By Andrew Hammond

Of all the 27 EU nations, it is the bloc’s most powerful state and largest economy, Germany, that may have the most at stake in November’s US election. This was clear on Thursday and Friday, when Joe Biden made what is likely to be his last presidential trip to Europe.

Biden’s relationship with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been far from disagreement-free over the last few years. Nonetheless, the relationship between the two men has been significantly more constructive than the one between their respective predecessors, Angela Merkel and Donald Trump.

That the four-year period of overlap between Trump and Merkel from early 2017 to early 2021 saw the biggest flux in bilateral ties in decades is unquestionable. There were not only major policy challenges, but also very poor personal relations between the two leaders.

To be sure, there have been previous significant disagreements between Germany and the US in the postwar era. One example was the 2003 Iraq War, which created a significant schism in the transatlantic alliance, as then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder opposed US President George W. Bush’s decision to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime.

However, Germany has generally had strong ties with the US since 1945. Indeed, for much of her long chancellorship from 2005 to........

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