BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned Europe must be ready to chart its own course independently of the United States.
“We must face the fact that our relationship with the U.S. is changing,” said Merz in Berlin on Monday in a wide-ranging foreign policy speech. “The U.S. is reassessing its interests — and not just since yesterday. And so we in Europe must also adjust our interests, without false nostalgia.”
The chancellor has tried to walk a fine line in his approach to the Trump administration. Shaken by U.S. President Donald Trump’s vacillating positions on the war in Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the chancellor warned as early as the night of his election win in late February that Europe needs to pursue independence from the U.S.
But in recent months, Merz has tried to build a close relationship with Trump, praising the U.S. president’s efforts to negotiate a Ukraine peace deal and referring to the Americans as “indispensable” partners on matters of security and NATO.
Merz’s comments on Monday are a clear signal that, behind the public praise of Trump, European leaders are quietly girding for a future in which the transatlantic alliance is no longer the bedrock on which the continent’s defense and economy stand.
“The U.S. remains our most important partner,” Merz said Monday, according to a transcript of his speech. “We are ready for close coordination and cooperation. But it is becoming apparent that this partnership will be less self-evident. It will be more issue- and interest-driven.”
The relationship with the U.S. going forward will hinge on “our strength as Europeans,” Merz said, adding that to cultivate that strength, Europe needs to seek new alliances around the globe.
“We must be even more proactive than we have been so far in forging new partnerships around the world and expanding and strengthening existing ones,” he said.
While Germany would seek cooperation “wherever possible” with China on issues like climate policy, increasing “systemic rivalry” with Beijing means Europe must look elsewhere to “diversify our raw material and trade chains in the interests of strategic sovereignty,” the chancellor added.
That means Europe needs trade agreements and closer partnerships with South American countries as well as India, Indonesia and Mexico, but also “beyond G20 countries,” including in Africa and Asia.
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