Germany has reached an agreement with the United States to purchase Tomahawk cruise missiles and station them on German territory, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced on July 9, 2026.
Speaking during a government statement to the Bundestag, Merz said the US administration had approved the sale of the long-range missiles, which will be acquired by the German government and deployed in Germany.
The two sides reached the agreement on the sidelines of the NATO summit held in Ankara, Turkey, on July 7 and 8, 2026, a gathering that also produced a pooled A400M transport fleet and the selection of the Saab GlobalEye as NATO’s future AWACS platform.
“With this, we are closing an important strategic gap in our defense, and we will at the same time work on developing European systems and stationing them in Europe,” Merz told lawmakers.
The announcement came a day after German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius described talks with Washington as progressing, while cautioning on the morning of July 8, 2026, that no results had yet been achieved.
From US deployment to German ownership
The deal differs from the arrangement outlined in the joint statement signed by then US President Joe Biden and then Chancellor Olaf Scholz on July 10, 2024, under which the US was to begin episodic deployments of SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons in Germany from 2026.
That plan, which prompted Moscow to threaten a return to intermediate-range missile production, was shelved in May 2026 when the Pentagon scrapped the planned Long-Range Fires Battalion, citing stockpile shortages following heavy munitions expenditure in the US-Iran conflict.
Under the new agreement, the missiles will instead be German-owned and German-operated, placing Berlin alongside the United Kingdom and the Netherlands as European operators of the Raytheon-built weapon, which can strike targets up to 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) away.
A bridge to European deep strike
Merz framed the purchase as an interim measure while Europe builds sovereign long-range capabilities. The chancellor’s remarks echo a broader push that saw the UK commit £1.4 billion ($1.9 billion) to the Franco-British-Italian Stratus cruise missile on July 8, 2026, and MBDA present its complete Land Cruise Missile system at Eurosatory 2026 in June 2026. Germany is also participating in the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) alongside France, Italy, and Poland.