We agree: Brussels can't regulate everything. I'm driven by something else: There are forces in Europe that want to generally give national policy priority over a common European approach. We have to prevent this.

We have to engage in a dialogue with Donald Trump because he is the elected president of the United States of America. But we have to emphatically oppose his foreign policy ideas.

We agree: Brussels can't regulate everything. I'm driven by something else: There are forces in Europe that want to generally give national policy priority over a common European approach. We have to prevent this.

I have no illusions. Of course, Russia is massively upgrading its military. We know that Russia is pursuing a policy of expansion. This is of course a cause for concern among Eastern European countries.

Gerhard Schröder offered a clear German NEIN to an American president's war of aggression that was in violation of international law. That took courage. Ms. Merkel did not join him at the time. If Trump now begins to take the wrecking ball to our set of values, we must say clearly: That is not our approach.

I spoke with Gerhard Schröder about a lot of things, including foreign policy. Schröder knows how important European policy is to me personally. I have worked together with Angela Merkel on European policy for many years, so I was surprised when Volker Kauder who has little experience in European policy, claimed that I had not represented German interests in Europe. That's an example of how the conservatives conduct an election campaign.

Donald Trump is betraying everything that made America great: tolerance, democratic institutions and respect for the individual. In that sense, Trump is the most un-American U.S. president that the country has had in a long time.