Germany secures US Tomahawk missile deal at Ankara summit

Germany has reached an agreement with the U.S. to buy Tomahawk medium-range cruise missiles, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Thursday.

The deal was struck at the NATO summit in Ankara, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, Merz told Germany’s lower house of parliament.

“We have also agreed with the U.S. government on the sidelines of the NATO meeting in Ankara that we will acquire American Tomahawk missiles and station them in Germany,” the chancellor said. “In doing so, we are closing an important strategic gap in our defence.”

Merz said Germany will also “work to develop our own European systems and station them in Europe.”

U.S. President Donald Trump had previously rejected a plan agreed in 2024 under his predecessor Joe Biden to station Tomahawks in Germany by 2026.

Berlin had since sought to convince Washington to instead let it purchase the missiles, which have a range of up to 2,500 kilometers.

In 2024, the German Defence Ministry outlined its intention to use Tomahawk missiles to counter the threat from Moscow, noting that Russia had stationed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles and fighter jets equipped with hypersonic missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland. Russia also planned to station nuclear weapons in Belarus, the ministry said.

Moscow is 1,600 kilometers away from Berlin as the crow flies, meaning Tomahawk missiles could reach deep into Russian territory from Germany.

European NATO countries do not currently possess their own medium-range weapons. Several allies intend to procure weapons systems for long-range precision strikes through the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) project, which was launched at the NATO summit in Washington in 2024.

Under this joint umbrella, some European NATO allies intend to develop their own cruise missile with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers.

The German Defence Ministry said last year that work on this new capability for long-range weapons had begun.

Land-based ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers were banned under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

The U.S. and European NATO member states accused Russia of breaching the INF Treaty by developing a new land-based, nuclear-capable medium-range cruise missile of the 9M729 type. In 2019, the U.S. subsequently withdrew from the INF Treaty.

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