{"id":8494,"date":"2026-04-29T12:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8494\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:57:16","slug":"germanys-merz-tries-to-downplay-row-with-trump-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8494\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Merz tries to downplay row with Trump \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conciliatory tone follows a direct attack<\/a> from Trump late Tuesday. \u201cThe Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, thinks it\u2019s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,\u201d the U.S. president wrote<\/a> on Truth Social. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about!\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would leave \u201cthe whole World \u2026 held hostage,\u201d before turning to Germany\u2019s economy: \u201cNo wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!\u201d<\/p>\n

Merz\u2019s attempt to steady the relationship comes after he sharpened his position regarding Washington.<\/p>\n

When the war began on Feb. 28, the chancellor broadly backed<\/a> America\u2019s aims \u2014 but as the conflict dragged on, his tone has hardened.<\/p>\n

On Monday, he said during a school visit in western Germany<\/a> that the U.S. was being \u201chumiliated\u201d by Iran and had entered the war without a viable exit strategy, comparing the situation to past issues in Afghanistan and Iraq. <\/p>\n

Merz also lamented that the conflict was detrimental to Germany\u2019s economy, saying that it was \u201ccosting us a great deal of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berlin has also pushed back operationally. Germany rejected<\/a> U.S. calls for transatlantic military involvement, insisting the conflict \u201cis not NATO\u2019s war,\u201d and has only offered a limited role \u2014 including minesweepers<\/a> to help secure the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 once fighting ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The conciliatory tone follows a direct attack from Trump late Tuesday. \u201cThe Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, thinks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8162,479,1646,393,5,253,2694,8325,3221,481,409,2379],"class_list":{"0":"post-8494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-energy","11":"tag-friedrich-merz","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-iraq","15":"tag-transatlantic-relations","16":"tag-u-s-foreign-policy","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-war","19":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}