German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivers a speech at the German family entrepreneur day event in Berlin, Germany, June 6, 2025. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
U.S. President Donald Trump meets German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 5, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

By Friederike Heine and Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) -Some U.S. lawmakers do not understand the scale of Russia's rearmament campaign, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday, a day after he held talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House.

"I met with some senators on Capitol Hill and told them to please look at the rearmament Russia is doing," Merz told a business conference in Berlin.

"They clearly have no idea what is happening there right now," he said, without identifying the senators.

Russia has shifted defence plants to round-the-clock production since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has signed arms deals with North Korea and Iran, prompting European officials to warn that Moscow could soon be in a position to attack NATO territory.

Russia, which raised its 2025 defence budget to its highest level since the Cold War, denies any such intention and says it is waging a "special military operation" in Ukraine to protect its own security against what it casts as a hostile West.

Merz, a conservative who took power in May, is the latest European leader to visit Trump hoping to convince him of the need to back Ukraine against Russia's invasion and continue to help underpin Europe's security through the NATO alliance.

Merz said he had been reassured by the words Trump had uttered during their public encounter in the Oval Office, especially the U.S. president's "resounding no" to a question on whether the United States had plans to withdraw from NATO.

European countries have been boosting defence spending since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered the continent's bloodiest conflict since World War Two.

Even before taking office, Merz rallied an ad hoc parliamentary majority to change Germany's constitution to exempt military spending from most borrowing rules, and he has since promised to spend a further 1.5% of gross domestic product on infrastructure with military dual use.

Merz has backed Trump's demand for NATO members to commit to a target of more than doubling defence spending to 5% of GDP in the future. Trump welcomed that commitment on Thursday and told Merz that U.S. forces would remain in Germany.

"Whether we like it or not," Merz said on Friday, "we will remain dependent on the United States... for a long time to come."

Last September, Russia said its defence budget would hit 13.5 trillion rubles in 2025, 25% more than it was in the previous year, meaning the military will soak up 32% of all public spending.

(Reporting by Friederike Heine and Andreas Rinke, Writing by Thomas EscrittEditing by Gareth Jones)