A meeting between President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Frederich Merz took an awkward turn on Thursday when Trump suggested that Germans would not view the anniversary of D-Day favorably because the U.S.-led invasion of Europe was carried out against the Third Reich.
Sitting in the Oval Office, Merz and Trump were discussing the death toll from Russia’s three-year-old war against Ukraine, the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War, when Merz noted that tomorrow marks the 81st anniversary of Operation Overlord, the allied amphibious assault on Nazi Germany that began with American, British, Canadian and Free French troops storming the beaches of Normandy in France.
Merz told Trump he wanted to discuss how to bring the current Russo-Ukrainian conflict to an end.
“I’m here, Mr. President, to talk with you later on on how we could contribute to that goal. And we all are looking for measures and for instruments to bring this terror war to an end. And may I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow. This is D-Day anniversary when the Americans once ended a war in Europe,” he said.
At that point, the American leader interjected, asking Merz: “That was not a pleasant day for you?”
The chancellor began to reply that it was “not a pleasant day” before stopping himself and delivering a bit of a history lesson for his U.S. counterpart.
“In the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship,” he said.
Merz continued by stating that Germans know what they owe to America for liberating their country from Nazis, telling Trump that the U.S. is “again in a very strong position” to help end Russia’s war by throwing steadfast support to Ukraine’s defensive efforts.
“We know what we owe you, but this is the reason why I’m saying that America is again, in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war. So let’s talk about what we can do jointly, and we are ready to do what we can,” he said.
The bizarre moment was not even the first example of questionable historical references from Trump, who also attempted to crack a joke about Merz’s efforts to push past decades of German pacifism to help bolster Ukraine’s defense and jump-start his country’s own arms industry.
Asked whether Germany is doing enough to meet their commitments to NATO by spending a set percentage of GDP on defense needs, Trump replied that he knows Germany is now “pending more money on defense now and quite a bit more money” and called the development “a positive thing” before waxing on about the late American general Douglas MacArthur’s views of Germany in the wake of two world wars.
“I’m not sure that General MacArthur would have said it’s positive, you know, he wouldn’t like it, but I sort of think it’s good,” Trump said.
“He made a statement, never let Germany rearm. And I said, I always think about that. When he says, Sir, we’re spending more money on defense, I say, Oh, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think it’s a good thing. But you know, at least to a certain point, there’ll be a point where say, Please don’t arm anymore. If you don’t mind.”
The president then, perhaps jokingly, suggested that the U.S. would be “watching” Germany’s re-armament efforts with skepticism.
In what appeared to be a reversal from his first-term position, the American leader told reporters that the U.S. would be keeping the tens of thousands of troops based in Germany in that country, the site of some of America’s largest European bases.
Asked whether the U.S. would continue to base troops in Merz’s country, he replied: “The answer is yes.”
“We’ll talk about that. But if they’d like to have them there, yeah,” he said.
“We have a lot of them, about 45,000 it’s a lot of troops. It’s a city,” Trump continued, adding that their presence is good for Germany’s economy because they’re “highly paid” and “spend a lot of money” there.
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