German Chancellor Friedrich Merz came through his Oval Office encounter with Donald Trump relatively unscathed Thursday — despite differences over Ukraine as the US president said it might be better to let Moscow and Kyiv fight it out like children.A month into his job, Merz unleashed a charm offensive on the 78-year-old Trump, presenting him with a framed copy of the birth certificate of his grandfather Frederick, who was born in Germany in 1869.Merz also hailed Trump as being the “key person in the world” when it came to ending the Ukraine war, saying the US leader could “really do that now by putting pressure on Russia.”It was a backhanded way of urging Trump to overcome his aversion to putting sanctions on Russia over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as the more than three-year-old war grinds on.The polite meeting showed that the conservative German leader had done his homework as he sought to avoid ambushes like those that Trump unleashed on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa’s president.But they did not see eye to eye on everything.- ‘Fighting in a park’ -Trump — who spoke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin a day earlier — said it might be better to let the two sides fight it out, comparing the war that has left thousands dead and swathes of Ukraine in ruins to a children’s brawl.”Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart,” Trump told reporters.”Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while.”Trump said however that he had urged Putin not to retaliate after Ukraine launched daring drone attacks on its airbases, destroying several nuclear capable bombers.”I said ‘don’t do it,'” Trump told reporters, adding that Putin had told him he had no choice but to respond and it was “not going to be pretty.”Trump did make a series of off-color references to the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II — still a deeply sensitive subject in modern-day Germany.Praising Merz for Germany raising its defense spending in line with his demands for NATO members to cough up, Trump said he was not sure World War II US general Douglas MacArthur would have agreed.Then, referring to the upcoming 80th anniversary of the allied D-Day landings that led to the end of the war, Trump said: “That was not a pleasant day for you?”Merz, 69, calmly replied: “This was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship. We know what we owe you.” – Tariffs deal possible -Merz avoided other possible pitfalls as Trump spent much of his time on a lengthy discourse against his billionaire former advisor Elon Musk.Topics like US tariffs on the EU and the prospect of a trade deal barely came up, with Trump saying he believed a deal was possible.On Trump’s threat to hammer the European Union with sharply higher tariffs, Merz, leader of the bloc’s biggest economy, had earlier argued that it must be self-confident in its negotiations with Washington.Nor did Trump confront Merz over free speech issues in Germany as US media had reported he might — a bugbear the administration has repeatedly brought up with European leaders despite its own record.Merz told reporters in Washington ahead of the meeting that if Trump brought up German domestic politics “I will state my opinion very clearly if necessary.”Trump and some in his administration have given vocal support to the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came second in February elections.US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Trump adviser Elon Musk have all weighed in in support of the AfD, which in Germany is shunned by all other political parties.Despite the tensions, Merz had said earlier that he was “looking forward” to his first face-to-face meeting with Trump.The German chancellor is believed to have studied videos of previous Oval Office ambushes and learned how to stay calm and let Trump talk.

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he was “very disappointed” by Elon Musk’s criticism of his policy mega-bill, adding he didn’t know if his friendship with his billionaire former advisor would survive.In an extraordinary rant in the Oval Office as visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sat mutely beside him, Trump unloaded on SpaceX and Tesla boss Musk in his first comments on the issue.”Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore. I was surprised,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after former advisor Musk slammed the bill as an “abomination”.”I’m very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here… All of a sudden, he had a problem,” Trump added.Musk hit back minutes later on his X social network, saying the 78-year-old president’s claims he had advance sight of the bill were “false.””Whatever,” he added above a video of Trump saying Musk was upset about the loss of subsidies for electric vehicles.The latest clash comes less than a week since Trump held a grand Oval Office farewell for Musk as he wrapped up his time leading the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).Musk stunned reporters at the time by turning up with a black eye that he said was caused by his son.”You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval desk, and even with the black eye. I said, you want a little makeup? We’ll get you a little makeup,” Trump said. “But he said, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ which is interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is.” Trump said he could understand why Musk was upset with some steps he had taken, including withdrawing a nominee to lead the NASA space agency whom the tech tycoon had backed.The US president’s “big, beautiful bill” on tax and spending — the centerpiece of his domestic agenda — could define his second term and make or break Republican prospects in the 2026 midterm elections.Musk however called it a “disgusting abomination” on Tuesday. A day later, the magnate called for Republicans to “kill the bill,” and for an alternative plan that “doesn’t massively grow the deficit.”

In banning most travel to the United States by citizens of 12 countries, President Donald Trump is fine-tuning a playbook popular with his base, even as his singling out of particular nations left many scratching their heads.Trump rose to power vowing a harsh line on non-European immigration to the United States, thrilling crowds during his 2016 campaign by vowing a wall with Mexico and stunning the then political establishment by urging a “complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the country.On entering the White House the first time in 2017, he swiftly banned travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, prompting mass protests at airports as critics derided his “Muslim ban.”With his new travel restrictions, Trump is again targeting US adversaries. But he has also made more exemptions and included travel from several small African countries that not major sources of visitors — Chad, the Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea.Chad maintains more cooperation with the West than military-run Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, which were not affected, and last year held elections, although their conduct was criticized.Several other small nations faced a partial ban including Burundi, Sierra Leone, Togo and, in Central Asia, Turkmenistan.The White House in said in a fact sheet that countries were put on the blacklist due to terrorism ties or because of high rates of their citizens overstaying visas. Others were targeted as they lack central governing authority. They include violence-ravaged and predominantly Black Haiti, whose migrants have long been maligned by Trump, who last year spread unfounded conspiracy theories that they were eating native-born Americans’ pets in Ohio.Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Trump’s motivation was to decrease legal immigration and asked: “The only real mystery is what took him so long?””It’s not totally crazy to think that they chose countries that don’t matter much — in terms of not sending many migrants here — and that throwing them on the list probably helps their marketing,” Nowrasteh said.”It’s not going to have an enormous effect on our economy or society,” he said of the new ban. “What I think it really does is undermine the American reputation of standing with people around the world who are fighting for freedom.”- ‘Extreme dangers’? -Trump justified the new measures by pointing to an attack on a Jewish protest in Boulder, Colorado by an Egyptian man who had been seeking asylum.Trump in a message said the attack showed the “extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted.”But Egypt — a longstanding US ally and aid recipient due largely to its relations with Israel — was not targeted.Other major nations left off the blacklist included Pakistan, which India has long accused of supporting extremists, triggering a four-day conflict last month after a massacre of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.Pakistan maintains intelligence cooperation with the United States and Trump thanked Islamabad in March for arresting a suspect over an attack that killed US troops during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.On the other hand, Afghanistan was on the blacklist due to the Taliban government. An exemption was made for Afghans who helped the fallen Western-backed government, although Trump has cut funding to implement that program.”Let’s be clear: this policy is not a response to any new threat,” said Shawn VanDiver, head of the AfghanEvac group that supports Afghan allies.”It’s a long-planned political move, delayed until the aftermath of the Boulder attack to give it the appearance of urgency. This is about optics and fear, not safety,” he said.Among the chief targets both in the first term and now has been Iran, an arch-enemy of the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iranian-Americans have among the highest incomes of any ethnic group in the United States and the community is overwhelmingly critical of the government in Tehran.“National origin tells us nothing about whether an individual is a terrorist threat. Yet, that is precisely what Trump’s bans have been based on,” said Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council.