UPDATE - Germany charting new 'grand strategy' in era of great power competition: Chancellor

UPDATES WITH MORE COMMENTS BY GERMAN CHANCELLOR MERZ

By Ayhan Simsek

BERLIN (AA) - Germany is charting a new "grand strategy" with its European allies to navigate an era of intensifying great power competition, the nation’s chancellor said Friday.

Speaking at the party congress of his Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz said Berlin is working to ease tensions with the Trump administration and restore transatlantic relations, but is also preparing to adapt to fundamental shifts in the global order.

"The US is increasingly losing interest in the role of a guarantor power for the international order. We would do well to recognize this without illusions and without nostalgia," the conservative leader told party delegates, adding that Germans must not stand idly by but must actively shape the future.

"We are setting new priorities. This is how a new grand strategy is emerging, specifically for Germany within a united Europe," Merz said, recalling the late chancellor who guided German foreign policy in the wake of World War II. "Like Konrad Adenauer, we will demonstrate courage – the courage to shape the future and the courage to assert ourselves in this world."

The conservative leader warned that as the rules-based international order declines, rivalry among great powers will be determined by economic strength, but above all, by military might. "This new world is harsher and, yes, more dangerous, because where rules no longer apply, the risk of conflict grows," he said.

Merz said major powers are increasingly using economic weapons – tariffs, subsidies, and market access restrictions – while competing intensely over critical technologies. Those who fall behind in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and digital technology will lose not only economic strength but also political influence, he warned.

"Technology today determines industrial sovereignty and security-relevant capabilities," Merz said. "Those who master these technologies can also set the rules by which they are applied."