Chancellor Angela Merkel said the United States runs a trade surplus with Europe when services are included, marshaling a rebuff to President Donald J. Trump’s sustained criticism of German exports.
In a speech in Berlin, Merkel said the topic was discussed at last week’s tumultuous Group of Seven summit, where a US-Canadian trade dispute caused Trump to renege on his support for the leaders’ concluding statement.
“Trade surpluses are still calculated in a pretty old-fashioned way, based only on goods,” Merkel told a business conference of her Christian Democratic Union party on Tuesday evening. “But if you include services in the trade balance, the US has big surplus with Europe.”