Oliver Towfigh Nia<\/p>\n
04 May 2026\u2022Update: 04 May 2026<\/p>\n
Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday confirmed that the US will not station any Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany for the time being, but stressed that this was not linked to his criticism of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Americans don’t have enough for themselves right now. Objectively speaking, there is virtually no possibility of the US supplying weapons systems of this kind,\u201d Merz told public broadcaster ARD in an interview.<\/p>\n
Promised by then-US President Joe Biden in 2024, the Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range capable of reaching Russia, are intended to strengthen Germany’s deterrent capability until Europe develops its own missiles of this type.<\/p>\n
Addressing the aspect of US nuclear sharing, Merz said: \u201cThere are absolutely no compromises. There is no restriction on the US commitment to nuclear deterrence in the NATO area. There is no doubt about that whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merz described the withdrawal of more than 5,000 US troops from Germany, announced by US President Donald Trump on Friday, as \u201cnothing new.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that this was a contingent that Trump\u2019s predecessor, Biden, had stationed on a temporary basis, and that its withdrawal had been under discussion for quite some time. \u201cIt may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it\u2019s nothing new,\u201d the German leader said.<\/p>\n
He also denied any direct link between Trump\u2019s announcements and his own critical remarks about the US-Israel war against Iran, saying \u201cthere is no connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chancellor reiterated his criticism of the US strategy toward Iran, and defended his statement that Iran had \u201chumiliated\u201d the US at the negotiating table. The comments had provoked a series of angry responses from Trump, including that Merz was doing a \u201cterrible\u201d job as chancellor and he was ineffective in the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n
Merz, however, argued he would not give up on working to improve transatlantic relations. \u201cI\u2019m not giving up on working with Donald Trump either,\u201d the German leader said.<\/p>\n
He added he had to accept that the US president held a different opinion. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t change the fact that I remain convinced that the Americans are our most important partners in the North Atlantic Alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oliver Towfigh Nia 04 May 2026\u2022Update: 04 May 2026 Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday confirmed that the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824,248238],"class_list":{"0":"post-935763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-sitekeywords"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935763","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=935763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}