Mr. MARK FITZPATRICK (Senior Fellow, International Institute for Strategic Studies-London): Well, Germany is of two minds.
HARRIS: Mark Fitzpatrick is a former U.S. diplomat specializing in nonproliferation. He's now at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Mr. FITZPATRICK: Germany places a great value on European common foreign policy, and so it is willing to go along with the British and the French. But the Germans have commercial interests that are a little bit different.
ANCHORS: RENEE MONTAGNE
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
President Bush today hosts the leader of Germany at his Texas ranch. How to keep the Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is expected to dominate his conversation with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany and the U.S. agree on the threat but are not entirely united on the solution.
NPR's Emily Harris reports.
EMILY HARRIS: Germany's core stance on sanctioning Iran is that such measures should be done through the United Nations, not the U.S. acting alone, or even the U.S. and the Europeans.
Chancellor Merkel's foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen says she'll repeat that message in Texas.
Dr. CHRISTOPH HEUSGEN (Foreign Policy Adviser, Germany): We should not allow to have a situation where the Iranians can just point and say, well, it's actually just the Europe and the U.S. that are against us. All the rest is behind us and we are defending the rest of the world against Europe and the U.S.
HARRIS: Merkel's visit with Mr. Bush comes right after the president hosted French leader Nicolas Sarkozy who is pushing other European countries to consider extra sanctions not necessarily approved through the U.N.
Germany is at the moment not on board with that proposal.
Mr. MARK FITZPATRICK (Senior Fellow, International Institute for Strategic Studies-London): Well, Germany is of two minds.
HARRIS: Mark Fitzpatrick is a former U.S. diplomat specializing in nonproliferation. He's now at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Mr. FITZPATRICK: Germany places a great value on European common foreign policy, and so it is willing to go along with the British and the French. But the Germans have commercial interests that are a little bit different.
HARRIS: Germany is the world leader in exports to Iran. That trade has been dropping in large part because of political pressure. Berlin has slashed assistance, cutting the amount of government-backed risk insurance for German firms doing new business with Iran by more than 60 percent in the past two years.
Still, Karsten Voigt, Berlins point man on U.S. relations says bringing up the trade issue reflects a mood in the U.S. he doesn't like.
Mr. KARSTEN VOIGT (Coordinator, German-American Cooperation, Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany): The mood is that the Germany is soft on Iran. This is a perception which is not based on reality. We Germans agree with the U.S. more on Iran than many other European countries.
HARRIS: Germany was among the European countries surprised by the Bush administration's decision two weeks ago to blacklist two Iranian military organizations and three Iranian banks. Since the U.S. does hardly any direct business with the Iran, the new measures were more aimed at pressuring companies elsewhere to also stop doing business with Iran. But Germans argue this type of unilateral action is less effective than sanctions backed by all U.N. members.
Klaus Friedrich(ph) with the German Association of Industrial Equipment Manufacturers, VDMA, says if European companies pull out, others will simply go in.
Mr. KLAUS FRIEDRICH (German Association of Industrial Equipment): We can see it in all volumes that the business of Asian companies - Korea or Japan and specifically in China - increased in the last year in the machinery sector. And, of course, if we do not have United Nation sanctions, they may fill the holes and they will fill the gaps European companies are producing.
HARRIS: A third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran is under discussion. If that proves impossible, German diplomats indicate they might consider backing European sanctions which the U.S. wants.
But Liz Martins(ph), head of Mideast Coverage for Business Monitor International, says Iran's economy is protected by oil exports.
Ms. LIZ MARTINS(ph)(Business Monitor International): We don't see a huge decline. We don't see the - a huge decline in revenues. I mean, you'd have to be out of your mind to put sanctions on oil exports with, you know, oil prices nearly hundred dollars a barrel. We don't think that's going to happen.
HARRIS: She also says U.S. elections next year and Iranian presidential elections in 2009 could change the tone of the nuclear standoff.
Emily Harris, NPR News, Berlin.
