The new US leader "will be and already is a clear challenge". This was stated by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a joint briefing with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace two days after US President Donald Trump took office, reports "Agence France-Presse".
Sholz added: "Europe will not shrink and hide, but will instead be a constructive and assertive partner".
In his words, this position will be "the basis for good cooperation with the new US president".
Europe and the US are linked by "a long history of friendship and partnership", which he called "a solid foundation" for future relations.
Trump has already announced a number of policy measures, "which we will of course analyze in detail together with our European partners," the German Chancellor noted.
The meeting between the two leaders came on the 62nd anniversary of the Élysée Treaty - a framework for Franco-German bilateral relations after World War II.
Our couple is stable, Macron stressed.
Macron and Scholz stressed the role of their countries' close cooperation for European unity.
"Europe must be strong and resilient in a world that is, to put it mildly, on the move," said Scholz, who faces general elections in his country next month.
"The only possible response for Europeans to the period we are entering is more unity, more ambition, more audacity and more independence," he stressed. Macron. "This is our momentum and this is the direction we are going".
Macron said that Europe must not only spend more on its own defense, "but it must also develop its own industrial base, its own capacity, its own industry".