U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made a "catastrophic mistake" with a policy that let a wave of more than one million migrants into her country. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake," Trump said, adding that he always had "great respect" for Merkel and that he still viewed her as one of the most important world leaders. Trump said Germany had only recently gotten a clear impression of the consequences of Merkel's migration policy, without elaborating. In the interview, Trump said British voters would not have approved leaving the European Union had Europe not been engulfed in a migrant crisis. The United States is Germany's most important trading partner, and Trump's protectionist talk has unnerved business leaders and exporters in Europe's biggest economy.

Source: The Star January 16, 2017 06:57 UTC