German president 'worried' about Trump victory

German President Joachim Gauck said he was worried about the prospect of Donald Trump winning the race for the White House, citing the US Republican hopeful's "unpredictability" as a cause for concern, according to a magazine interview published yesterday.

"We can't say what could be expected from a President Donald Trump," Gauck told Germany's Der Spiegel weekly. "To me, and to many people in the United States and here at home, this constitutes a problem."

"When I look at Washington, I am worried."

The German president, whose role is largely ceremonial, said he hoped "that American democracy, which does not allow the president to act as an autocrat, that the system of checks and balances, of mutual control" of power would be maintained.