Germany's Merz says he found Trump open to dialogue and committed to NATO
Merz described his Oval Office meeting and extended lunch with Trump as constructive but also candid, noting that the two leaders expressed different views on Ukraine.
'Yesterday, in the meeting at the Oval Office, I expressed a distinctly different position on the topic of Ukraine than the one Trump had taken, and not only was there no objection, but we discussed it in detail again over lunch,' Merz said in Berlin after his return.
Thursday's White House meeting marked the first time the two sat down in person. Merz, who became chancellor in May, avoided the kind of confrontations in the Oval Office that have tripped up other world leaders, including Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa.
The two leaders opened with pleasantries. Merz presented Trump with a gold-framed birth certificate of the president's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, who emigrated from Kallstadt, Germany. Trump called Merz a 'very good man to deal with.'
The American administration, he said, is open to discussion, listens, and is willing to accept differing opinions.
Add he added that dialogue should go both ways: 'Let's stop talking about Donald Trump with a raised finger and wrinkled nose. You have to talk with him, not about him.'
He said he also met with senators on Capitol Hill, urging them to recognize the scale of Russian rearmament.
'Please take a look at how far Russia's armament is going, what they are currently doing there; you obviously have no idea what's happening,' he said he told them. 'In short, you can talk to them, but you must not let yourself be intimidated. I don't have that inclination anyway.'
Merz, who speaks English fluently, stressed the need for transatlantic trust and said he reminded Trump that allies matter.
'Whether we like it or not, we will remain dependent on the United States of America for a long time,' he said. 'But you also need partners in the world, and the Europeans, especially the Germans, are the best-suited partners.
'This is the difference between authoritarian systems and democracies: authoritarian systems have subordinates. Democracies have partners — and we want to be those partners in Europe and with America.'
He reiterated that the U.S. remains committed to NATO, particularly as Germany and others boost their defense spending. Trump has in the past suggested that the U.S. might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don't meet defense spending targets.
'I have absolutely no doubt that the American government is committed to NATO, especially now that we've all said we're doing more. We're ensuring that we can also defend ourselves in Europe, and I believe this expectation was not unjustified,' Merz said.
'We've been the free riders of American security guarantees for years, and we're changing that now.'
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