German Chancellor Merz: Protectionist wave ‘is causing trouble for global trade’

The signal here is less the sentiment than the source: a sitting German chancellor naming protectionism as a drag on trade puts Europe's largest economy formally on record against rising barriers, which matters for export-exposed sectors and for RWA and tokenized-asset markets that depend on open cross-border capital flows. The remark is directionally notable but substantively thin, with no policies, targets or figures attached. Whether rhetoric from Berlin translates into concrete trade or regulatory positioning is the open question.