Posted on 05/04/2026 12:47:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The German chancellor Friedrich Merz has desperately backflipped on his criticism of US President Donald Trump after he threatened to remove thousands of US troops from Germany.
German chancellor desperately backtracks on Trump criticism
after savage threat to remove troops | 4:55
| 6.18M subscribers | 368,472 views | May 4, 2026
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai *may* follow.
BTW Merz, that's *President* Trump to you.
“You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall — you need me on that wall.”
Transcript
The German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz has desperately backflipped on his criticism of US President Donald Trump after he threatened to remove thousands of US troops from Germany. Mertz posted on X, “The Americans are and remain the important partner for Germany in the North Atlantic alliance.” We have a common goal: Iran must not obtain nuclear weapons. He then doubled down, saying Germany will not stop working with the US, and quote, “I’m not giving up on working with the transatlantic relationship, nor am I giving up on working with Donald Trump.”
This was a starkly different message from the one that went viral a few days ago where Mertz claimed that the US was humiliated by Iran. In true Trump style, the US president was not taking the criticism lying down. He responded by threatening to pull thousands of troops from Germany.
Why is the US Removing Troops from Germany?
Uh, we’re going to cut way down and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000. And it seems Trump is not only angry with Germany, but also with Italy and Spain, threatening to pull troops from those nations also.
Uh, would you be considering the same thing for Spain and Italy? I mean, they haven’t been exactly on board. Yeah, probably. You know, I probably will. Why should I? You know, look, why shouldn’t I? Uh, Italy has not been of any help to us. And Spain has been horrible. Absolutely horrible.
You know, it’s NATO. It’s not even the fact that they... It’s one thing if they said nicely or if they said, “Okay, we’ll help, but that helps a little slow.” But the level... and we helped them with Ukraine. You know, they made a mess out of Ukraine. A total mess. And we help them with Ukraine. Ukraine has nothing to do, you know, we have... we’re an ocean apart. It has to do with them. It’s like for them it’s their front door. We help them and Biden gave them $350 billion, which is insane. It’s one of the reasons the war went on. But, uh, when we needed them, they were not there. We have to remember that.
And he didn’t stop there. He extended his criticism to all of NATO, calling them a paper tiger. “Got no help. Zero from NATO. You know, we spent trillions of dollars on NATO. We got no help. We didn’t need it, but we got none. I said, ‘Would you like to come?’ Yeah. You’re fired. He said, ‘Fire them.’ Noah, they know they got problems. No, it’s... it was a paper tiger.”
Online commentators agreed with the president, with this person saying NATO has done nothing in the past 2 months to warrant any trust by the US. They have tried to thwart all efforts of the US military against the actions we imposed in Iran. They are useless and the US needs to either warn our supposed allies. If this is the way NATO treats our relationship, we can do without. They need us more than we need them.
President Trump’s decision to possibly remove 5,000 troops from Germany is a step in the right direction. And now some of the other NATO countries that refused bases or airspace should be dealt the same consequences. And whilst Trump is bickering with Europe, he has much bigger fish to fry with Iran, revealing he rejected a 14-point plan sent over by the Iranian leadership, and once again confirming there will be no agreement until nuclear weapons are off the table.
They told me about the concept of the deal. US President Donald Trump said he had yet to review the exact wording of a new Iranian peace proposal, but that he was unlikely to accept it. The reason, Trump said in a weekend social media post, was that Iran had quote not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to humanity and the world over the last 47 years. Trump’s post came after he publicly mused about the possibility of restarting air strikes on Iran.
If they, uh, misbehave, if they do something bad, but, uh, right now we’ll see. But, you know, it’s a possibility that could happen certainly.
😊🧱
F A @ F O
WORDS MEAN SOMETHING
WORDS MEAN SOMETHING
[snip] ...more than half of immigrants in Switzerland are European citizens. We're talking about one and a half million people coming directly from other EU countries. And of course, if we look at the countries it borders, this is the first clear sign that something is being done differently. So, if you're up for it, let's take a look at how the Swiss migration model compares and above all, how it differs from the rest of Europe. Maybe, just maybe, there's something we can learn from it. [/snip]Switzerland: The Hardline Model of the Country
with the Most Immigration in Europe | 23:51
VisualPolitik EN | 1.47M subscribers | 107,255 views | April 22, 2026
I read somewhere online (so it must be true) that each US serviceman was worth two German jobs.
Everyone knew that Joeseph Stalin was a psychopathic mass murderer. But nobody ever said anything bad about Stalin in public. Why? Because he was the leader of a country and no matter what you would eventually need to deal with him. Calling him names would have made that imposable. It seems that everyone in politics at every level understood that until, probably about ten years ago. Around that time, give or take a few years, politicians at all levels started going potty-mouthed about other politicians in the most stupid, non-diplomatic way imaginable. It’s like they no longer had to keep their inner teenage boy under wraps. Instead, they gave him a social media account and went nuclear on people their country needed for defense and commercial deals. What the heck happened to civility? To diplomacy?
Pull the troops. Bring them home. Let europe fight their own wars with their own troops. TIME FOR THE UNITED STATES MILITARY TO STOP BEING EUROPES MERCENARY’S.
I remember Churchill calling Hitler a “bloodthirsty guttersnipe”.
I hope DT doesn’t go soft because they’re kissing his ass now.
“I remember Churchill calling Hitler a “bloodthirsty guttersnipe”.”
It’s unlikely that Churchill thought he’d ever be sitting across the bargaining table from Hitler. Churchill also said, “”If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
I know, but man he had a way with words.
From whom are US troops “protecting” Merz and Germany?
Me too.
From your golden boy, Vlad the Imploder.
Yeah, that’ll happen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.