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President Trump has publicly attacked German Chancellor Friedrich Merz after Merz said the US has no clear exit strategy in Iran and is being “humiliated” by Iranian negotiators.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: On Monday, Merz spoke to students in the German town of Marsberg and said the US “obviously has no strategy” and that Iran was running diplomatic circles around Washington (getting US officials to fly to Pakistan and then sending them home empty-handed). “An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards,” he said. He compared the conflict directly to Iraq and Afghanistan, warning that “it’s not just about getting in…you also have to get out again,” and said that if he had known the war would drag on this long, he would have told Trump his concerns “even more emphatically.” He called the whole thing “at the very least ill-considered” and said the war is draining German taxpayers and dragging on the economy. He also pointed out that the US and Israel kicked off the February 28 strikes without ever looping in European allies.

What’s going on now: President Trump has fired back at remarks made by Chancellor Merz, mischaracterizing his position entirely in a Truth Social post Tuesday. “The Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” Trump wrote. He also took a shot at Germany’s economy: “No wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!”

Merz moved to cool things down Wednesday, saying his personal relationship with Trump “remains, in my view, as good as ever” and chalking his earlier remarks up to the economic damage Germany is taking from the war, not anything against Trump himself. “We are suffering considerably in Germany and in Europe from the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.

This all comes as European leaders more broadly are growing increasingly vocal about their frustration with the war. In the last few weeks, French President Macron has blamed both the US and Iran for the Hormuz standoff, British PM Starmer has warned against getting “dragged in,” and the EU has been forced to pay an additional $29 billion for oil and gas imports since the war began.