After the revelations of the NSA tapping the personal cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel over a period of more than a decade, all hell has broken loose between a cornered White House and an angry Berlin.

While Washington has been trying to smooth relations with its closest ally in Europe, arguing that the US presidents had no clue about the eavesdropping program and that the NSA has stopped the surveillance of German leaders, fury was reignited when German newspapers exposed the White House statement as a blatant lie.

Bilateral relations have turned cold, with the US cowering in a defensive stance, while Germany is pressing ahead by utilizing its diplomatic and economic prowess. What started with an angry phone call between Merkel and US President Barack Obama developed into a diplomatic middle finger when German MP and Green Party member Christian Ströbele met NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden in Moscow on Thursday.

The top secret meeting between the two was mainly around the question of whether and under what conditions Snowden would be willing to testify on the NSA affair before an investigative committee of the German parliament or a German public prosecutor. Given that Ströbele is the most senior member in the parliamentary control committee on Germany's intelligence services, his visit holds a well-founded amount of political weight.

But German efforts to pin the US on this issue have not stopped here. Together with Brazil it has submitted an anti-spying resolution to the UN General Assembly to curb NSA surveillance. In cooperation with Paris, Berlin is demanding a "no-spying" agreement equal to the alliance known as the "Five Eyes."

Germany is considering a unified position with all 27 member states to suspend free trade negotiations with the US. The amount of political and economic force Washington is facing from Berlin is mounting with every passing day and every new document leaked.

In this climate of distrust and anger, there was a desperate attempt by US authorities to swing the tide on October 30, when the Department of Treasury released a report criticizing Germany for its export-led growth model.

At any other moment, Paris and Madrid would have ganged up on Berlin, but given the current mood in Europe, Germany was able to simply rebuff the allegations by stating that the conclusions are "incomprehensible" and instead challenged the US to "analyze its own economic situation."

Germans became even angrier witnessing the soft-handed approach by which the House Intelligence and Senate Appropriations Committee questioned NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. It was an "in your face" moment on October 29 when Gen. Alexander spoke "from the heart" that the NSA would prefer to "take the beatings […] than to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked." If Washington is truly unable to trust its European allies, then it does not deserve them.

The US must understand that its political excuses, open lies, and indiscriminate emphasis on protecting national security are causing a deep rift in transatlantic relations. It is time for the White House to get its administration in order, put its intelligence service back on the leash, and comprehensively rebuild political trust with its allies by coming entirely clean.

If Washington decides to continue messing with Germany by treating it like a small insignificant European state, the US will have failed to grasp the extent of what is currently happening to US foreign policy interests in Europe and beyond.

The author is a German national residing in Seoul, and non-resident James A. Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn