German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the Trump administration’s new national security strategy underscored the need for Europe to become “much more independent” from the U.S. in terms of security policy.
Merz also pushed back against the notion that European democracy needed saving.
The U.S. strategy, published on Friday, paints European allies as weak, while offering tacit support to far-right political parties, and was critical of European free speech and migration policy.
Speaking on Monday, European Council president Antonio Costa warned the U.S. against interfering in Europe's affairs and said only European citizens could decide which parties should govern them.
Merz, the leader of the European Union's most populous nation and its biggest economy, said he was not surprised by the substance of the strategy as it was largely in line with a lecture Vice President JD Vance gave to European allies in Munich in February.
Parts of the document were understandable, but “some of it is unacceptable for us from the European point of view,” he told reporters in the western German city of Mainz.
“That the Americans want to save democracy in Europe now, I don’t see any need for that,” Merz said. “If it needed to be saved, we would manage that alone.”
He added that the new U.S. document “confirms my assessment that we in Europe, and so also in Germany, must become much more independent from the U.S. in terms of security policy. This is not a surprise, but it has now been confirmed again. It has been documented.”
Merz said that Vance’s speech earlier this year had “set off something in me as well, and you can see that today in our defence spending.”
Merz's government, in office since May, has enabled higher spending by loosening strict rules on incurring debt — adding to an effort to bolster Germany's military that has been under way since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022.
Under pressure from President Donald Trump, Nato members, including Germany, agreed in June to a hike in the alliance's defense spending target.
“In my talks with the Americans, I say: ‘America first is fine’, but ‘America alone’ can’t be in your interest. You need partners in the world too,” Merz said on Tuesday.
“And one of the partners can be Europe. And if you can’t do anything with Europe, then at least make Germany your partner.”
