By James Mackenzie
BERLIN, May 4 (Reuters) – Chancellor Friedrich Merz marks a year in office this week facing the biggest crisis with Washington in decades, after President Donald Trump said he would hit European auto imports with 25% tariffs and pull thousands of troops out of Germany.
The moves, announced on Friday after Trump reacted angrily to criticism by Merz of U.S. strategy in the Iran war, underline the break in transatlantic relations that has become increasingly apparent in Trump’s second term and add to an array of problems now facing the German leader.
“We can see what’s going on with Donald Trump and the U.S., and that this is having an impact. We can see that China is getting stronger and stronger,” Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, Merz’s deputy and the head of his Social Democrat coalition partners, told Reuters.
“We can see that Europe isn’t strong enough. In this regard, a great deal depends on Germany.”
MERZ’S CONSERVATIVES TRAILING IN OPINION POLLS
After two years of recession, a timid recovery risks being extinguished by the energy shock from the Iran conflict, a promised package of tax, welfare and health reforms has been overshadowed by coalition wrangling.
Merz’s freewheeling communication style, which he himself acknowledges is sometimes impulsive, has also irritated voters.
Already squeezed by stifling competition from China, carmakers, the backbone of Germany’s industrial base, now face a spike in tariffs from 15% to 25% from one of their most important export markets.
In an interview with German public television on Sunday, Merz, who was sworn into office on May 6 last year, acknowledged public doubts, reflected in opinion polls that now put the far-right Alternative for Germany ahead of his conservatives as the country’s most popular party.
“The doubts are growing. Not about me, but about the coalition,” he said.
For much of his first year, Merz has made up for discontent at home with a relatively assured performance abroad, for a while enjoying a reputation as one of the few European leaders to establish a good personal relationship with Trump.
“He has strengthened key relationships, particularly with France and Poland, and has secured European influence in the context of the war in Ukraine through forums such as the E3,” said Oliver Lembcke, a political scientist at Ruhr University Bochum, adding that Merz’s main problem was at home.
“In domestic policy, he’s fallen short of expectations – particularly when it comes to leadership.”
A fluent English speaker, Merz continues to believe in the U.S. alliance, which he has sought to preserve while Germany rebuilds its own depleted armed forces after decades of neglect.
With the war in Ukraine still raging on the European Union’s doorstep, he has also moved carefully to try to persuade Trump not to turn against Kyiv entirely.
But he has repeatedly warned that the era of relying on U.S. forces to protect Europe is over and has become increasingly critical of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, refusing to send German forces to help clear the strategic Strait of Hormuz until fighting stops and a full international mission is agreed.
MUCH DEPENDS ON GERMANY
The events of the past week, however, have made clear how fine a line there is to tread with a U.S. administration that has made no secret of its disdain for Europe’s leaders, even those like Merz or Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who were once praised by Trump.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius downplayed the significance of Trump’s decision to withdraw at least 5,000 troops from Germany and withhold the planned deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles, saying at the weekend that the move came as no surprise.
Merz denied that the decision was prompted by his remark to students last week that the U.S. had no exit strategy in Iran and was being “humiliated”, despite Trump’s angry social media attacks on the chancellor he once called a friend.
Such communication snags have marked Merz’s year in office, including when he sparked outrage last year by suggesting that migration had altered the appearance of German towns.
But Trump’s impatience with Europe has been abundantly clear throughout his time in office, notably since Vice President JD Vance’s stinging attack at last year’s Munich Security Conference.
“I think that just sped things up, but it wasn’t what set it off,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee from Merz’s conservative CDU party. He said scrapping a Biden-era plan to deploy a U.S. battalion with long-range Tomahawk missiles was more serious for Germany.
“That undermines our deterrent. And it undermines trust in the U.S. And that is the real bad news,” he said.
It remains unclear exactly what troops will be withdrawn from the 40,000 U.S. forces stationed in Germany and how that will affect some of the biggest U.S. military facilities outside the United States, including the sprawling Ramstein air base.
Although polls show Trump is deeply unpopular in Germany and public opinion overwhelmingly backs staying out of the war with Iran, the presence of U.S. troops has become a fixture for Germans in the western part of the country.
In Landstuhl, home to one of the biggest U.S. military hospitals, local resident Maria Raftopoulo said relationships between locals and U.S. personnel had been deep over the years.
“And even though there are fewer Americans now, they still provide jobs, they still rent, they contribute to the region doing as well as it does.”
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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