US President Donald Trump took aim at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz again on Thursday over his criticism of the war in Iran.
Merz’s unguarded comment earlier this week suggesting the Iranian government has “humiliated” the United States in negotiations prompted an angry response from Trump, who has threatened to withdraw US troops stationed in Germany and aimed volleys at the chancellor on his Truth Social platform.
In his latest post on Thursday, Trump said Merz should “spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place.”
Berlin has sought to defuse the situation, with Merz saying on Wednesday that the two leaders’ relationship remained “as good as ever.”
Merz’s conservative ally Markus Söder, the premier of Bavaria, said he wished for both sides to “remain cool” amid the furore.
Söder noted that Germany is a “key strategic base for US forces in the whole world,” hosting Washington’s largest training base in Europe.
“The American forces feel very much at home in Germany,” the Bavarian leader told the Bild newspaper.
The US president brought up other countries on Thursday. When asked whether he could envisage taking such a step in Italy and Spain as well, he said:
“Yeah, probably, I probably will. Why should I, you know, look, why shouldn’t I? Italy has not been of any help to us,” Trump went on to say, without giving further details.
Regarding the Spanish government, with which Trump has been at loggerheads for some time, he said: “Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible.”
The US had encountered resistance in both Spain and Italy regarding the use of military bases in the two European countries for the war against Iran.
Trump previously threatened to reduce the number of US troops stationed in Germany during his first term in 2017-21.
According to US military figures from mid-April, around 86,000 US soldiers are currently stationed in Europe, including some 39,000 in Germany.