As ties fray, Berlin and Washington are trading barbs over their decline, using each other’s crises to dodge their own mounting failures German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told an audience of local Catholics in the southwestern city of Wuerzburg that he no longer advises young people to travel to the United States for work and study, citing the rapidly changing “social climate” in the country. Merz, who has served as Chancellor of Germany since May 2025, said   “I would not recommend to my