Berlin breaks publicly with Washington as Iran war drags on

The 90-day window opened with Friedrich Merz still consolidating his rearmament agenda — a defence budget of roughly €83 billion for 2026 funded through the debt-brake exemption pushed through in 2025 — and ended with Germany in the most public quarrel with a US administration since the Iraq War. The pivot point was the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28, 2026.

Merz initially backed the campaign. On March 3 he met Donald Trump at the White House and publicly endorsed the strikes, calling the Iranian regime a threat to Israel and to peace. By March 7, at a rally where he scolded a pro-Palestinian protester with the line "We stand with Israel," he was still in lockstep with Washington. The break came within days. On March 13, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a temporary lifting of sanctions on Russian oil tankers to ease energy prices, Merz issued a sharp public rebuke — "We believe it is wrong to ease the sanctions" — and revealed that six of seven G7 leaders had opposed the move on a videoconference. He repeated the criticism through April, and on April 27 told reporters that Iran had "clearly" come out stronger and that Washington had been "humiliated" by the prolonged war. Trump retaliated on April 30 by floating a US troop drawdown from Germany, and on May 1 the Pentagon formally announced the withdrawal of 5,000 US troops, leaving roughly 30,000 in country. Merz on May 3 said he was "not giving up on working with Donald Trump" but acknowledged the rift, while the Pentagon told NATO allies to expect weapons delivery delays as US stockpiles depleted.

Germany used the same window to lock in its European bets. On March 2 in Berlin, Merz and Emmanuel Macron issued a joint declaration establishing a high-level Franco-German nuclear steering group — Macron's "advance deterrence" policy made operational with Germany as the principal bilateral partner — and on April 24 the two leaders pushed the FCAS sixth-generation fighter program back to defence ministers with instructions to find a path forward. The European Council on March 19-20 adopted Merz's framing on defence readiness by 2030. Italy's Giorgia Meloni continued the "Merzoni" axis on EU competitiveness and migration. Poland's Donald Tusk, after meeting Merz, called bilateral relations "exceptionally good" and on May 5 ruled out accepting any US troops relocated from Germany at Berlin's expense. Germany joined France, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and Japan in the March 19 joint statement on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, where the Bundeswehr also evacuated personnel from Bahrain and Kuwait by March 6.

The single largest bilateral move came on April 14, when Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to Berlin with six ministers for the first Germany-Ukraine intergovernmental consultations in over twenty years. The two sides signed a strategic partnership declaration, nine inter-ministerial agreements, and a roughly €4 billion defence package: hundreds of additional Patriot interceptors, 36 IRIS-T launchers, €300 million for Ukraine's long-range strike capabilities, and joint production of 5,000 AI-enabled mid-range strike drones. Merz declined to send Taurus cruise missiles but committed Germany to financing Ukrainian-built equivalents. German officials publicly described Germany as Ukraine's "most important bilateral partner" by 2026.

Relations with Beijing softened modestly at the leader level — Merz visited China on February 25-26 with a senior business delegation, met Xi Jinping and Li Qiang, and committed to a "comprehensive strategic partnership" while pressing China to constrain Russia — even as Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul travelled separately to Beijing with a noticeably tougher line on the South China Sea and market access. Spain became a notable casualty of the Iran rift: after Merz sat in silence at the White House while Trump berated Pedro Sánchez over Spain's refusal to host US Iran operations, Madrid accused Berlin of vassalage; Deputy PM Yolanda Díaz called the Merz government "vassals who pay homage to Trump," and Sánchez and Merz reportedly did not speak for weeks. Iran-Germany channels reopened in early April, with Merz announcing on April 9 that Berlin had resumed coordinated talks with Tehran alongside Washington and the E3.

The Hungarian general election on April 12 closed the window with a thunderclap. Péter Magyar's Tisza party defeated Viktor Orbán's Fidesz 53.6% to 37.8%, taking 138 of 199 seats and ending sixteen years of Orbán government. Merz publicly welcomed the result, saying it would make Europe's relationship with Budapest "easier," and Magyar quickly signalled he would lift Hungary's veto on the €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine that Berlin had spent the spring fighting to unblock.