German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday one day after meeting the president Donald Trump At the White House, which he met an American administration open to the discussion and returned confident that Washington remains determined to NATO.
Merz described his meeting of the oval office and extended lunch with Trump as constructive but also frank, noting that the two leaders expressed different opinions on Ukraine.
“Yesterday, during the meeting of the Oval Office, I expressed a clearly different position on the subject of Ukraine than that which Trump had taken, and not only was there no objection, but we talked about it in detail during lunch,” Merz told Berlin after his return.
Thursday’s White House meeting marked the first time that the two sat in person. Merz, who became Chancellor in May, avoided the kind of confrontations in the oval office which sparked other world leaders, including the Volodymyr Zelenskyy of South Africa and Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa.
The two leaders opened with jokes. Merz presented Trump a birth certificate at the Grandfather’s Grandfather’s Grandfather, Friedrich Trump, who emigrated from Kallstadt, Germany. Trump called Merz “very good man to manage”.
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The American administration, he said, is open to discussion, listens and is willing to accept different opinions.
He added that the dialogue should go in both directions: “Let’s stop talking about Donald Trump with a raised finger and a wrinkled nose. You have to speak with him, not him.”
He said he had also met senators on Capitol Hill, urging them to recognize the extent of the Russian rearmament.
“Please take a look at the distance from Russia’s armaments, which they are currently doing there; you obviously have no idea what’s going on,” he said. “In short, you can talk to them, but you should not be intimidated. I don’t have this inclination anyway.”
Merz, who speaks fluent English, stressed the need for transatlantic confidence and said he reminded Trump that the Allies imported.
“Whether we like it or not, we will stay dependent on the United States of America for a long time,” he said. “But you also need partners worldwide, and Europeans, especially the Germans, are the best adapted partners.
“This is the difference between authoritarian systems and democracies: authoritarian systems have subordinates. Democracies have partners – and we want to be these partners in Europe and with America. ”
He reiterated that the United States remains attached to NATO, especially since Germany and others increased its defense expenses. Trump has suggested in the past that the United States could abandon its commitments to the Alliance if member countries do not reach the objectives of defense.
“I have absolutely no doubt that the American government is attached to NATO, especially now that we have all said that we are doing more. We make sure that we can also defend ourselves in Europe, and I think that this expectation was not unjustified,” said Merz.
“We have been the free horsemen of American security guarantees for years, and we have changed it now.”
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press