{"id":176854,"date":"2025-12-10T01:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T01:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/176854\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T01:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T01:15:11","slug":"german-leader-says-u-s-strategy-shows-the-need-for-more-european-security-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/176854\/","title":{"rendered":"German leader says U.S. strategy shows the need for more European security independence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BERLIN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that the Trump administration\u2019s new national security strategy<\/a> underscores the need for Europe to become \u201cmuch more independent\u201d from the United States in terms of security policy.<\/p>\n

Merz also pushed back against the notion that European democracy needs saving. <\/p>\n

The U.S. strategy, published 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. On Monday, European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa warned the U.S. against interfering in Europe\u2019s affairs and said only European citizens can decide which parties should govern them.<\/p>\n

Merz, the leader of the European Union\u2019s most populous nation and its biggest economy, said he wasn\u2019t surprised by the substance of the strategy as it was largely in line with a lecture U.S. Vice President JD Vance gave to European allies in Munich in February.<\/p>\n

Parts of the document are understandable, but \u201csome of it is unacceptable for us from the European point of view,\u201d he told reporters in the western German city of Mainz.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat the Americans want to save democracy in Europe now, I don\u2019t see any need for that,\u201d Merz said. \u201cIf it needed to be saved, we would manage that alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the new U.S. document \u201cconfirms 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merz said that Vance\u2019s speech earlier this year had \u201cset off something in me as well, and you can see that today in our defense spending.\u201d <\/p>\n

Merz\u2019s government, in office since May, has enabled higher spending by loosening strict rules on incurring debt \u2014 adding to an effort to bolster Germany\u2019s military that has been underway since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022. <\/p>\n

Under pressure from U.S. President Trump, NATO members, including Germany, agreed in June to a massive hike in the alliance\u2019s defense spending target.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my talks with the Americans, I say: \u2018America first is fine,\u2019 but \u2018America alone\u2019 can\u2019t be in your interest. You need partners in the world too,\u201d Merz said Tuesday. \u201cAnd one of the partners can be Europe. And if you can\u2019t do anything with Europe, then at least make Germany your partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moulson writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that the Trump administration\u2019s new national security strategy underscores the need for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[38787,63,103767,103771,103772,103766,170,42,103764,103768,2105,43,6741,103770,103769,40,38,41,39,4374,103765],"class_list":["post-176854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-defense-spending","tag-europe","tag-european-ally","tag-european-democracy","tag-full-scale-invasion","tag-german-leader","tag-germany","tag-headlines","tag-merz","tag-more-european-security-independence","tag-need","tag-news","tag-partner","tag-security-policy","tag-term","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-strategy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}