BERLIN, July 9 - Germany will procure Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States and place them on German soil, Chancellor Friedrich Merz told lawmakers on Thursday, marking a shift from hosting U.S. long-range deployments to developing its own stationed capability.
Merz said he had finalised the arrangement with U.S. officials during meetings on the margins of the NATO summit in Ankara, and added that the discussions on Tuesday and Wednesday had surpassed his expectations. He framed the procurement as a necessary step to fill an urgent defence gap while Europe works to create indigenous long-range systems.
"We are closing a critical strategic gap in our defence, while simultaneously working to develop our own European systems and station them in Europe," he said.
According to sources within the German government, Washington agreed to give formal approval in August for Germany to buy Tomahawk missiles together with the associated ground-based Typhon launchers, under a letter of intent that was signed on Tuesday. The exact number of missiles and launch platforms Germany intends to acquire is being kept secret for security reasons.
Observers note the purchase aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s stance encouraging European partners to fund their own defence needs, including by purchasing American weaponry. The availability of Tomahawks for Germany had been uncertain after the U.S. president announced in May plans to reduce American troop levels in Germany, a step that was interpreted as cancelling an earlier initiative under the previous administration to deploy a U.S. battalion equipped with long-range Tomahawk missiles to German territory.
That earlier deployment had been considered an interim measure - a powerful deterrent against Russia - to be used while European nations worked on producing comparable long-range weapons. Germany already manufactures its own Taurus cruise missile, but its range of roughly 500 km (311 miles) is significantly shorter, approximately three to five times less, than that of the Tomahawk.
Beyond the immediate procurement, questions remain about the timeline for approval and the classified scale of the acquisition. The government has emphasized that this acquisition is both a stopgap to strengthen deterrence and a complement to ongoing efforts to build European long-range strike capabilities.