Donald Trump Barbs Angela Merkel About German Crime Rate In Tweet

In a Tweet on Monday, President Donald Trump criticized Germany’s open-door refugee policy by claiming the policy was responsible for crime going “way up.” The tweet inferred that this situation could lead to the end of the Angela Merkel’s Berlin coalition.

Merkel refuted the comments in a press conference on Tuesday saying, “The interior ministry recently released the criminal statistics and they speak for themselves. We’re seeing small, positive developments, and we must of course continue to do more on the fight against crime.”

A recent study shows Germany is actually seeing a decline in crime. Recent figures from the German interior ministry show that in total, crime decreased by 9.6 percent between the years 2016 and 2017. That works out to 5.1 percent when discounting crimes related to immigration. In fact, these are the lowest crime levels seen in Germany in 25 years.

While there have been crimes committed by Islamic militants in addition to well-publicized assaults and murders committed by migrant men in Germany recently, the figures still disprove Trump’s accusations.

Violent crime and property theft in Germany were both down 2.4 and 11.8 percent, respectively. Street crime fell 8.6 percent and when the crime’s suspect had been identified, those crimes committed by non-German citizens actually fell 2.2 percent.

Trump’s claim that the German people are turning against the country’s leaders is also unsubstantiated. While the migration crisis is at the center of the tumultuous political environment in Germany, and Merkel’s standing and her party have faced harsh criticism allowing for a rise in power and influence from  far right parties, German popular generally still supports the government.

Germany’s mainstream parties have lost influence and votes since Merkel introduced her open-door policy in 2015. However, in the most recent German elections in September, mainstream political parties in the country still accounted for 53 percent of the votes.

Article by Steven Abendroth