Donald Trump singled out Chancellor Friedrich Merz for praise during a tense Oval Office visit this week, calling the German leader a “very successful man” while launching sharp criticisms at other European partners.
The encounter echoed Merz’s first trip to Washington in summer 2025: Trump dominated the floor, talking forcefully and unpredictably, while Merz mostly listened, offering measured comments and reserving controversial discussions for private talks. The chancellor’s visit, already scheduled before recent Middle East escalation, gained added weight after US and Israeli strikes on Iran and Iran’s subsequent counterattacks.
Germany tried to thread a delicate line. Berlin publicly condemned the strikes as violations of international law, but stopped short of opposing them outright. That stance did not rile the US president, who made clear he was not expecting German combat troops: “We’re not asking them to put boots on the ground,” he said.
The meeting revealed limits to Merz’s effort to present a united European front. Trump publicly berated Spain for declining US requests to use Spanish bases for potential strikes and even threatened economic consequences for the EU member. Merz did not confront those remarks in the Oval Office; instead he later told German reporters that he had defended Spain behind closed doors. He stressed that Europe cannot be split: as he put it afterward, “You cannot conclude an isolated agreement with Germany here, or an agreement with the whole of Europe, but not with Spain.”
DW’s chief political correspondent, Michaela Küfner, who attended the visit, summed up the experience as “always like jumping through a burning political hoop.” Even the chancellor could not predict when Trump’s rhetoric would turn sharp — earlier in the meeting the president had also criticized the UK over its initial hesitancy to permit use of bases.
Trade and tariffs were meant to be central topics. The US Supreme Court recently struck down a large portion of Trump’s tariff regime, prompting the president to seek an alternative legal route to impose a blanket 15% tariff worldwide — a rate roughly similar to a tentative 2025 deal with the EU that has not been finalized. Merz argued the pause gives the EU room to renegotiate and pointed to Europe’s sizable services trade deficit with the US, warning that Europeans should consider measures beyond tariffs on goods. He criticized what he sees as Trump’s narrow focus on merchandise trade, and raised the issue for German cameras after the meeting.
To underscore the importance of a rules-based international order, Merz presented Trump with a replica of the 1785 trade agreement between Prussia and the United States — the first US treaty with a foreign power. The gift was intended as a symbolic reminder of long-standing rule-based commerce; whether it influenced the president is unclear.
On Ukraine, the visit produced little new policy. Merz reiterated that sustained US pressure on Moscow would be needed to extract concessions from President Vladimir Putin and argued that any negotiated settlement should not be imposed on European states. Still, many observers note that Europe increasingly finds itself on the sidelines of major strategic decisions.
The meeting highlighted both the personal chemistry between Trump and Merz and the frictions within transatlantic ties: public praise and private diplomacy, symbolic gestures and unresolved disputes over security, trade and alliance cohesion.
This article was originally written in German.