With Europe having failed to prevent Donald Trump from withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal despite sending both Macron and Merkel to Washington in an attempt to persuade him, the tension between Europe and the US has escalated, and on Thursday morning, Merkel said that Europe can no longer rely on US "to protect it."

#BREAKING Europe can no longer rely on US 'to protect it': Merkel — AFP news agency (@AFP) May 10, 2018

"It’s no longer the case that the United States will simply just protect us. Rather, Europe needs to take its fate into its own hands, that's the task of the future," Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday in a speech commending French President Emmanuel Macron at prize ceremony in Aachen, Germany.

Then again, this is Germany, the same nation which only has 4 fully-functioning Eurofighter jets in operation.

Merkel also says that "we will make progress” together with France on banking union and capital markets union, though “these are difficult discussions", and commented that German differences with France "don’t separate us, rather they always bring us back together."

Merkel's view on the fraying relationship with the US echoes the earlier statement of the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, who said during a Thursday address that Washington "had lost vigor, and because of it, in the long term, influence," suggesting that Europe should take over the US' role as global leader.

Meanwhile, further breaking away with the unilateral action employed by Trump, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini stressed that the bloc reserved the right to act in its security interests, calling on the international community to preserve the JCPOA.

Donald Trump announced on Tuesday, that US was withdrawing from the JCPOA, which is also known as the Iran nuclear deal, causing a major backlash among the European allies of the US. He also promised to re-impose the highest level of economic sanctions against Tehran in response to the development of the nuclear program. So far Europe has stressed it is business as usual when it comes to one of its key oil suppliers, and the deal remains in place, no matter what Trump says or does.