GERMANY’S incoming Chancellor Friederich Merz is ringing an alarm for Europe.
The message is chilling but clear: We cannot rely on America.
Donald Trump is not a mystery.
He has made it very clear that he is sick of paying for our security.
He is preoccupied with the threat from China.
He is awestruck by tyrant Putin.
And he appears to have vendetta against President Zelensky and Ukraine. (It was a bullying phone call to Zelensky which led to Trump’s impeachment in 2019).
According to Boris Johnson, Trump’s wild claims are “not intended to be historically accurate, but to shock Europeans into action”.
With Merz it appears to have worked.
Merz says Nato could be dead by June if Trump undermines its mutual defence pact.
It is the German’s top priority to “strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can achieve real independence from the USA”.
Last year America spent almost a trillion dollars on defence, which is more than double the rest of Nato combined.
Europe relies on American might.
When Britain’s aircraft carrier strike group sailed around the world it was escorted by an American cruiser.
When allies helped Israel shoot down Iranian missiles, America had 70 planes in the sky. Britain had two.
We rely on their spy satellites.
British Storm Shadow missiles and the French equivalent SCALPS need mapping data from America to navigate to their targets.
Merz is right to make this a top priority.
Trump has proved he is unreliable as an ally.
But weaning Europe and Nato off America will take decades and cost trillions.
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