Merkel:

I have yet to see anyone suggesting that the slave trade wasn't wrong. I do recall you trying to paint Europeans as unique in their opposition to it (easy thing to do 200 years late), and having had nothing to do with it, while trying to paint the America that admitted to it's flaws on slavery as being eternally wrong on the matter. I'd also note that when one sees people weighing Germany down with the burden of their empirial past, it is nearly never an American.

What also needs to be noted that the Americas were a european colony. In the Americas, the general public does not make a religion of dwelling hatred on Europeans for that, nor do we have any delusions about it. More to the point we look back and forward to what we have built out from it. From the ashes of that past, including our own wrongs we find a way to move forward, not remained trapped in out feelings and chained to those roots.

This hatred of their own past hegemony over people, and present hegemony over the public global political dialogue, control of the channels of aid beyond any range of involvement, and other "power" that can ber derived by talking is little more than a form of self-loathing by the proxy of detesting America. When I see critics do it, even trying to be subtle about it, it's painful to watch them embarrassing themselves in something they think will benefit humanity.

It's actually motivated by a desire to boost ones' profile through words alone. Imagine this: Europeans stop exhibeting open or tacit hostility for one another after a millenium, stop restricting the interaction and trade that kept them poor and is signified by that areas of less than 100km have their own language for lack of contact... they stop doing this, and imagine that finally getting a clue after what they've put the world through makes them experts in civility that humanity ought thank and replicate.

Here's a thought: reason humanely, take actual beneficial action instead of trusting the efficacy of a flurry of press releases, and keep moving forward. When something genuine is achieved, then it's time to look back fondly.

How is the UK's inaction America's responsibility?