Donald Trump is throwing a petty fit after Germany’s chancellor said the president’s Iran war strategy has “humiliated” the United States.
The thin-skinned president had already lashed out on Tuesday over Friedrich Merz’s remarks that Washington “quite obviously went into this war without any strategy,” and that “a whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” Trump fumed on Truth Social.
He has since appeared to spiral further over the 70-year-old German chancellor’s comment, leveling a new threat at one of America’s most important allies.
“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” the 79-year-old president declared on Truth Social on Wednesday, without offering further details.
Germany has been a linchpin of America’s military presence in Europe ever since Allied forces occupied the country after World War II. Over 34,000 U.S. service members were stationed in Germany in 2025—more than in any other European country and second only to Japan globally.
Troop numbers rose sharply after Russian dictator Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a war that continues more than four years later. Trump said he had a “good talk” with Putin, 73, on Wednesday.
The president is angered that NATO allies, including the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy, have rebuffed his pleas for military backing in his war against Iran. He has previously threatened to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe and suggested he could refuse to come to NATO members’ defense last month.
Trump’s post on troop numbers in Germany came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a phone call with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, in which they discussed Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, according to France 24.
The White House and the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Merz had delivered the remarks that drew Trump’s ire while speaking to students in the town of Marsberg, in North Rhine-Westphalia, on Monday.
“The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected, and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” Merz told the audience.
The chancellor—long viewed in Berlin as one of Trump’s more sympathetic European counterparts—drew a stinging parallel with America’s past Middle East quagmires.
“The problem with conflicts like this is always: you don’t just have to get in, you have to get out again,” he said. “We saw that very painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq.”
In response, Trump claimed in his Tuesday Truth Social post that Merz “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” Merz hasn’t said that.
“If Iran had a Nuclear Weapon, the whole World would be held hostage,” Trump went on. “I am doing something with Iran, right now, that other Nations, or Presidents, should have done long ago. No wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!”
Monday wasn’t the first time Merz criticized Trump’s leadership. In February’s Munich Security Conference, Merz said there was now “a deep divide” between Europe and the U.S. thanks to Trump.
“The leadership claim of the U.S. is being challenged, perhaps already lost,” Merz said then. “In the era of great powers, our freedom is no longer simply guaranteed. It is under threat.”
