It‘s often been said that trust is something that you earn — or that you completely destroy in irredeemable ways. So it‘s a little bizarre to see President Obama trying to restore German trust in the US (and specifically over NSA surveillance) with a bogus „hey, trust us“ line, when his own government has spent the past few years doing everything possible to undermine any residual trust. Yet here he is, in a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, asking for „the benefit of the doubt.“