Friedrich Merz meets Trump in the White House on Thursday

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) travels to Washington on Wednesday evening to meet US President Donald Trump for the first time on Thursday. A conversation between the two in the White House, a lunch together and a subsequent press, said government spokesman Stefan Kornelius in Berlin.

It is the first meeting of the two since Merz took office on May 6th. Before that, the two of them had met only once in New York many years ago. Merz will open to Washington on Wednesday evening after a dinner with the Prime Minister of the States in Berlin. At the Prime Minister Conference on Thursday, he lets himself be represented by Chancellor Department Thorsten.

Trump will have the Chancellor in the President’s guest house, the Blair House, next to the White House – a special honor. In the conversation in Washington, the efforts to end the Ukraine War, the reaction of NATO to the growing threats from outside and the customs dispute between the USA and the EU are the focus. Above all, it is about whether the two find a good connection to each other.

Merz and Trump have spoken several times in the past few weeks- once and then three times in a larger group with several other European state and government heads for the efforts to end the Ukraine War. Merz now has the US President’s cell phone number and exchanges with him via SMS. Since the latest phone call, the two have also addressed the first names Friedrich and Donald.

Number one efforts to end the war in Ukraine are likely to be at the end of the war. Merz took the top among the Europeans, but was recently frustrated about lack of progress. In Washington, he will fight at Trump to increase the pressure on the Russian Vladimir Putin in order to move him to a ceasefire. The Europeans prepare another sanction package in the awareness that they can only really impress Putin together with the Americans.

Trump said on Wednesday that within the next two weeks it will be shown whether Putin “leads us around” or not. “And if he does it, we will react a little differently.” From new sanctions against Russia, he only holds the fact “that if I think I am about to be about a deal, I don’t want to screw it up.” It is currently still open whether there will be new conversations in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine until the meeting between Merz and Trump.

A solution in the customs dispute with the USA. However, the EU Commission is negotiating with the United States. Merz will not turn on the details, but as the head of the most economical European country can create and set impulses. For the tariffs of 50 percent, originally threatened by Trump on June 1st, there is now a deadline until July 9th.

At the end of June, the heads of state and government of the defense alliance in Brussels come together and will talk about their defense spending, among other things. Trump demanded five percent of gross domestic product from the allies. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reacted with a compromise formula: 3.5 percent for the military and 1.5 percent for infrastructure such as streets or ports that can be relevant for defense. Merz has joined this proposal.

Merz has done a lot in the past few weeks to be cooperative towards the United States. However, he reacts upset with a topic. He finds the attacks by US Vice President JD Vance, who accused the European allies at the Munich Security Conference of Democracy. And criticism from the US government of the AfD classification by the Protection of the Constitution as secure right-wing extremist. «That is our thing. We decide on this and not an American government. » It remains to be seen whether this comes up during his visit to Washington.

Since taking office in January, numerous heads of state and government have been with him, including France head Emmanuel Macron, the British Prime Minister Keir Strander and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. However, two visits are particularly remembered: Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa were literally demonstrated by the US President in the Oval Office in front of ongoing cameras.

Left. “I don’t need a valerian to stay calm and have a reasonable conversation with the American president,” he said recently on ZDF. However, the Chancellor is preparing intensively for the appointment. He was given advice from several heads of state and government who were already at Trump, among others from Selenskyj, Ramaphosa, Meloni, the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and the Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

In any case, he wants to go into the conversation with a positive attitude: «We will have to talk about common interests. There are differences, but there are also many similarities and we will talk about that, »he said on ZDF.