Shortly after the German election polls closed Feb. 23, Elon Musk positioned a congratulatory name — however to not conservative chief Friedrich Merz, who will grow to be Germany’s subsequent chancellor.
As an alternative, he was keen to talk with Alice Weidel, the pinnacle of the anti-American, anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin, hard-right Various for Germany get together, a number of of whose main lights downplay Nazi crimes and are thought of extremists by Germany’s home intelligence company. With 20% of the whole votes, the AfD, because the get together is understood, had doubled its share because the final German election.
Equally essential, businessman-turned-politician Merz, a powerful supporter of shut transatlantic ties, rapidly grasped that the tight postwar bond between Germany and america has been sundered by President Donald Trump’s new alliance with Moscow. And consider me, the warp velocity of Trump’s rejection of America’s closest allies over the previous two weeks in favor of a Kremlin conflict felony will not be straightforward to understand.
Furthermore, Musk, Vance and Trump himself seem desperate to undercut Berlin at each flip.
Beneath strain
The brand new German chief has already spoken bluntly on nationwide tv in regards to the challenges he faces. “I have no illusions about what is happening in America,” he mentioned Monday. “Just look at recent events, including Elon Musk’s interventions in the German election campaign. This is unprecedented. The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and brazen than those we have seen from Moscow.”
Certainly, america voted with Russia, North Korea, and Iran in opposition to the Europeans and a lot of the U.N. Basic Meeting in a vote Monday condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine three years in the past.
Merz added that Germany was underneath strain “from both sides” — an astonishing equivalence of antipathy from each Washington and Moscow. His “absolute priority,” he continued, can be “to establish unity in Europe” as rapidly as attainable “so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
“I never thought I would have to say something like that on a TV program, but after Donald Trump’s latest comments in the last week, it’s clear … this government cares very little about the fate of Europe,” Merz advised his German viewers.
This places an unlimited burden on Europe’s richest, largest nation to assist coordinate fellow European democracies in filling the massive hole in support to Ukraine if Trump cuts off all U.S. assist.
The Europeans have mentioned sending a peacekeeping pressure to Ukraine after any ceasefire, but Trump has minimize them and Ukraine out of U.S.-Russian negotiations. Each European official I spoke with on the Munich Safety Convention insisted that such a pressure can be toothless until it had intelligence and logistical backing from america, which has capacities Europe lacks.
Nonetheless, Trump advised visiting French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday he didn’t “think you’re going to need much backing.” In different phrases, he is able to depart Russia with a free hand to interrupt any ceasefire deal — because it did after invading the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 — and to reinvade at will.
Earlier than even taking energy, Mertz should negotiate a coalition settlement between his Christian Democratic Union alliance and the Social Democratic Occasion of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which completed third. Germany has been within the financial doldrums after vitality costs spiked in 2022 following the shutdown of Russian oil and fuel imports. Its industries are hurting from Chinese language competitors, and its infrastructure growing old. And it’s susceptible to Trump’s tariff threats.
So Merz must promote his hoped-for rise in protection spending to his public, which can want butter to weapons, regardless of persevering with robust German assist for Ukraine.
That stronger protection can be very important: Trump’s kowtow to Russia over Ukraine will certainly make Putin bolder in hybrid warfare in opposition to Europe. Merz is aware of this to be true, particularly since Trump is prone to flip his again on NATO, leaving the European allies to face an emboldened Putin alone.
Germany’s far proper
To make issues worse, as Merz acknowledged, Trump’s group appears bent on urgent Merz to convey the AfD right into a governing coalition. By no means thoughts that each one mainstream German political events have a so-called firewall in opposition to aligning with the hard-right get together as a result of it downplays Nazi historical past and performs up racism.
Once I spoke to the director of the German Council on Overseas Relations, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, in Berlin, his concern was that Musk and Vance, with Trump’s backing, would go all out to “build an alliance with pro-Putin parties in Europe.” Vance’s speech, he mentioned, had redefined U.S. values in order that they had been “no longer based on universalistic principles” of human rights and rule of regulation. As an alternative, they’ve grow to be “transactional,” with nice powers out to seize what they will.
Thus, the Trump group is selling a hard-right nationalist get together whose main figures downplay the crimes of Hitler’s SS, name for the mass deportation of immigrants, and even deporting German residents descended from migrants. The get together won’t repudiate a deputy get together chief who famously in contrast Hitler’s rule to “a spot of fly poop” on Germany’s nice historical past. Attracted by strongmen leaders, they need to carry sanctions on Moscow and resume fuel imports from Russia.
With its new power, the AfD is predicted to make use of its numbers to show debate within the Bundestag, the German parliament, into extra of an indignant, ugly circus, a lot as MAGA legislators have finished within the U.S. Congress. Little question inspired each step of the way in which by digital copresident Musk, who appears to share their values.
Allow us to hope incoming chancellor Merz can deal with superhuman challenges from the brand new entente of Washington and Moscow, alongside together with his troubled dwelling entrance — and achieve this concurrently — as a result of Germany and Europe at the moment are the prime defenders of the democratic values Trump seeks to destroy.
Trudy Rubin is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. ©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company.
