German Chancellor Friedrich Merz concluded his first post-election visit with US President Donald Trump at the White House's Oval Office on Thursday. The hour-long bilateral meeting encompassed America's trade policy, stopping the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the India-Pakistan conflict and more.
Merz, who last visited the Oval Office in 1982 (during Ronald Regan's tenure as US President) told reporters prior to the conversation that he had three important things on his agenda—NATO spending, ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and defusing US-EU trade tensions.
“I am looking forward to the talks, but I do not expect there to be any breakthroughs in the three major areas mentioned,” he had told German reporters.
Calling Merz a “good man to deal with”, he also called him “difficult”, a term he had recently used for Chinese President Xi Jinping as well, pointing out that it was a compliment.
Amongst other things, the conversation lingered on the failure of the Istanbul peace negotiations in bringing about a ceasefire in Moscow's conflict with Kyiv, with Trump likening the two nations to “fighting children”, adding that it was better to let them “fight for a while” before intervening.
In the same vein, he has called the conflict a "bloodbath", assuring Merz of America's support in ending the conflict, saying that he was all for "stopping killing".
Briefly touching upon his disappointment at former DOGE head Elon Musk's criticism of his "big beautiful bill"—which Musk claims he had never seen—Trump spoke of what he claimed were his efforts in ending the 88-hour India-Pakistan conflict, a claim that India has categorically denied.
Reiterating various points from his earlier Truth Social post announcing his role in ending the conflict—which had taken both nations by surprise—Trump explained that withholding trade from both nations was very effective, and that he wished it would have worked with Russia and Ukraine.
"And I said we're not going to trade with you if you're going to go shooting each other and whipping out nuclear weapons that maybe even affect us, because you know, that nuclear dust blows across oceans very quickly," he explained.
After Merz emphasised the devastating scale of Russian aggression on Ukrainian soil, Trump went on to talk of his "bone-crushing" sanctions on Moscow, which are yet to be implemented. When asked about those sanctions that he seems reluctant to impose, he simply said:
"At the right time, I’ll do what I want to do."
In general, the meeting touched upon a number of areas that did not directly concern Germany's agenda with the US, as a result of which Merz managed to stay out of Trump's line of fire, something that presidents like Kyiv's Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa have not been able to do.