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| German Chancellor Angela Merkel |
German weekly magazine Der Spiegel sparked controversy at home and abroad on Saturday with a front cover illustration of US President Donald Trump beheading the Statue of Liberty.
It depicts a cartoon figure of Trump with a bloodied knife in one hand and the statueโs head, dripping with blood, in the other. It carries the caption โAmerica Firstโ.
The artist who designed the cover, Edel Rodriguez, a Cuban who came to the United States in 1980 as a political refugee, told The Washington Post: โItโs a beheading of democracy, a beheading of a sacred symbol.โ
The cover set off a debate on Twitter and in German and international media, with Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, a member of Germanyโs Free Democrats (FDP) and vice president of the European Parliament, describing it as โtastelessโ.
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| US. President Donald Trump is depicted beheading the Statue of Liberty in this illustration on the cover of the latest issue of German news magazine Der Spiegel |
The cover follows a series of attacks on Berlinโs policies by Trump and his aides, marking a rapid deterioration in German relations with the United States. Chancellor Angela Merkel was the go-to European ally for former US president Barack Obama, who praised her as โan outstanding partnerโ.
Last month, Trump said Merkel had made a โcatastrophic mistakeโ with her open-door migration policy, and this week his top trade adviser said Germany was using a โgrossly undervaluedโ euro to gain advantage over the United States and its European partners.
No one was available for comment on the Spiegel cover at the U.S. embassy in Berlin.
