US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are among Chancellor Friedrich Merz's closest foreign policy partners.

Yet these relationships have evolved in very different ways — some far better, others worse than expected.

Emmanuel Macron: unable to find common ground

Few in Germany would have expected things to go poorly between Merz and Macron.

At the beginning of June, FCAS — a German-French flagship project — collapsed. After nine years of negotiations, France and Germany ended their attempts to build a joint fighter aircraft as a successor to the Eurofighter.

"Symbolically, the failure underscores that German-French cooperation, and the political will for closer defense integration between Europe's two largest military powers, have faltered," Linn Selle of the German Council on Foreign Relations told DW. "This is a very bad sign for European cooperation."

While in opposition, Merz complained that his predecessor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), had neglected relations with France and vowed to revive them.

Yet according to Linn Selle, little has come of that ambition: "Chancellor Merz began with strong engagement at the EU level and in German-French relations. In the meantime, however, German-French relations have cooled significantly."

The two leaders' positions on trade and financial policy, as well as on planning for the EU budget, are often far apart. The end of the FCAS project was not even announced jointly; instead, Berlin surprised Paris with the move.

Giorgia Meloni: The right-wing pragmatist

For German politicians, relations with Italy are often overshadowed by ties with France. In recent years, this has also had political reasons: When Giorgia Meloni became head of a right-wing coalition in Rome in 2022, Germany's center-left government at the time kept its distance.

Meloni's party, Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), is variously described in Germany as far-right, post-fascist, or at least right-wing nationalist. It was widely seen as the Italian equivalent of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — a group most centrist parties wanted nothing to do with.

However, that changed with the start of Friedrich Merz's chancellorship in May 2025. The shift had less to do with Merz sharing Meloni's political positions than with her effectiveness as a pragmatic mediator, both in the tariff dispute between the EU and the US, and in the conflict over Trump's ambitions in Greenland.

Beyond efforts to resolve the crisis with Trump, however, the governments in Berlin and Rome appear to have more in common: they share a desire to promote greater competition and reduce bureaucracy within the EU. For Linn Selle, it is no coincidence that Merz and Meloni have found common ground: "Both share a rather pragmatic approach to European policy."

Moreover, "Italy and Germany are very similar economically and politically: a relatively strong industrial base, an economic structure shaped by SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), and a federal system of government. This shapes their view of the world and fosters a sense of closeness."

Nonetheless, Selle considers it unlikely that Italy will ever assume a role for Germany comparable to that of France. The reason: "The German-French partnership possesses an institutionalized closeness and an intensity of exchange that Germany has with no other partner."

Donald Trump: flattery fails to forge a friendship

Friedrich Merz has made considerable efforts to cultivate ties with US President Donald Trump. Whether it was the US military operation in Venezuela or Trump's demands regarding Greenland, Merz voiced any reservations only with great restraint, if at all.

Even on the Iran war initiated by the United States and Israel, he was initially cautious in his criticism. Threevisits to the White House have underlined just how important the German chancellor considers relations with the US president.

Political scientist Johannes Varwick of the University of Halle recently told DW what believes to be one reason for this: "Merz thinks in terms of a threat from Russia and is evidently convinced that the Americans must be kept on board in order to prevent Russian aggression."

However, that approach came under strain when Merz criticized what he saw as a lack of strategy in the Iran war and remarked that Iran had humiliated the United States.

Trump reacted furiously, venting his anger directly at Merz on his platform Truth Social: "No wonder Germany is doing so badly economically and otherwise."

Whether Merz will launch a new charm offensive despite the recent insult or instead withdraw for the time being remains to be seen.

Keir Starmer: seeking rapprochement with the EU

The UK has been out of the EU for years, much to Friedrich Merz's regret. Yet Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer is seeking a rapprochement with the bloc — and in doing so is pushing at an open door in Berlin.

Starmer and Merz come from different political families: Starmer from the Labour Party, broadly comparable to Germany's center-left SPD, while Merz's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is akin to the British Conservatives. Nevertheless, the two leaders have built a relationship of trust and close cooperation, particularly in their support for Ukraine.

"Starmer, like Merz, is a pragmatist; both are united in their strong support for Ukraine," Linn Selle told DW. "Merz is also strongly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon world, has followed Brexit closely, and aims to foster closer political ties between the United Kingdom and the European Union (also with a view to the UK as a historically close ally of Germany within the EU)."

The threat of the far right

However, both leaders are under enormous political pressure from the right: Merz from the AfD and Starmer from Reform UK.

And this is something else that unites not only the conservative Merz and the Labour politician Starmer, but also affects the centrist Macron: In Europe's three strongest countries, the ruling parties trail, in some cases significantly, behind right-wing rivals in the polls.

In the United States and Italy, such politicians are already in power. In dealing with Trump and Meloni, Merz is already getting a foretaste of the kind of leaders he may have to contend with in France and the United Kingdom in the future.

This article has been translated from German.