Germany agrees deal to buy long-range US Tomahawk missiles, Merz says

BERLIN (AP) — Germany has struck a deal to buy U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and station them in Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced Thursday.

The agreement on the long-range missiles, which are used to strike targets deep inside enemy territory, was reached this week on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, Merz said.

“This will close an important strategic gap in our defense, and at the same time, we will work to develop our own European systems and station them in Europe,” he told the German parliament after returning from the two-day summit.

The deal struck with the Trump administration amounts to broader export of U.S. know-how to some of its major allies in Europe, whose security posture has been upended by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. will give Ukraine a license to make Patriot air defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia — a major coup for Kyiv which has long requested the technology.

The Tomahawk cruise missile has been in the U.S. military’s inventory since the 1980s. While slow by missile standards, it flies around 100 feet (about 30 meters) off the ground, making it harder to detect by defense systems.

The Tomahawk has a range of around 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) and precision guidance systems that make it the go-to weapon for striking targets that are deep inland or in hostile territory.

The deal centers a U.S. commitment to give Germany approval in August to procure an undisclosed number of Tomahawks and corresponding ground-based Typhoon launchers.

Deployment of U.S. personnel to operate the systems was not part of the letter of intent signed on Tuesday that underpins the agreement. Successive German governments have been seeking such a deal since 2023.