Foreign Pool Report #1. Background on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz´s visit to the White House

Guten Morgen,

I am your foreign pooler for the visit of Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz to the White House. Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

This is Chancellor Merz’s first visit to the United States since taking office on May 6 and comes amid ongoing tensions between the U.S. and the European Union over trade and the war in Ukraine.

Schedule:

Chancellor Merz arrived in Washington on Wednesday night and is staying at Blair House. He is scheduled to arrive at the White House at 11:30 a.m. for an official working visit, which includes a lunch and a bilateral meeting.

• 11:45 a.m. Bilateral meeting in the Oval Office
• 12:15 p.m. Lunch in the Cabinet Room

The Chancellor is expected to return to Berlin tonight.

Topics for the bilateral meeting:

The discussion is expected to focus on bilateral relations and three key issues:

• Efforts to end the war in Ukraine
• The ongoing U.S.–EU trade dispute
• Europe’s contributions to its own security

The leaders are also likely to address the conflict in the Middle East.

Previous meetings and relationship:

This is Chancellor Merz’s inaugural visit to Washington and his first in-person meeting with President Trump since taking office. According to the German Press Agency (dpa), the two leaders briefly met years ago in New York.

They have spoken by phone multiple times in recent weeks. According to German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), they are on a first-name basis—“Friedrich” and “Donald”—and have exchanged private cell numbers.

While Merz is pro-American, he has voiced criticism in recent months. He disapproved of events in the Oval Office during President Trump’s March meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and described Vice President JD Vance’s comments at the Munich Security Conference as “overreach.” Vance had accused European allies of undermining democracy.

Merz also pushed back on U.S. criticism regarding the classification of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) by the German domestic intelligence service as right-wing extremist. AfD placed second in the February election with 20.8% of the vote. In his first TV interview as Chancellor, Merz urged the Trump administration to “leave German domestic politics alone.”

Still, Merz seeks to focus on common interests. In a move echoing former Chancellor Merkel, he has invited President Trump to visit Kallstadt, the German village where Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, grew up before emigrating to the U.S.

In a recent interview with German broadcaster WDR, Merz shared how his first telephone conversation with Donald Trump went: “It’s always important not to talk for too long, but to keep it short and also let him talk. You have to adapt your approach and work with him. At the same time, we mustn’t make ourselves smaller than we are. We are not supplicants.”

During a recent appearance on Germany’s public broadcaster ZDF, Merz remarked: “I don’t need valerian to stay calm and have a reasonable conversation with the American President.”

According to dpa, Merz has been preparing intensively for this meeting and sought advice from several leaders who have previously met Trump.

Background on trade:

Germany is the biggest economy in the European Union and is eager to ease trade tensions with the U.S. While the topic ranks high on the agenda, Merz has no authority to negotiate directly—trade policy is an EU competence.

On Wednesday, EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Paris. Šefčovič described the meeting as constructive but expressed concern over the recent doubling of U.S. metals tariffs.

Since President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on April 2, he has met with several European leaders at the White House:

• Italian PM Giorgia Meloni (April 17)
• Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre (April 24)

The 50% tariffs on European goods originally threatened by Trump to take effect on June 1 have now been delayed until July 9.

Background on Ukraine

The top priority of the visit is likely to be efforts to end the war in Ukraine. On Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Merz would deliver a clear message to Trump: “Europe is firmly on the side of Ukraine,” and we need “to bring Russia to the negotiating table. This opportunity for peace must not be missed”.

Chancellor Merz is expected to urge Trump to increase pressure on President Putin to agree to a ceasefire. On Monday, German spokesperson Stefan Kornelius told reporters that Merz would “do everything in his power to lobby the U.S. President for a fair ceasefire, including with the threat of sanctions.”

During his campaign, Merz supported continued military aid to Ukraine and called for Germany to supply Taurus cruise missiles, going beyond the red line drawn by his predecessor, Chancellor Scholz, who warned against any further escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Since becoming Chancellor, he has plunged into diplomatic efforts to try to secure a ceasefire and keep Western support for Ukraine intact.

Within days of taking office, Merz traveled to Kyiv with leaders of France, the UK, and Poland. Last week, he hosted Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Berlin, where they agreed to cooperate on weapons production, including long-range missiles.

Background on Defense:

The German government vows strong support for Ukraine and higher military spending. President Trump has repeatedly complained about the low defense spending of some European NATO partners, including Germany, and threatened to withdraw U.S. protection. Now Merz can say that Germany is planning a significant military buildup: 5% percent of Germany’s GDP will be allocated to defense in the future, with 3.5% going directly to the military and 1.5% to related infrastructure.

Friedrich Merz, a staunch transatlanticist, is likely to try to convince President Trump that it is also in his own interest for the U.S. to remain committed to Europe. At the same time, he wants to put Europe on a path to more self-reliance.

Background on the Middle East:

Merz is a strong supporter of Israel, in line with Germany’s historical responsibility following the Holocaust. Germany is Israel’s largest European trading partner and continues arms sales and legal support at the ICC.

However, last week Merz criticized Israel’s widening military operations in Gaza: “What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip—I no longer understand the goal. To harm the civilian population in such a way... can no longer be justified as a fight against terrorism.”

This marked a rhetorical shift from decades of nearly unconditional German support for Israel. Merz joined major European partners in turning increasingly critical of Israel.

Public sentiment in Germany is also shifting. A recent Bertelsmann Foundation poll found only 36% of Germans now hold a positive view of Israel—a drop of 10 points since 2021.

Background on the Chancellor:

Friedrich Merz, 69, a conservative, became postwar Germany’s 10th Chancellor on May 6. He is a commercial lawyer from a rural region in western Germany and a long-time advocate of conservative values and family. He met his wife Charlotte (now a judge) while studying law. They have three grown children. A licensed pilot, he is openly passionate about his hobby and sometimes would fly his own small plane from his home in the Sauerland region to Berlin.

A member of the center-right CDU (Christian Democratic Union), Merz served in the European Parliament (1989–1994) and the German Parliament, the Bundestag (1994–2009), where he rose to lead the CDU parliamentary group before losing out to Angela Merkel for party leadership. He was more traditionally conservative than she. According to Deutsche Welle, over these years he took a particular interest in Germany’s relationship with the United States.

In 2009, Merz chose not to stand for parliament again and went on to pursue a career in business instead. From 2016 to 2020, he was chairman of the supervisory board of the German arm of the American investment company BlackRock, and during this time he often traveled for business to the United States and China. Volker Resing, who wrote the recent biography “Friedrich Merz: His Path to Power”, says that Merz would possibly be “the most international chancellor” Germany has had since 1945.

He re-entered politics in 2021 and won the 2025 election on promises to boost the economy, support Ukraine, and curb irregular migration. In May, he issued an order to reject undocumented migrants, including asylum seekers, at Germany’s borders. That marks a big shift since Germany’s “Refugees Welcome” culture during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015 under Angela Merkel.

On May 6, he became Chancellor after a bumpy start. He needed an unprecedented second vote in the Bundestag to secure the necessary majority. Now Merz’s conservative CDU governs Germany in coalition with its sister party, the regional Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Cristina Olea

Washington Bureau Chief

Radiotelevisión Española

Public Television of Spain

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Washington, DC 20036

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@cristina_olea

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