{"id":762777,"date":"2026-02-13T23:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/762777\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:27:18","slug":"german-leader-calls-for-us-and-europe-to-repair-trans-atlantic-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/762777\/","title":{"rendered":"German leader calls for US and Europe to repair trans-Atlantic trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

MUNICH (AP) \u2014 German Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> called on Friday for the United States and Europe to \u201crepair and revive trans-Atlantic trust together,\u201d saying that even the U.S. isn\u2019t powerful enough to go it alone in an world whose old order has withered.<\/p>\n

Merz called for a \u201cnew trans-Atlantic partnership,\u201d acknowledging that \u201ca divide, a deep rift\u201d has opened up across the Atlantic as he opened the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top global security figures, including many European leaders and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a>. Merz said that the post-World War II world order, \u201cas imperfect as it was at its best times, no longer exists\u201d today. <\/p>\n

Hours later, French President Emmanuel Macron said that \u201cEurope has to become a geopolitical power.\u201d He said that \u201cit\u2019s ongoing, but we have to accelerate\u201d in areas such as defense, technology and \u201cderisking vis-a-vis all the big powers in order to be much more independent.\u201d <\/p>\n

At last year\u2019s conference, a few weeks into U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, U.S. Vice President JD Vance stunned European leaders<\/a> by lecturing them about the state of democracy<\/a> and freedom of speech on the continent \u2014 a moment that set the tone for the last year. <\/p>\n

A series of statements and moves<\/a> from the Trump administration targeting allies followed, including Trump\u2019s threat last month to impose new tariffs on several European countries in a bid to secure U.S. control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory<\/a> of NATO ally Denmark. The president later dropped that threat.<\/p>\n

\u2018Stronger together\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe culture war of the MAGA movement in the U.S. is not ours,\u201d Merz said. \u201cThe freedom of the word ends here when this word is turned against human dignity and the constitution. And we don\u2019t believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Europe would stand by climate agreements and the World Health Organization. <\/p>\n

But Merz said that Europe and the U.S. should conclude that \u201cwe are stronger together\u201d in today\u2019s world. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the era of great-power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone,\u201d he said. \u201cDear friends, being a part of NATO is not only Europe\u2019s competitive advantage. It\u2019s also the United States\u2019 competitive advantage, so let\u2019s repair and revive trans-Atlantic trust together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Europeans, Merz said, are doing their part. <\/p>\n

\u2018Shift in mindset\u2019 in Europe<\/p>\n

Since last year\u2019s Munich conference, NATO allies have agreed under pressure from Trump to a large increase in their defense spending<\/a> target.<\/p>\n

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that there has been a \u201cshift in mindset,\u201d with \u201cEurope really stepping up, Europe taking more of a leadership role within NATO, Europe also taking more care of its own defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Rubio heading the U.S. delegation this year, European leaders can hope for a less contentious approach more focused on traditional global security concerns. Before departing for Germany, Rubio had some reassuring words as he described Europe as important for Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very tightly linked together with Europe,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cMost people in this country can trace both, either their cultural or their personal heritage, back to Europe. So, we just have to talk about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Rubio made clear that it wouldn\u2019t be business as usual, saying: \u201cWe live in a new era in geopolitics, and it\u2019s going to require all of us to reexamine what that looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the conference that the U.S. had been sustaining the financial burden of multilateralism for too long and Europeans need to do more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a cost to the status quo and the status quo was not sustainable any more,\u201d Waltz said.<\/p>\n

Merz said that Europe\u2019s \u201cexcessive dependency\u201d on the U.S. was its own fault, but it\u2019s leaving that behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t do this by writing off NATO \u2014 we will do it by building a strong, self-supporting European pillar in the alliance, in our own interest,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He acknowledged that Europe and the U.S. will likely have to bridge more disagreements in the future than in the past, but \u201cif we do this with new strength, respect and self-respect, that is to the advantage of both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron, who emphasized the priority of supporting Ukraine and called for greater regulation of social media, also stressed the importance of respect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the right time for a strong Europe,\u201d he said. \u201cThis Europe will be a good ally and partner for the United States of America, because it will be a partner taking its fair share of the burden. It will be a partner being respected \u2014 and we have to be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio arrived in Munich on Friday. He met with Merz, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and others separately on the sidelines of the conference. He is due to address the conference on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

The German chancellor, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and several other European leaders met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Munich, before another round of U.S-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine in Geneva next week<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Rubio wasn\u2019t participating in the meeting as his schedule was packed with separate bilateral meetings with European officials, including one with the leaders of Denmark and Greenland, a U.S. official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because neither the meeting nor Rubio\u2019s attendance had been announced, said that Rubio was and would be discussing Russia\u2019s war with Ukraine<\/a> in other formats.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha\u200e played down the fact that Rubio didn\u2019t attend the meeting, saying that, from Ukraine\u2019s perspective, the important meeting with the Secretary of State would take place on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Sybiha\u200e said security guarantees from the U.S. for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire were \u201calmost ready,\u201d and that Ukraine had more clarity on what the U.S. was ready to provide following meetings in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

He declined to give details of the guarantees but said they must be legally binding and include \u201cintelligence data, of course, support in air, and other important elements which could be provided only by the USA.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked by AP if discussions had taken place over what the U.S. would do about a physical or hybrid attack by Russia in the event of a ceasefire, Sybiha said the U.S. and Ukraine \u201cprobably have this understanding,\u201d without elaborating.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Geir Moulson reported from Berlin. Claudia Ciobanu contributed to this report from Warsaw, Poland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUNICH (AP) \u2014 German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called on Friday for the United States and Europe to \u201crepair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5310],"tags":[51,365,5293,32,34,2000,299,1699,1945,4179,1824,366,8614,601,807,2820,2992,18977,2821,56247,285,212683,657,49,5213,2601,51703,7660,10673,263],"class_list":["post-762777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-business","tag-denmark","tag-diplomacy","tag-donald-trump","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-general-news","tag-germany","tag-greenland","tag-international-agreements","tag-jd-vance","tag-keir-starmer","tag-marco-rubio","tag-mark-rutte","tag-mike-waltz","tag-nato","tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","tag-politics","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-wang-yi","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116065916960446022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762777","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=762777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}