I was sitting in the First Class lounge at Frankfurt Airport on Tuesday, sipping a mildly disappointing Riesling, when I read that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz believes Donald Trump is being "outplayed" in his negotiations with Tehran.
According to the Chancellor, the ongoing US-Israeli military action in Iran, combined with the ensuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has been "severely damaging" to European interests. He is currently struggling to revive an anaemic German economy, and he seems to think that a complete halt to global shipping through the world's most critical maritime chokepoint is somehow making his job harder.
Frankly, it sounds like someone needs a nap.
It is incredibly tedious to watch European leaders constantly obsess over minor logistical hiccups like the systematic dismantling of the global supply chain, while entirely missing the broader strategic genius at play. Merz claims the Trump team is losing the geopolitical chess match. But earlier this week, the American president explicitly warned that "the clock is ticking" and that there "won't be anything left" of Iran if they do not sign a peace deal.
I am no chess grandmaster, but last I checked, promising to physically vaporize the board and everyone sitting at the table is a perfectly valid opening gambit. It projects strength. It establishes boundaries. And most importantly, it shows a commitment to thinking outside the box, assuming the box is a blast radius.
If you look at the historical data, it is very difficult for a foreign regime to out-negotiate you when their capital city has been reduced to a fine, radioactive powder.
Merz seems incapable of understanding that diplomacy requires leverage. Just look at the UAE, which is currently blaming Iran or its proxies for a drone strike that started a fire near a nuclear plant. Things are getting hot. Literally. This is exactly why we need a leader willing to threaten the wholesale erasure of a sovereign landmass from the map. When Trump says he will leave "nothing left" of a country of 88 million people, he is actually extending a hand of peace. He is saying, "I care enough about our relationship to threaten you with a level of destruction not seen since the Chicxulub asteroid."
Yet instead of applauding this bold peacemaking initiative, Merz is whining about his exports. If the German manufacturing sector cannot figure out how to power itself on good vibes, transatlantic resilience, and whatever oil is left in the strategic reserves, that is a Merz problem, not an American problem. Disruption is the engine of innovation. If the Strait of Hormuz is closed, perhaps Germany should simply innovate a new strait.
Even more insulting is Merz's assertion that he would not advise his children to study or work in the United States in the "current climate." The climate, presumably, being one where the commander-in-chief is actively managing a multi-front geopolitical meltdown via unhinged public ultimatums.
If the Merz children do not want to spend their semester abroad in a nation that might arbitrarily trigger a global conflagration before midterms, they simply lack grit. My own son is studying finance at Columbia, and he has not let the looming threat of asymmetric warfare slow down his acquisition of summer internships. America is a place where you learn to thrive under pressure. Avoiding the US just because we are casually threatening to turn the Middle East into glass is exactly the kind of coddled, risk-averse European mindset that has left their tech sector so far behind ours.
I recently had the pleasure of dining with the CEO of a major aerospace firm at his estate in Northern Virginia, and he assured me that the total obliteration of Iran would actually be fantastic for fourth-quarter growth. We are talking about billions in munitions replenishment contracts. The trickle-down effects for the American worker would be tremendous.
But you will not hear Friedrich Merz acknowledge that. You will only hear complaints about shipping delays and the fact that a major region of the world might soon cease to exist.
It is time for Germany to step up, stop crying over spilt maritime commerce, and recognize that true diplomacy sometimes requires a little apocalyptic rhetoric. If Chancellor Merz wants to save his anaemic economy, he should stop complaining about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and start investing in whoever manufactures the president's metaphorical ticking clock.