German Chancellor Friedrich Merz successfully navigated a 40-minute meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office without falling victim to the public humiliation the American president has doled out to other leaders — even though both Germany and Europe are two of Trump’s perpetual irritants.
Merz heeded the advice from a number of European leaders that he should let Trump do most of the talking, and when he did talk, to praise the president. Merz faded into the background for much of the meeting, breaking his silence to say that Germany owes “the Americans a lot.”
Merz’s meeting with Trump was a high-risk move to try to lobby the president on several existential issues for the European Union: the brewing transatlantic trade conflict, the continent’s security architecture and the upcoming NATO summit and how to continue support for Ukraine.
The risks included the very public hectoring that both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa suffered on recent visits to the White House.
“I’ll go back with the feeling that we have a good relationship between the US president and the chancellor,” Merz told the German public broadcaster ZDF after the meeting.
During the meeting, Trump and Merz diverged on the issue of how to end the fighting in Ukraine. Trump compared the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine to a fight between two kids, saying: “you try and pull them apart, but they don’t want to be pulled.”
“Sometimes you let them fight for a while,” he added.
When a German reporter asked Merz what he thought about the analogy, the chancellor remained diplomatic. “We are both looking for ways to stop it very soon,” he said. Even though Merz differed in his assessment, he praised Trump, saying: “I told the president before we came in: He is the key person in the world who can really do that by putting pressure on Russia.” Merz continued: “We are all having the duty to do something on that now after 3 1/2 years.”
Although Trump avoided a clear commitment to continue military aid for Ukraine, he also didn’t contradict Merz when the chancellor put the blame for the war squarely with Putin and spoke of a “duty” to act. When Zelenskiy made similar statements in the White House he incurred the wrath of Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Merz drew praise for boosting German defense.
“I know you’re spending more on defense now,” said Trump, who joked that World War II General Douglas MacArthur “wouldn’t be happy about that.” There’ll be a point when we’ll say: “Please don’t arm any more,” he added.
Trump did criticize Germany for having developed gas pipelines with Russian, but he reserved his ire for Angela Merkel, the former chancellor.
Trump also had positive comments on trade, as negotiations between the US and EU have reached a delicate phase. “He’s a very great representative of Germany,” Trump said of his German guest. “I think all we want is just going to have a good relationship. The rest will just sort of follow very easily. We’ll have a good trade deal.”
With assistance from Catherine Lucey and Kate Sullivan.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
