German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged a new “trans-Atlantic partnership” during his address at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on Friday.<\/p>\n
He stressed not even US was powerful enough to go it alone in an increasingly tough world.<\/p>\n
‘The culture war of the MAGA movement is not ours’<\/p>\n
Merz referenced a speech by US Vice President JD Vance during last year’s MSC, where Vance chided Europeans over the state of free speech on the continent and migration.<\/p>\n
“A rift has opened up between Europe and the United States. Vice President JD Vance said this very openly here <\/a>in Munich a year ago,” Merz said.<\/p>\n “He was right. The culture war of the MAGA movement is not ours,” Merz said, referring to US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “Freedom of speech ends here with us when that speech goes against human dignity and the constitution. We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade.”<\/p>\n The Trump administration in December imposed visa entry bans on five prominent European figures over accusations they are “censoring” Americans online<\/a>. Trump in his second term also announced 20% tariffs on EU goods until a trade framework deal was reached later in the year between the two sides.<\/p>\n Trump’s push for the US acquisition of Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark, has also prompted alarm in Europe. Merz said that Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen “knows that she can rely on European solidarity. There is no limitation to that.”<\/p>\n US not powerful enough to go it alone in era of ‘great power rivalry’<\/p>\n Merz said the old international rule-based order was being destroyed.<\/p>\n “This order, however, imperfect it was even at its best, no longer exists in that form,” Merz said, speaking of a dangerous new era of “great power politics” where freedoms are “endangered.”<\/p>\n