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Berlin has struck a deal with Washington to buy American Tomahawk cruise missiles, capping months-long efforts to improve its deterrence against Russia after the US scrapped plans to deploy a battalion equipped with the weapons in Germany.
The move suggests a thaw in US-German tensions after Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Donald Trump exchanged barbs in recent months. In May, the US said its planned long-range missile unit would no longer be deployed to Germany, and it moved to withdraw 5,000 US troops from the country after Merz criticised the Iran war.
Merz told the Bundestag on Thursday he had made the deal during the Nato summit in Ankara, in which Trump also said Ukraine would get a licence to make missiles for Patriot air-defence systems.
“We are closing a significant strategic gap in our defence, while simultaneously working to develop and deploy our own European systems,” Merz said.
The plan to deploy the long-range unit had been agreed under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden. It was presented as a response to Vladimir Putin’s decision to station nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, putting Berlin within reach.
Europe currently has no immediately available ground-launched long-range systems. The UK has submarine-launched Tomahawks, which have a range of 1,600km, and France has deployed a domestically built cruise missile with a range of 1,000km on its submarines.
The German government sought to persuade the Trump administration to sell the Tomahawks together with their Typhon ground launchers, according to people with knowledge of their strategy. Berlin had initially made a request a year ago, left unanswered.
Defence minister Boris Pistorius even tried to fly to Washington for talks but had to cancel the trip after failing to secure a meeting with US defence secretary Pete Hegseth.
Merz did not elaborate on when the Tomahawks would be delivered, however.
Other countries are suffering delays partly because Washington has used the weapons in its war against Iran and production capacity in the US is stretched.
Berlin is also seeking to accelerate European plans to build long-range cruise missiles, while also considering Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missile and other alternatives.
Merz said the outcome of the Nato summit had exceeded “all my expectations” and he saluted secretary-general Mark Rutte for preparing and conducting it “excellently” and “superbly”.
“Nato is united, strong and confident,” he said.
