The BLUF - April 28th

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This is Atlas, and you’re reading the Bottom Line Up Front, where we cover the top geopolitical stories from around the world every Tuesday!

Today’s topics:

• Merz: The U.S. Is Being ‘Humiliated’ By Iran

• Israeli Opposition Join Forces To Unseat Netanyahu

• Leader Of Mexican Cartel Arrested In Mexican Gov. Operation

Merz: The U.S. Is Being ‘Humiliated’ By Iran

_{By: Atlas}

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered the sharpest public criticism yet from a major European leader of the Trump administration's handling of the Iran war on Monday, telling a group of high school students in his home region of Sauerland that "an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership" and questioning whether Washington has any clear path out of the conflict.

Merz made the remarks during a panel discussion with students at the Carolus-Magnus-Gymnasium in Marsberg. The comments landed two days after President Donald Trump abruptly cancelled the second round of indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad, blocking Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and senior adviser Jared Kushner from boarding flights to the Pakistani capital after Iran's foreign minister departed the country without engaging the American delegation.

"The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result," Merz said.

He went further moments later. "An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible."

Merz, a Christian Democrat who took office earlier this year, has previously avoided direct public criticism of Trump even as he has pushed back privately on the U.S.-Israeli decision to launch the war in late February without consulting European partners. His remarks Monday represent a clear public break.

Doubts about Washington's strategy

Beyond the question of negotiating posture, Merz raised a deeper concern: that the Trump administration has no exit plan.

"The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either," Merz said. "The problem with conflicts like this is always you don't just have to get in — you have to get out again. We saw that very painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq."

The chancellor acknowledged that European leaders had been too restrained in their initial responses to the war's outbreak. "If I had known that it would continue like this for five or six weeks and get progressively worse, I would have told him even more emphatically," Merz said, referring to objections he had conveyed to Trump after Operation Epic Fury began on February 28.

Trump struck a markedly different tone in remarks to Fox News one day earlier. "We have all the cards," he told the network, adding that "if they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us. You know, there is a telephone."

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales, asked about Merz's remarks and the broader status of the negotiations, said only that "these are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the U.S. will not negotiate through the press." She added that Washington "holds the cards and will only make a deal that puts the American people first, never allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

The economic squeeze on Europe

Merz tied his criticism directly to the war's financial cost on the German economy, which is heavily exposed to higher energy prices and to disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and natural gas normally moves.

"It is, at the moment, a pretty tangled situation," Merz said. "And it is costing us a great deal of money. This conflict, this war against Iran, has a direct impact on our economic output."

Germany has joined a coalition of more than 50 countries — led by France and the United Kingdom — to coordinate an international response to securing the strait once the active fighting between the U.S. and Iran ends. Merz said it was clear that the strait had been at least partially mined, and Berlin had offered to deploy German minesweepers to help clear the waterway. "We have offered, also as Europeans, to send German minesweepers to clear the strait, which has obviously been mined in part," he said. He stressed that any such deployment depended on a halt in hostilities.

The "Hormuz first" approach has gained traction in Tehran. Iranian negotiators on Monday transmitted a new proposal through Pakistani mediators offering to end the chokehold on the waterway and discuss broader issues, including the nuclear program, only at a later stage. Iran's parliament is also drafting a bill that would impose mandatory "service" fees on vessels transiting the strait — passage that was free before the war.

The U.N.'s International Maritime Organization rejected the toll concept on Monday. "There's no legal basis for the introduction of any tax, any customs, or any fees on straits for international navigation," said IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez.

Iran turns to Moscow

The diplomatic activity Monday was concentrated in Russia rather than Pakistan. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew from Islamabad to Moscow, where he met with President Vladimir Putin and a senior Russian delegation. Putin pledged that Russia "will do everything that serves [Iranian] interests, the interests of all the people of the region, so that peace can be achieved as soon as possible." Araghchi told reporters that "the world has now realized Iran's true power."

The visit was as much about the U.S. blockade as it was about diplomacy. Trump's counter-blockade of Iranian ports, in place since April 13, has compounded an already severe Iranian economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a 6.1 percent contraction in Iran's GDP this year, with year-on-year inflation running near 70 percent. The blockade has also prevented Iran's empty tankers from returning to port to serve as additional storage, leaving Tehran with diminishing options to manage its crude output.

Russia is the most obvious alternative outlet. The Caspian Sea route and the overland link through Russian territory have become, in the words of Russian-Iranian relations analyst Nikita Smagin, "one of the few remaining routes for connecting Iran with world markets" if the U.S. blockade continues. The route remains a fraction of what the Strait of Hormuz handled before the war — the strait accounted for more than 90 percent of Iran's prewar trade — and Israel struck the Caspian port of Bandar Anzali in March, further complicating that channel.

The transatlantic strain widens

Merz's remarks are the latest sign of the deepening rift between Washington and its NATO partners over the war. Trump has alternated between criticizing Europe for declining to join the U.S.-led coalition and dismissing the need for European participation. Reports out of Washington this week indicate the administration is weighing options for "punishing" allies that have not contributed, including a potential reduction of U.S. troop deployments on European territory — a step that comes as European leaders continue to flag the threat from Russia in the context of the ongoing Ukraine war.

The Pentagon last week leaked an internal email floating the suspension of Spain from NATO over its position on the Iran conflict. Britain's Foreign Office, which is preparing for King Charles III's state visit to Washington this week, publicly clashed with reports that the administration was reviewing NATO's structure. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already taken a colder posture toward the war than his predecessor, and France and Germany have moved in recent weeks to deepen their bilateral cooperation on nuclear deterrence — an unusual step that reflects mounting European concern over both Iran and the broader strategic environment.

Inside Iran, the political picture remains opaque. Trump has repeatedly cited "fractured" Iranian leadership in justifying his decisions to break off direct engagement. Reporting from Tehran indicates that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Ahmad Vahidi has consolidated influence over the negotiating process, with Foreign Minister Araghchi and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf operating with constrained authority. The whereabouts of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father after the senior Khamenei was killed in the war's opening hours, remain undisclosed.

For Merz, the absence of a clear American strategy is the central concern. "At the moment, I do not see what strategic exit the Americans will choose, especially since the Iranians are clearly negotiating very skillfully — or very skillfully not negotiating," he told the students.

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