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Friedrich Merz, almost assured of becoming Germany’s next chancellor, is ignoring conventional wisdom regarding relations with President Trump and his disruptive “American First” agenda for Europe.
Even before Mr. Trump was officially declared the winner of the November election, European leaders across the political spectrum were tripping over themselves to congratulate him on his return to the White House. France’s center-left president, Emmanuel Macron, beat Italy’s nationalist prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, by a few minutes.
Mr. Macron and Britain’s center-left leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have made the pilgrimage to Mr. Trump’s White House. Mr. Starmer, seeking to flatter the new president, brought an invitation from King Charles to an “unprecedented” second state visit.
Mr. Merz, whose conservative coalition claimed first place in Germany’s Feb. 23 federal elections, took a different tone as the presumed chancellor-in-waiting for Europe’s biggest economic power.
The 69-year-old former corporate lawyer has taken an unusually brusque approach toward Washington. In some of his first remarks to the press after the election, Mr. Merz suggested that the U.S. was no longer a reliable ally.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” Mr. Merz said the day after the election. “I never thought I would have to say something like this, [but] it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
SEE ALSO: ‘Independence from USA’: Merz charts new course for German-American relations
The shift is all the more startling given that Mr. Merz, a longtime Atlanticist, had long been considered among Germany’s most pro-U.S. political figures. He ran on a pro-market, conservative-leaning agenda that would seem to be more congenial to Mr. Trump than that of the center-left coalition headed by outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Mr. Merz scored a major political win this week that will likely please the U.S., particularly Mr. Trump, who has long complained about Germany’s failure to meet NATO’s minimal defense spending targets.
In a momentous change to Germany’s deficit-allergic fiscal culture, lawmakers in the lower house of the Bundestag approved plans Tuesday to loosen the nation’s notoriously strict government debt limits. This will allow the incoming Merz-led government to spend much more freely on defense, stimulating its domestic markets, supporting Ukraine and underwriting growth throughout the European Union.
The more liberal spending rules “open prospects for our country that, in the times we are living in, are urgently needed,” Mr. Merz said.
In a shift few expected, Mr. Merz is giving every indication that he hopes to use the new fiscal freedom not to ease tensions with the U.S. but to build up a European counter to Mr. Trump’s policies on defense, tariffs and international organizations.
He has said he is pushing for Europe to unite to form a third “cohesive, autonomous” pole in global security and trade alongside the U.S. and China.
“Our absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can achieve real independence from the U.S., step by step,” Mr. Merz said.
Challenge from the right
Ties between Mr. Trump and Mr. Merz were not helped by how Germany’s election and postelection period have shaken out. Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Munich last month to scold traditional European powers for what he said was a campaign to muzzle far-right conservative parties and legitimate voter concerns on issues such as immigration.
“There is no room for firewalls,” Mr. Vance said. After his remarks, he pointedly visited with the head of the long-shunned far-right nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party but did not stop to meet with Mr. Scholz.
Although Mr. Merz heads the country’s two conservative parties, he has ruled out a coalition with the AfD despite its second-place election finish. He cited what he said were the party’s neo-Nazi, antisemitic, euroskeptic views.
About 1 in 5 German voters cast their ballots for AfD amid rising prices, slowing economic growth, rising tensions over migration and concerns over spending to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. For the first time in decades, Germany is not seen as Europe’s primary engine of growth.
Instead of working with AfD, Mr. Metz is in talks to form a grand coalition that includes Mr. Scholz’s center-left Social Democrat Party and the further-left, environmentalist Green Party. German political observers warn of an inherently unstable combination.
In rejecting an early effort to woo Mr. Trump as his fellow European leaders have, Mr. Merz may be playing a longer game.
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said the unconventional approach could benefit Mr. Mertz’s relations with the Trump White House.
“Trump sizes up people very quickly, and I think he respects toughness,” Mr. Olsen told The Washington Times. “He very much dislikes weakness, and he does not respect ordinary political practices that seek to obscure differences and be purposely vague.
“Metz is blunt, which is one of the reasons he wasn’t embraced by the Social Democrats 20 years ago when he challenged [Chancellor Angela] Merkel,” Mr. Olsen said. “But that directness could appeal to Trump in a way that Scholz and others could not.”
Mr. Merz hopes to have his coalition government in place by next month. As negotiations progress, Mr. Mertz is striking an optimistic tone that may sound familiar to Mr. Trump’s supporters.
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