It seems likely that Germany’s biggest foreign policy challenge in 2025 will stem from the next US president, Donald Trump. He is expected to oppose much of what was prioritized by Chancellor Olaf Scholzand his recently ruptured center-left coalition government.
“It is now clear that the old formula — that we can rely on the US to safeguard our security — no longer applies,” Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI) in Berlin, told DW. “Trump is the new rule — and four years under Biden were the last twitches of the old transatlanticism.”
As a consequence, Germany must prepare for a world “in which we have to pay much more for our own security in Europe, and to do that while there is a war on the European continent,” Brenner added.
One option: Europe pays, US supplies Ukraine with weapons
Next year’s foreign policy shifts may well be most obvious in the way they affect the war in Ukraine. Trump recently reiterated that he would “certainly” cut support to Ukraine — and called for an “immediate ceasefire.”
What would that mean for Germany? Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens, set out some of the country’s positions at the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum in mid-November: “Germany stands by Ukraine, irrespective of the US election results,” she said, adding that “there can be no peace negotiations over Ukrainian heads.” With that statement, Baerbock was responding to Trump’s hints that he could end the war in Ukraine through direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
To avoid that scenario, Benner believes Germany should “approach the Trump administration with an offer.” One possibility might be: “We will pay you to continue to supply military goods to Ukraine.” Europe simply doesn’t have the manufacturing capacity to supply the same level of military aid to Ukraine that the US has — but it could finance it.
Benner is convinced that Germany must increase its spending on Ukraine, as well as on general security. However, given Germany’s tight budget, it could only do so by taking on new debt.
Germany and Europe are only Middle East ‘spectators’
The second major foreign policy challenge is the Middle East. The ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by rebel groups in early December has greatly complicated the situation there. While Syrians are celebrating the end of Assad’s rule, which was supported by Russia and Iran, Germany is still waiting to see whether Islamists will enforce religious rule in Syria, which could trigger new streams of refugees coming to Europe. But the upheaval in Syria is only one event, albeit the most recent, in the Middle East.
Following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the subsequent retaliation by Israel in the Gaza Strip, and its fight against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Germany has been attempting a balancing act.
On the one hand, it has supplied Israel with weapons on the basis of what Germany calls a “reason of state.” On the other, in numerous trips to the region, Baerbock has advocated for Palestinians and de-escalation.
“The balancing act was not perfect, but doing it any other way than it has been done so far would have been difficult,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, Middle East expert at the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
The entire European Union substantially reduced its involvement in the Middle East conflict many years ago, and Schindler notes that since October 7, the EU and Germany have had “hardly any weight in the talks, when it came to the decisions.” “So it was really an American-Israeli dialogue, and the Europeans were — at most — spectators, offering comments from the sidelines,” he told DW.
With Trump as US president, the question is: “How will he reconcile his very pro-Israeli position with his goal of ending conflicts?”
Schindler is convinced that “Germany and Europe will not develop any kind of stronger position that might influence the conflict.” He believes that only in the best case scenario — some future reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon — may Europe be able to reassert itself by becoming actively involved.
China resents German lecturing
For three years, Baerbock has been Germany’s primary foreign policy figure — and has occasionally tried to champion human rights, openly addressing human rights violations with important trading partners like China.
However, during a 2023 press conference with then-Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, he responded by saying, “What China needs least of all is a teacher from the West.”
Thorsten Benner says that values-based foreign policies are difficult to implement. “Of course, it’s good to have an ambitious target — to avoid falling into overly complicated realpolitik compromises too easily. But I believe even Ms. Baerbock herself, in any future German coalition, might no longer wish to anchor a values-based foreign policy in the same way,” he said.
Germans don’t want a ‘leading role’
Opinion polls suggest that the next German government will most likely be led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister-party the Christian Social Union (CSU), under a Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Henning Hoff of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), believes a Merz-led foreign policy won’t actually be that different from Germany’s current one. “There’s a consensus on foreign policy that we have in Germany. This is a stabilizing factor during this time of crisis,” Hoff told DW. That consensus holds that the country must become more active in foreign and security policy.
The German population, however, is not fully on board with this. In a survey commissioned by the Körber Foundation right after the US election — and shortly after Scholz’s coalition collapsed — 73% of respondents said Germany should invest more in European security. However, 58% were against Germany taking on a leading role in the West, should the US withdraw from the international stage.
As far as NATO is concerned, a YouGov survey conducted in mid-November after Trump’s election showed that only 33% of Germans felt their country should play a greater role in NATO leadership. Another 41% wanted it to play an equally strong role, and 16% wanted it to play a lesser role.
It seems that any new German government, no matter who leads it, will also face a challenge on the domestic front: Convincing Germans that their country should assume more global responsibility.
This article was originally written in German.
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