BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has spent months walking a tightrope in his dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump. Now he appears to have fallen off.
Merz has bent further than most European leaders to stay in Trump’s good graces, deeming it a strategic necessity to maintain close ties with an American leader known for holding grudges. But under rising political pressure at home the chancellor has also sharpened his criticism of Trump and of the war in Iran — both deeply unpopular in Germany.
With some pointed criticism of the war at a high school earlier this week, the chancellor appeared to lose that tenuous balance — and to really get under Trump’s skin.
After Merz told the children in attendance that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by the Iranian regime, Trump responded by attacking the chancellor on Truth Social and threatening Berlin’s nightmare scenario: a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany.
Merz tried to downplay the spat and carry on as if nothing had happened, insisting at a German military training ground on Thursday that all was well with Berlin’s most important strategic relationship.
“We are carrying out this work here as well as at other strategically important locations in Germany side by side with the United States of America and our NATO allies across the alliance,” Merz said after witnessing army exercises. Germany is strengthening its military, he added, “for our mutual benefit and to deeepen our transatlantic bond.”
Merz was likely betting that the matter would blow over and that Trump would ultimately back down in line with the “TACO” principle coined on Wall Street: Trump Always Chickens Out.
After all, Merz had watched as Trump threatened to shred the U.S. trade deal with the U.K. over British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s opposition to the war on Iran, and also as the U.S. president vowed to “embargo” Spain over Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s still more strident criticism. In neither case had Trump followed through.
But the American leader continued to seethe on Thursday.
“The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after Merz’s comments on the transatlantic bond.
That’s quite a turnaround from the bonhomie the pair had enjoyed.
Trump has previously praised Merz’s government for its immigration and energy policies, while during an Oval Office meeting between Merz and Trump in March the president called the chancellor a “friend” who is doing “really a great job.”
Merz’s strategy has been to avoid publicly confronting Trump — despite deep disagreements on issues from Ukraine to trade — in order to preserve friendly ties and maintain enough leverage to privately nudge the president toward Germany’s positions.
That approach is emblematic of a larger German strategy for dealing with the Trump administration and fraying transatlantic ties. Even as German leaders seek to rapidly reduce their country’s military and economic reliance on the U.S., they believe they will continue to depend on American power — including U.S. nuclear deterrence and intelligence sharing — for years to come. So despite the fundamental rifts, Merz has tried to maintain relations to the greatest extent possible.
Every so often, however, due either to his frustration at the fallout from Trump’s actions — such as the serious economic repercussions of the Iran war for Germany — or to the domestic political cost of playing nice with a deeply unpopular president, Merz lashes out.
But by suggesting that the Trump administration had been “humiliated” by the Iranians, the chancellor may have gone too far — risking a rupture with a president known for his vindictive streak.
While the stakes are potentially extremely high for Germany, political leaders remained relatively sanguine, noting that the U.S. needs its military presence in Germany for its own operations. Despite Trump’s attacks on Merz, many argue, military cooperation on the ground remains close and deeply integrated, and a rapid American drawdown is unrealistic.
“This is not the first time we’ve been confronted with such threats,” said Christoph Schmid, a leading defense policy lawmaker for Merz’s center-left coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party. “A withdrawal is, in the short term, simply not feasible. And in the medium to long term, it would weaken the operational capabilities of the U.S. military worldwide.”
During his first term Trump announced plans to withdraw 9,500 American troops from bases in Germany. But with less than one year left in his presidency, he ran out of time to deliver, and his successor, U.S. President Joe Biden, moved to stop the initiative.
Trump now has three years to deliver on any new potential withdrawal plan. But for Merz the greater danger may be the loss of Trump’s ear, particularly when it comes to support for Ukraine.
In the interim, Merz appears intent on getting back on Trump’s good side.
As he put it earlier this week: “The personal relationship between the American president and me remains, in my view, as good as ever.”
Germany’s Merz loses hard-won favor with Trump
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
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