New German leader plans to discuss Ukraine and trade with Trump in Oval Office visit

By SEUNG MIN KIM KIRSTEN GRIESHABER and GEIR MOULSON Associated Press WASHINGTON AP Germany s new leader is meeting President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday as he works to keep the U S on board with Western promotion for Ukraine help defuse commerce tensions that pose a liability to Europe s biggest market system and further bolster his country s long-criticized military spending Trump and Chancellor Friedrich Merz have spoken several times by phone either bilaterally or with other European leaders since Merz took office on May German officers say the two leaders have started to build a decent relationship with Merz wanting to avoid the antagonism that defined Trump s relationship with one of his predecessors Angela Merkel in the Republican president s first term German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaks at the municipal congress of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities DStGB in Berlin Germany Tuesday June Michael Kappeler dpa via AP The -year-old Merz is a conservative former rival of Merkel s who took over her party after she retired from politics Merz also comes to office with an extensive business background something that could align him with Trump On Thursday Merz recounted reporters in Washington ahead of his meeting with Trump that the meeting has been well prepared on all sides He stated he wants to discuss the Ukraine war tariffs and NATO spending We will have to talk about NATO we changed the constitution in Germany so that we can spend the means that need to be spent Merz revealed adding that we want to become the strongest conventional army in the European Union Before it took office Merz s coalition pushed plans through parliament to enable higher defense spending by loosening strict rules on incurring debt Still Merz noted he didn t anticipate major breakthroughs on any of the key issues that he planned to discuss with Trump A White House official announced topics that Trump is likely to raise with Merz include Germany s defense spending pact Ukraine and what the official called democratic backsliding saying the administration s view is that shared values such as freedom of speech have deteriorated in Germany and the country should reverse module The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the discussions But Merz narrated reporters Thursday morning that if Trump yearned to talk German domestic politics he was ready to do that but he also stressed Germany holds back when it comes to American domestic politics Merz will want to avoid an Oval Office showdown of the kind that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa experienced in latest months Petitioned about the danger of a White House blow-up Merz spokesperson Stefan Kornelius disclosed on Monday that the chancellor is well-prepared for the meeting and that he and Trump have built up a decent relationship at least by phone and via text messaging Keeping Ukraine s Western backers together Merz has thrown himself into diplomacy on Ukraine traveling to Kyiv with fellow European leaders days after taking office and receiving Zelenskyy in Berlin last week He has thanked Trump for his advocacy for an unconditional ceasefire while rejecting the idea of dictated peace or the subjugation of Ukraine and advocating for more sanctions against Russia The White House official noted Trump on Thursday will stress that direct peace talks must continue In their first phone call since Merz became chancellor Trump revealed he would help the efforts of Germany and other European countries to achieve peace according to a readout from the German establishment Merz also noted last month that it is of paramount importance that the political West not let itself be divided so I will continue to make every effort to produce the greatest doable unity between the European and American partners Under Merz s immediate predecessor Olaf Scholz Germany became the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States Merz has vowed to keep up the backing and last week pledged to help Ukraine develop its own long-range missile systems that would be free of any range limits Military spending At home Merz s governing body is intensifying a drive that Scholz started to bolster the German military after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine In Trump s first term Berlin was a target of his ire for failing to meet the current NATO target of spending of gross domestic product on defense and Trump is now demanding at least from allies The White House official announced the upcoming NATO summit in the Netherlands later this month is a good opportunity for Germany to commit to meeting that mark Scholz set up a billion euro billion special fund to modernize Germany s armed forces called the Bundeswehr which had suffered from years of neglect Germany has met the target thanks to the fund but it will be used up in Merz has mentioned that the establishment will in the future provide all the financing the Bundeswehr necessities to become the strongest conventional army in Europe He has endorsed a plan for all allies to aim to spend of GDP on their defense budgets by plus an extra on potentially defense-related things like infrastructure Germany s financial sector and tariffs Another top priority for Merz is to get Germany s financial market Europe s biggest moving again after it shrank the past two years He wants to make it a locomotive of development but Trump s tariff threats are a prospective obstacle for a country whose exports have been a key strength At present the market is forecast to stagnate in Related Articles Trump banned citizens of countries from entering the U S Here s what to know Trump s EPA targets environmental rules projected to save billions and a multitude of thousands of lives Trump speaks with Xi amid stalled talks between the US and China over tariffs Consultant behind AI-generated robocalls mimicking Biden goes on trial in New Hampshire Thune s first big test as Senate leader has arrived with Trump s tax bill Germany exported billion worth of goods to the U S last year according to the Census Bureau That was about billion more than what the U S sent to Germany a business deficit that Trump wants to erase Germany is one of the very big investors in America Merz narrated reporters Thursday morning Only a sparse countries invest more than Germany in the USA We are in third place in terms of foreign direct outlay The U S president has specifically gone after the German auto sector which includes major brands such as Audi BMW Mercedes Benz Porsche and Volkswagen Americans bought billion worth of cars trucks and auto parts from Germany last year while the Germans purchased billion worth of vehicles and parts from the U S Trump s tariff on autos and parts is specifically designed to increase the cost of German-made automobiles in hopes of causing them to move their factories to the U S even though plenty of of the companies already have plants in the U S with Volkswagen in Tennessee BMW in South Carolina and Mercedes-Benz in Alabama and South Carolina There s only so much Merz can achieve on his view that tariffs benefit no one and damage everyone while in Washington as agreement negotiations are a matter for the European Union s executive commission Trump in recent weeks delayed a planned tariff on goods coming from the European Union which would have otherwise gone into effect this month Far-right tensions One source of strain in latest months is a speech Vice President JD Vance gave in Munich shortly before Germany s poll in February in which he lectured European leaders about the state of democracy on the continent and announced there is no place for firewalls That term is frequently used to describe mainstream German parties refusal to work with the far-right Alternative for Germany which finished second in the voting and is now the biggest opposition party Merz criticized the comments He stated ARD television last month that it isn t the place of a U S vice president to say something like that to us in Germany I wouldn t do it in America either Moulson disclosed from Berlin Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this assessment