U.S. President Donald Trump with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the White House Oval Office on June 5, 2025, (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)
During his speech at the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland in January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney lamented that a "rupture" has occurred in relations between the United States and other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). And U.S. President Donald Trump was so angry that he withdrew his offer for Canada to join his Board of Peace, which he envisions as an alternative to the United Nations (UN).
But Carney is hardly the only head of a NATO country who believes that relations between the U.S. and other western democracies are suffering during Trump's second presidency.
On Friday, February 13 — the opening day of the 2026 Munich Security Conference — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered a warning similar to Carney's, telling attendees that the United States' role as a world leader "has been challenged, and possibly squandered."
Merz's tone was far from anti-American during his Munich speech; he described the U.S. as a "friend" but was highly critical of Trump's policies, warning, "A divide has opened up between Europe and the United States. Vice President JD Vance said this very openly here in Munich a year ago. He was right. The culture war of the MAGA movement is not ours…. In the era of great power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone. Dear friends, being a part of NATO is not only Europe's competitive advantage. It is also the United States' competitive advantage."
The German chancellor's "competitive advantage" comments recalled former U.S. President Joe Biden's NATO-related arguments. Biden, during his four years in the White House, was an aggressive champion of NATO — applauding Sweden and Finland's decisions to join the alliance and fearing that NATO would suffer or even fall apart if Trump ever returned to the White House.
The New York Times' Jim Tankersley, reporting from Munich, observed, "German officials suggested, before the address, that Mr. Merz had chosen his words carefully. They said his speech was a declaration of a new German strategy for Europe in a radically changed world order. But the chancellor did not play down the harsh words for America. He printed them in a Foreign Affairs article that was published while he was speaking."
