German magazine sparks furore

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 statue’s head, dripping with blood, in the other. It carries the caption: “America First.”

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: “It’s a beheading of democracy, a beheading of a sacred symbol.”

The cover follows a series of attacks on Berlin’s policies by Trump and his aides, marking a rapid deterioration in German relations with the US.

Last month, Trump said Merkel had made a “catastrophic mistake” with her open-door migration policy.

No one was available for comment on the Spiegel cover at the US embassy in Berlin.