Will Trump’s Middle East war also engulf Friedrich Merz?

Will Trump’s Middle East war also engulf Friedrich Merz? The war will have incalculable implications for Europe – and yet, the chancellor has held back from publicly challenging an increasingly erratic Donald Trump Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here You could be forgiven for thinking Friedrich Merz would rather be anywhere but Germany of late. But hopes that his stop in Washington this week would provide the chancellor even a brief respite from woes at home were dashed by Donald Trump’s risky Iran gamble. Only just back from high-stakes trade talks in China , the unpopular Merz boarded the Konrad Adenauer, the government’s jet, bound for the US after the weekend’s seismic events. The US-Israeli military attack on the Middle East has left European leaders looking once again like spectators in the unsettling new landscape of great power politics. But the fact is the war will have incalculable economic, political and security implications for Europe too. As the first European leader to be granted an audience in the gold-adorned Oval Office since the war started, Merz was under pressure to perform what observers called a “high-wire act” – of defending European interests without antagonising the increasingly erratic Trump. During his brief perch in the White House hot seat, Merz was at pains to identify common ground while impressing upon his often distracted interlocutor the stakes of his actions. It also kept him from stepping in – at least in public – when Trump went on the attack against allies Spain and the UK for purported failings. It also stopped him from mentioning international law . “We are on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away. And we will talk about the day after,” Merz said in response to one of the many open questions of what comes next in Iran . But the chancellor did not mince words about the knock-on effects of Operation Epic Fury, which has sent stock markets reeling and energy prices soari...