Transatlantic Divorce: A German View

Jonathan Lehrer, editor of The Berlin Pulse, compares the current German-U.S. relations to spouses’ divorce. On the one hand, he finds a contradiction between the German government’s conciliatory policy and society’s desire to say goodbye to the USA. An article to this effect has appeared in Internationale Politik Quarterly, a publication of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).

Breakups tend to follow a familiar script. First comes the shock: ‘No way!’ Then the anger: ‘What an idiot!’ Eventually, we accept that we no longer have much in common with the person we once shared our life with.

This is what seems to be happening in the U.S.-German relationship. A large share of the German public has already said goodbye to the United States – or at least to the version of it led by a coalition of conservative hardliners and MAGA devotees who either encourage US President Donald Trump – or at the very least do not stop him from floating plans to take over Greenland, casually tossing around tariffs, or waging war against Iran.

Back in the fall of 2025, according to polling for The Berlin Pulse, only 27 percent of Germans saw relations with Washington as positive – hardly surprising, given how little ‘positive’ remains amid all the disagreements. Sixty-two percent no longer trust in U.S. nuclear deterrence, and 65 percent believe that Trump has no serious interest in a lasting peace in Ukraine.

According to ARD Deutschlandtrend, 58 percent of Germans oppose the war against Iran. It is, however, unclear whether Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul supports it.

To make matters worse, Germany is now also feeling the economic fallout of the war against Iran. But German politics is stuck somewhere between phases one and two of the breakup timeline. Shock and denial alternate with anger and grief.

The German chancellor and the U.S. president have been exchanging pleasantries in various constellations. Visible opposition – of the kind that does not happen behind closed doors – remains conspicuously absent.

The chancellor has so far managed not to upset Trump. The government’s strategy is seemingly to keep indulging him for some time – while, in parallel, channeling the billions from a loosened ‘debt brake’ for defense expenditure into reducing Germany’s security dependence on the USA.

But the price is high. In return for their strategic friendliness toward Trump, Germany and Europe are getting exactly what they currently need least: tariffs. What’s more, they also change from one day to the next. Business leaders in Germany are, unsurprisingly, livid.

With internal divisions and populism rising, it is unclear how Europe will manage to avoid being squeezed between Russia, China, and the United States. Germany’s answer is, for the most part, rearmament. Seventy-two percent of Germans support spending 5 percent of GDP on defense, and 56 percent even support deploying peacekeeping troops in Ukraine.

Yet there is a lingering spirit of Germany as a ‘civilian power’: only 38 percent of Germans want Germany to assume a military leadership role in Europe. This contradiction is the flipside of the German divorce with America, something the Germans need to figure out by themselves.

Source: https://ip-quarterly.com/en/germans-are-filing-transatlantic-divorce