President Trump on Tuesday belatedly hit back at Chancellor Friedrich Merz after on Monday the German leader told students in a talk that the United States is being “humiliated” by Iranian leaders, amid struggling on-and-off negotiations, and as a crisis in the Strait of Hormuz shows no signs of de-escalating.

Merz had said he didn’t see "what strategic exit the Americans are now choosing" while simultaneously describing that Tehran’s negotiators are proceeding "very skillfully - or indeed very skillfully not negotiating."

The result, Merz had said, is that an "entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, particularly by these so-called Revolutionary Guards." The unusually blunt and direct anti-Trump commentary by the German Chancellor was given before a group of students at a secondary school in western Germany on Monday.

Throughout Monday, the media expected Trump to quickly lash back out, but that didn't come quickly. It's possible that he hadn't seen the Merz remarks, however. But by Tuesday afternoon, Trump complained on Truth Social that Merz apparently "thinks i's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon" and that he "doesn't know what he's talking about!"

He continued with the following jab, echoing a broader critique of other European allies as well: "No wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!" 

Merz in his original attack on Trump's Iran war decision had claimed, "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." ​And yet the criticisms from EU leaders in the opening days were somewhat muted, meager, and weak.

Responsible Statecraft's Trita Parsi is also a deep Iran war critic, but agrees that the hypocrisy of EU leaders needs to be called out. Parsi writes:

Merz isn't wrong in saying he's "disillusioned" with the US & Israel over Iran because they "claimed at the beginning that they could solve this problem within days. Now I must recognize: It is not solved." But he is in no position to complain. He applauded the war and as a result, owns the outcome. This is typical of some EU leaders who support and help facilitate the US's worst instincts, and then pretend they are innocent when the foreign policy adventure predictably goes wrong.

The comments underscore several European leaders’ reassessment of their relations with Trump. A tendency to smooth ties by currying favor has given way to a more sober perspective of a U.S. president who has repeatedly called into question NATO, bolstered European far-right forces and threatened to seize Greenland, a territory of Denmark.

Regardless, the fresh critique by a leading EU head of state is certainly going to add fuel to the fire of Trump's ratcheting anti-EU and anti-NATO rhetoric, given their absence in helping the US get the Strait of Hormuz back open and the return to normal functioning of global energy transit once again.

But Trump's own words have been confusing for allies to say the least - on the one hand lambasting them for not joining a US-led coalition, but then sometimes in the same breath declaring that Washington does not 'need their help'. Naturally this enables uncertain fence-sitting allies to shrug and say simply, this is "not our war" - as the lead European powers are doing.