with Europe.

But Merkel's comments Thursday suggest there could be more frost than expected ahead of the G20 next week, when Xi joins the chancellor to unveil two pandas loaned by Beijing to Berlin zoo in a sign of friendly ties.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump hold a joint press conference at the White House. Merkel states she believes that there can be a bilateral trade deal between the European Union and the United States.