NATO & Transatlantic Relations

Washington: working with the second Trump administration

Fact Wadephul's main American interlocutor has been Secretary of State Marco Rubio. After their first encounter in Antalya, he travelled to Washington and met Rubio at the State Department on 28 May 2025. The following day, in an interview with Fox News, he emphasised that Germany stands by Israel and has supplied and will continue to supply it with weapons — a reminder that the transatlantic conversation was never only about Europe. Over the rest of 2025 the two spoke by telephone on several occasions, including on 9 May, 9 July and 1 December, with ending Russia's war against Ukraine a recurring subject.

Position In public, Wadephul has avoided the open confrontation with the Trump administration that some European politicians favoured. In a statement before the Munich Security Conference in February 2026 he described the transatlantic community as one "in which we have great confidence" and said Germany would do everything it could to keep the transatlantic bond strong. The same statement set out the formula that best captures his approach:

Growing military strength and committed diplomacy are our most important security resources.

Analysis The method is recognisably that of a German Atlanticist: invest in the relationship, meet American demands on burden-sharing where they coincide with German interests, and keep disagreements inside diplomatic channels. Its weakness is that it depends on a reciprocal willingness in Washington that is no longer taken for granted in Berlin.

January 2026: the Greenland test

Fact The most serious strain of his tenure so far came over Greenland, the self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally. With President Trump repeatedly stating his wish to bring Greenland under US control, Wadephul flew to Washington — via a stopover in Iceland — for talks with Rubio around 12–13 January 2026. Speaking there on 13 January, he played down fears of military action.

I have no indication that this is being seriously considered.

He argued that there was a common interest in addressing security in the Arctic, that NATO was developing more concrete plans to discuss with the United States, and that all sides were willing to take up the issue within the alliance. Days later, on 17–18 January, Trump threatened tariffs against eight European countries, Germany among them. The governments concerned issued a joint statement of solidarity with Denmark and Greenland. On 21 January the United States withdrew the tariff threat.

Criticism Wadephul's calm tone in Washington could be read two ways. To some observers it was prudent de-escalation: treating an alarming American demand as a security question to be channelled into NATO planning. To others, the subsequent tariff threat suggested that reassurance offered in Washington had little effect on the White House, and that Europe's leverage lay in collective firmness rather than quiet diplomacy. The sources used here do not show what role, if any, his talks played in the eventual US climb-down.

Lines of transatlantic tension

Greenland was the most dramatic episode, but not the only one. Several other questions have tested the relationship during Wadephul's time in office.

Ukraine and the shape of a settlement

Position Wadephul has consistently held that Ukraine must be part of any negotiation about its future. After meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York on 26 September 2026 — the first such German–Russian meeting since February 2022 — he said that the principle that one does not discuss Ukraine without Ukraine still applied. The emphasis matters in a transatlantic context in which American and European approaches to ending the war have not always matched.

Iran

Fact When the United States and Israel began military strikes on Iran at the end of February 2026, Wadephul stated that Germany was not participating in the conflict and would not join regime-change operations. He then undertook a regional crisis tour to Cyprus, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The episode showed a German government willing to keep a clear distance from an American military operation while maintaining close contact with the parties.

Trade and tariffs

Analysis Trade policy is formally an EU competence, but the use of tariff threats as a political lever — as in January 2026 — has pulled economic questions into the foreign minister's portfolio. The Foreign Office restructuring announced in November 2025 created a new department for EU policy and geoeconomics, a sign that Berlin expects such linkages to persist.

A stronger European pillar

Position If the first half of Wadephul's alliance policy is investing in the American relationship, the second is preparing Europe to carry more weight itself. On a panel at the Munich Security Conference in February 2026 with Mark Rutte and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he said "Now is Europe's moment". In his written statement for the same conference he described Europe as facing "an existential challenge from Russia" that required "a concerted effort to take on more responsibility for our security".

Fact Concrete steps include close coordination in the Weimar Triangle with France and Poland — he met his counterparts Jean-Noël Barrot and Radosław Sikorski at the Warsaw Security Forum on 29 September 2025 — and the reorganisation of the Foreign Office, which from summer 2026 includes a dedicated Security Policy department and a separate department for the Americas. The European dimension is examined further in the chapter on European policy.

Deterrence on the eastern flank

Fact Russia's threat to NATO territory has become a constant theme. Speaking to students in Johannesburg on 24 July 2026, during a visit to South Africa, Wadephul said that the Iskander missiles Russia has deployed in Kaliningrad "would need only a few minutes to reach Berlin", describing this as part of Europe's strategic reality. On 1 September 2026, together with Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, he attributed an attempted hybrid attack in Leipzig to Russia and announced countermeasures, including the closure of the Russian Consulate General in Bonn. These issues are treated in detail in the chapter on defence and security.

Ankara, July 2026: context

Fact NATO's 2026 summit took place in Ankara on 7–8 July 2026, with Germany represented by Chancellor Merz. Wadephul's specific role at the summit is not documented in the verified sources available for this profile, so this page does not attribute statements or meetings to him there. Türkiye itself has featured in his diplomacy: he visited Ankara for talks with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on 17 October 2025, shortly after Germany cleared negotiations on Eurofighter jets for Türkiye, and hosted Fidan in Berlin on 28 November 2025.

Assessment

Analysis On NATO, Wadephul's record shows unusual continuity between opposition and office. The arguments he made in 2019 — that commitments to allies must be kept, and that Germany's credibility depends on it — are the arguments he made in Antalya in 2025. What changed was the scale of the demand and his ability to shape the German answer. The Hague commitment, the debt-brake exemption and the Foreign Office's new security architecture together amount to a substantial shift in Germany's posture, even if most of the financial decisions lie with other ministries and the Chancellery.

Criticism The main criticisms concern style and sequencing — announcing positions before the coalition had agreed them — and, from the left, the fiscal and social cost of the spending path. A further, open question is whether a strategy of steady engagement with a transactional US administration can survive repeated shocks of the Greenland kind. His broader foreign-policy approach is set out in the chapter on foreign policy, and the wider institutional picture in German foreign policy.