BERLIN (Reuters) -Some U.S. lawmakers do not understand the scale of Russia’s rearmament campaign, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday, a day after he held talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House.
“I met with some senators on Capitol Hill and told them to please look at the rearmament Russia is doing,” Merz told a business conference in Berlin.
“They clearly have no idea what is happening there right now,” he said, without identifying the senators.
Russia has shifted defence plants to round-the-clock production since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has signed arms deals with North Korea and Iran, prompting European officials to warn that Moscow could soon be in a position to attack NATO territory.
Russia denies any such intention and says it is waging a “special military operation” in Ukraine to protect its own security against what it casts as an aggressive, hostile West.
Merz, a conservative who took power in May, is the latest European leader to visit Trump hoping to convince him of the need to back Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and continue to help underpin Europe’s security through the NATO alliance.
Merz said he had been reassured by the words Trump had uttered during their public encounter in the Oval Office, especially the U.S. president’s “resounding no” to a question on whether the United States had plans to withdraw from NATO.
European countries have been boosting defence spending since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in the continent’s bloodiest conflict since World War Two.
Merz has backed Trump’s demand for NATO members to commit to a target of more than doubling defence spending to 5% of economic output in the future. Trump welcomed that commitment on Thursday and told Merz that U.S. forces would remain in Germany.
“Whether we like it or not,” Merz said on Friday, “we will remain dependent on the United States… for a long time to come.”
(Reporting by Friederike Heine and Andreas Rinke, Writing by Thomas EscrittEditing by Gareth Jones)
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