Axios

The German Ambassador said "If America abdicates its leadership role, there will be a vacuum and other countries might step in. It might be Russia, it might be China," while speaking with Mike Allen Wednesday morning at an Axios News Shapers event.

German Ambassador Peter Wittig:

• What Merkel said on the Paris deal: "Europe must take its fate into its own hands…We should not always think that we can rely on others."
• On Germany's upcoming election: "We are less polarized than other countries in Europe…We have new right wing anti-immigration party and that has bothered us for a while. The rise of right-wing populism has peaked."

Jordanian Ambassador Dina Kawar:

• On Trump's foreign trip in the Middle East: "Many Arabs were happy to see that was the first trip he did."
• On intel sharing with the U.S. and terrorism: "We've managed to become one of the countries with the most [information]…we're sharing a lot of information."
• "Jordanians open their homes" to refugees: "We managed to take around 1.4 million which is around 20% of our population increase…That's like asking the population of Canada to move into the United States...It has been a burden on our economy [but] we could not close the borders…Jordanians open their homes…It's not controversial."

Singaporean Ambassador Ashok Mirpuri:

• On meeting Trump: "It was interesting to have a chat with him. He was familiar with the world, he spoke about Singapore, he was familiar with Singapore."
• The importance of getting out of D.C.: "I have traveled to 42 states in the United States…I always find it's good to get outside of Washington, D.C. People are very generous with their time, that gives a good idea of what is happening in the United States."

When it comes to using renewable energy and new technologies to power their cities, the Dutch are leading the way:

• A Dutch tech startup has already built a testing site for a Hyperloop system between Amsterdam and Paris, with the hopes of having it done by 2021, Science Alert reported.
• After setting a goal of having all public trains — which use about 1.2 billion kWh of electricity a year — run on renewable energy by 2018, the Netherlands accomplished it a whole year early, according to Business Insider.
• The Netherlands has 2,200 wind turbines, which could sustain 2.4 million homes.

Why it matters: The Netherlands has been giving billions of dollars in subsidies to the renewable energy industry for the past several years. The Dutch government announced late last year that they'd be phasing out some of these subsidies in order to focus on energy saving and carbon capture technologies, Reuters reported.

David Rank, who was serving as chargé d'affaires (Acting U.S. Ambassador) in China, resigned from his post over Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate pact. A State Dept. official tells Axios Rank "made a personal decision," adding that the dept. thanks him for his "years of dedicated service."

Rank was responsible for delivering official notice to the Chinese that the U.S. was pulling out of the deal, and he declined to do so, telling colleagues in a speech he could not in good conscience as "a parent, a patriot and a Christian" play a role carrying out Trump's wishes to withdraw, per The Washington Post.

Rank was a career foreign service officer since 1990 and had been serving in Beijing when China and the U.S. originally made commitments to the deal.