German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Washington Thursday for a short 24-hour visit, which will primarily focus on further military aid for Ukraine.
The US and Germany are Ukraine's most important suppliers of weapons for its defence against Russian aggressors. Scholz and US President Joe Biden want to prevent the aid from Western allies from crumbling two years after Russia's invasion.
On Friday afternoon, they will meet at the White House for a 60-minute one-on-one meeting. They will also discuss the ongoing Middle East conflict and NATO's 75th anniversary summit in July.
Scholz dined at the German ambassador's residence with senators on Thursday - including from former President Donald Trump's Republican Party. The main topic here too was aid to Ukraine.
The Republicans in Congress have been blocking the billions in aid for Kiev demanded by Biden for months.
Shortly before the chancellor's arrival, there was at least a small glimmer of hope. An aid package worth billions for Ukraine cleared at least a first procedural hurdle in the Senate.
After the dinner, Scholz wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: "Ukraine needs all of our support in order to defend itself against Russia's aggression."
The chancellor is currently trying to persuade EU partners to provide more military aid to Ukraine - especially economically strong countries such as France, Spain and Italy. The response so far has been moderate.
Trump himself had been campaigning against a previous version of the legislative package in recent days - with success. At the dinner, Scholz was perhaps able to get a feel for the universe of the ex-president, who wants to challenge Biden in November's election.
Among the four Republican senators invited was Lindsey Graham, a loyal Trump supporter. However, the most staunch supporters from the right fringe of the party are mainly in the House of Representatives.
Before his departure, Scholz had once again warned urgently of what might happen if the Ukraine aid doesn't materialize.
"We have to do our utmost to prevent Russia from winning," Scholz wrote in a guest article for the Wall Street Journal. "If we don't, we might soon wake up in a world even more unstable, threatening and unpredictable than it was during the Cold War."
Biden is currently struggling with completely different problems that have nothing to do with the crises in other countries around the world.
Shortly before the chancellor's arrival, a document scandal caught up with the Democrat president. He has been found to have kept confidential government documents from his time as US Vice President in private - which is not permitted.
The special investigator appointed to look into the allegations did not recommend any legal consequences for Biden in his final report. However, he described the most powerful man in the world as a doddering senior citizen with major memory problems, which is troubling for Biden with an election approaching.
Biden has also attracted attention again in the past few days with embarrassing slips of the tongue. Just one day before the chancellor's visit, he confused his predecessor Angela Merkel with the deceased former chancellor Helmut Kohl when he gave an anecdote in New York about the G7 summit in 2021.
At a spontaneously convened press conference on the special investigator's report on Thursday evening, Biden made another slip of the tongue: during a comment on the Middle East crisis, he accidentally referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the head of state of Mexico.
There will be no press conference with Scholz on Friday. However, the two will at least meet with the public for a few minutes at the beginning of their talks in the Oval Office - and possibly also say a few words in the direction of Moscow and Kiev.
