German magazine's controversial cover depicts Donald Trump beheading Statue of Liberty

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”. [caption id=“attachment_3266700” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] US President Donald Trump is depicted beheading the Statue of Liberty in German news magazine Der Spiegel. Reuters[/caption] 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 set off a debate on Twitter and in German and international media, with Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, a member of Germany’s Free Democrats (FDP) and vice-president of the European Parliament, describing it as “tasteless”. 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 United States. Chancellor Angela Merkel was the go-to European ally for former US president Barack Obama, who praised her as “an outstanding partner”. Last month, Trump said Merkel had made a “catastrophic mistake” with her open-door migration policy, and this week his top trade adviser said Germany was using a “grossly undervalued” euro to gain advantage over the United States and its European partners. No one was available for comment on the Spiegel cover at the US embassy in Berlin.