{"id":695945,"date":"2026-01-14T18:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/695945\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:36:13","slug":"eu-us-relationship-is-disintegrating-says-germanys-vice-chancellor-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/695945\/","title":{"rendered":"EU-US relationship is \u2018disintegrating,\u2019 says Germany\u2019s vice chancellor \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe transatlantic relationship that we have known until now is disintegrating,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Such direct criticism contrasts with the approach of Merz, who has taken a far more cautious approach to Trump of late in an effort to avoid a rupture with Washington.<\/p>\n<p>With regard to Greenland, Merz has said that the U.S. president has legitimate security concerns that NATO should address in order to achieve a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/greenland-security-nato-matter-says-germany-friedrich-merz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mutually acceptable solution<\/a>.\u201d While other EU governments strongly criticized the Trump administration following the capture of Maduro, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tagesschau.de\/ausland\/amerika\/venezuela-us-angriff-reaktionen-102.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Merz was restrained<\/a>, calling the matter legally \u201ccomplex.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Behind Klingbeil\u2019s more strident criticism of Trump, there\u2019s a clear political calculus. The vice chancellor \u2014 who also serves as finance minister \u2014 is a leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which governs in coalition with Merz\u2019s conservative bloc and has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/europe-poll-of-polls\/germany\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">seen its popularity stagnate<\/a>. Attacking Trump more forcefully may be one way for the party to improve its fortunes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/13643254-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7765398\"  \/>Polls show most Germans strongly oppose Trump\u2019s actions in Venezuela and his rhetoric on Greenland, and views of the U.S. government more generally are at a nadir. | Pool Photo by Shawn Thew via EPA<\/p>\n<p>Polls show most Germans strongly oppose Trump\u2019s actions in Venezuela and his rhetoric on Greenland, and views of the U.S. government more generally are at a nadir. Only 15 percent of Germans consider the U.S. to be a trustworthy partner, according to the benchmark\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tagesschau.de\/inland\/deutschlandtrend\/deutschlandtrend-januar-104.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ARD Deutschlandtrend survey<\/a>\u00a0released last week, a record low.<\/p>\n<p>This underscores the political risk for Merz as he seeks to avoid direct confrontation with an American president deeply unpopular with the German electorate. But Merz has calculated that keeping open channels of communication with the U.S. president is far more critical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe transatlantic relationship that we have known until now is disintegrating,\u201d he added. Such direct criticism contrasts with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[1213,17467,25911,2001,12711,6906,5293,32,2000,299,474,1945,1824,366,2132,37887,811,49,8518],"class_list":{"0":"post-695945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-americas","9":"tag-benchmarks","10":"tag-colombia","11":"tag-communications","12":"tag-cuba","13":"tag-democratic-party","14":"tag-diplomacy","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-eu","17":"tag-europe","18":"tag-finance","19":"tag-friedrich-merz","20":"tag-germany","21":"tag-greenland","22":"tag-mexico","23":"tag-nicolas-maduro","24":"tag-security","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-venezuela"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115894903307364557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}