Chancellor Merz’s international challenge: Make Germany ‘independent’ from the US or maintain the link despite Trump

One could follow an itinerary through the city of Berlin, traversing the scenes of the intimate relationship between the United States and Germany, and it would be easy to conclude that this is a world threatening ruin. It would begin at Tempelhof Airport, today an urban park. Between June 1948 and October 1949, the United States launched an airlift to break the blockade that the Soviet Union had imposed on the western sector of the city. The tour would continue at City Hall in the Schöneberg district, which at that time was the administrative seat of all of West Berlin. On June 26, 1963, two years after the communist regime built the Berlin Wall, John F. Kennedy delivered his famous speech from the building’s balcony. “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he said. “I am a Berliner.” The itinerary would end at the Brandenburg Gate, which, during the Cold War, divided the city, Germany, Europe, and the world. On June 12, 1987, another American president, Ronald Reagan, urged the then-Soviet leader: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Two years and four months later, the Berlin Wall fell.

Tempelhof, Schöneberg, and the Brandenburg Gate are symbols of another time. Monuments to the most cherished legacy of the world’s superpower, now shattered by Donald Trump’s bravado, his threats to withdraw from Europe, his complicity with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the tariffs that are punishing German industry, and his support for the far right.

For Europeans, Trump is an electric shock. In Germany, he’s something more. Because it was re-established after the Zero Hour of 1945 with the help and protection of the United States, and it was through the United States that it learned what democracy, capitalism, and prosperity were. Therefore, when the Trump administration describes the country as a “tyranny in disguise” — as happened last week after intelligence services classified the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as “right-wing extremist” — what is being shaken is a pillar of its very identity.

Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, who was sworn in as chancellor by the Bundestag on Tuesday, took note of this on election night, February 23, and proclaimed Europe’s “independence” from the United States.

But it’s not easy to discard eight decades of transatlantic relations. Despite everything, Germany refuses to break away. Because it’s difficult to accept that the U.S., which still has 35,000 troops in Germany and nuclear weapons on its territory, will sooner or later leave. Or because there’s no alternative in sight.

“What is underway in the U.S. is not an evolution, but a revolution. And it is a revolution without a well-thought-out plan,” says Bundestag deputy Norbert Röttgen, the mastermind of the Christian Democrats’ foreign policy and author of Democracy and War: Politics and German Identity in Times of Global Peril, in his office in the Bundestag. Conversations with Röttgen, a Europeanist and Atlanticist in the tradition of Chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, and other figures in this orbit, allow us to understand how this Germany, that of Merz, is preparing for this new era.

“Trump pursues a foreign policy that doesn’t distinguish between friend and foe, but rather seeks to impose his own interests,” notes Röttgen, whose name was floated as foreign minister, although his party colleague Johann Wadephul was ultimately chosen. Is Germany prepared for a scenario in which the U.S. leaves the country and withdraws its nuclear protection? “Of course, these are issues that need to be addressed,” he responds. “But for us, it’s clear that our interest is to keep the Americans in Europe. To achieve this, it will be essential for Germany and Europe to clearly invest more in their own security, to expand relevant capabilities, and thus contribute to burden-sharing in NATO and in transatlantic relations.”

There is a tension, in German politics and in Merz’s own discourse, between the Gaullist — or Macronist — tradition and the Atlanticist one. The chancellor, in pectore, sometimes seems to adhere to the former, a tradition that, referring to General de Gaulle, is embodied by the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, and which promotes European sovereignty vis-à-vis the United States, Russia, and China. But at other times he reaffirms Atlanticism. Last week, Germany’s new top diplomat, Wadephul, told a group of journalists: “We will do everything to revive the transatlantic alliance, rebuild trust, and strive to be strong together.” The coalition contract between the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats states something similar: “The transatlantic alliance and close cooperation with the United States remain of fundamental importance to us.”

As if the Trump storm hadn’t swept through the past few months and left this relationship severely damaged. “There isn’t a single word [in the coalition agreement] about changes in the U.S., other than to say that we want to strengthen the transatlantic relationship,” Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, director of the German Foreign Policy Council and another prominent Atlanticist in Berlin, recently observed at a discussion on the government’s program.

Röttgen, who is not only an Atlanticist but also a realist, affirms: “We must accept that European security is no longer a core American interest. It represents a break with American foreign policy of the last 80 years.” But, with Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and the Russian threat on the eastern flank, NATO is the “best guarantee” for European security, he says, and “so far” Trump has not “seriously” questioned either the Alliance or nuclear protection. “These pillars of our security remain in place,” he argues, “although politics and political will have changed.”

Macron has offered to extend the French nuclear umbrella to Germany, and Merz has taken up the challenge and agreed to discuss it. Röttgen is skeptical: “In my opinion, for Germany and for Europe today, there is no better nuclear umbrella than that of NATO and the U.S. There is no other that even remotely has the same capabilities. Developing a suitable European alternative, capable of deterring Russia to the same degree, would require at least a decade and enormous sums of money. But we cannot afford a decade-long security vacuum. That is why the American umbrella is not replaceable.”

What if Trump makes good on his threat and leaves Europe for good? “Then we’ll be prepared,” the Christian Democrat replies. “But there’s no point in committing suicide out of fear of possible death. Politics means exerting influence, trying to shape things.”

Even if the U.S. doesn’t leave completely, nothing will be the same. The monuments of American Berlin tell this story. From Tempelhof, the site of the airlift with which the United States and its allies rescued Berliners at the beginning of the Cold War, to the tariff president, who considers himself cheated by export-minded Germany. From Kennedy’s “I’m a Berliner” to the Trump administration, whose message is that Europe is “pathetic” and Germany “a tyranny.” From Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” to Trump lavishing praise on Putin. A symbolic and very real shift. For Germans, the mourning for the loss of their “big brother” has only just begun.

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