Friedrich Merz is satisfied. Quite even satisfied. When the Chancellor gives US President Donald Trump in the White House in front of the backdrop of the colossal Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Thursday afternoon, he takes a consistently positive balance. “Today we laid a foundation for very good personal, but also politically targeted conversations,” says the CDU leader of the ARD.
In the political Washington, his visit has long been forgotten at this time. While Merz is about the trade conflict, the war in Ukraine and NATO, everything revolves around one thing: the feud between Trump and his ex-government advisor Elon Musk. So what did the a little more than 17-hour visit to Merz ultimately bring and what not? Seven findings.
Merz right in the middle of it and yet only there
All visitors share a fate in the Oval Office of the White House: they remain in a way. The US President’s office that is pimped with a lot of gold is Donald Trump’s stage. There the US President humiliated the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj and had the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Merz is saved. When pressing the press, the Chancellor of the most economical country in Europe is still a marginal figure, while Trump is largely out of the question about US interior policy.
Merz endures it patiently. “It was not a press conference, it was a good show in the Oval Office,” he says after his return at an economic event in Berlin. For him, the subsequent lunch (steak with potatoes, cream-Danute and Coca Cola) was more important, in which the speech shares are said to have been evenly distributed and should also have listened to Trump.
The chemistry between the two is right
The most important result of the first encounter is: the two have found a wire together. Trump gave himself a friendly, Merz compliments for his good English and avoided any confrontation. He described the CDU politician as “respected” and “good man” and promised: “We will have a great relationship with her country.”
Merz thanked him by not driving him in Parade in his explanations for Elon Musk, Joe Biden or Vladimir Putin. “Let’s stop talking about Donald Trump with a raised index finger and a quick nose. You have to talk to him and don’t talk about him,” he said later.
The Chancellor wants to become one, if not the most important contact for Trump in Europe. So far, that was French President Emmanuel Macron and the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The phone number of Europe on Trump’s cell phone could now be Merz’s.
Germany is no longer the “whipping boy” of Trump
In the first term, Germany was something like the “whipping boy” of Trump. He particularly criticized the defense spending of the largest European economy, which at the time horn far behind the NATO goals. That sounds different now. “I know that you are now spending more money on defense – quite a bit more. That is a positive thing,” said Trump in the Oval Office. And there is no longer any question of the drastic reduction in US troops in Germany with which he threatened in his first term.
The escalation potential remained unused
At the press, Vice President JD Vance and Foreign Minister Marco Rubio were also on the side of the President – those government members who most recently accused Germany and other European allies on circumcision of freedom of expression and the exclusion of parties such as the AfD. Merz had made it clear before his meeting with Trump that he was prepared for repeated accusations. He would “very clear” to say his opinion if it was necessary.
It was not necessary – the topic was not discussed. Neither in the press network nor during lunch together. In an interview by CNN, Merz concluded that in the United States one was now a little clearer about “what kind of party this so -called alternative for Germany”.
There is no tangible progress in the customs dispute
However, Trump and Merz did not make significant progress in the conflict issues. Until July 9th there is still time to prevent US tariffs of 50 percent on goods from the EU. The EU Commission has negotiations with the United States. In the United States, Merz saw himself in the role of taking the sharpness out of the dispute.
At least there was a concrete agreement to improve the German -American trade exchange – the only one during the inaugural visit: two representatives of the White House and the Chancellery should now take care of better coordination of the economic relationships. “Lunch was worth gold for that,” said Merz.
Ukraine diplomacy stalls
For the Ukraine War, on the other hand, the encounter in the Oval Office offered a very dark picture. It was once again very clear that the diplomatic efforts of the United States and the Europeans went into nothing. Trump summarized this in a shocking comparison: “Sometimes you see two little children who argue like crazy,” he said, while Merz was sitting wrongly. “They don’t want to be pulled apart. Sometimes it is better to let them fight for a while and then pull them apart.”
Trump was not ready for more pressure on the Russian President Putin on new sanctions or more military support – as Europeans are demanding.
You have to remember the place name Kallstadt
The first meeting will soon follow. In June, the two only see each other at the G7 summit in Canada and then at the NATO summit in the Hague. But that’s not all. According to Merz, Trump accepted an invitation to visit Germany. In his first term he was only at the G20 summit in Hamburg. There was no decent bilateral visit yet.
“He will come to Germany. We are now looking after an appointment,” said Merz in an interview by RTL/NTV. The Chancellor wants the US President to Kallstadt on the Weinstrasse, the home town of Trump’s ancestors in the Palatinate, which is located in the Bad Dürkheim district. The mayor of Bad Dürkheim, Natalie Bauerschmitt (CDU), is already looking forward to it. “Now we have made it to the global political stage, so to speak,” she told RPR1 radio station.
