Merz woos Trump with invitation to German ancestral village

BERLIN — Germany’s new chancellor has a plan for getting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s good side: appeal to his German ancestry.

Friedrich Merz said he has invited Trump to the western German village where the president’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was born and raised before emigrating to the United States at the age of 16 in 1885

“I’ve invited him to Germany, to visit his ancestral town,” Merz said at a business summit in Berlin. “I’ll go there with him.”

It’s not yet clear whether Trump will take up Merz on the offer. Despite Trump’s frequent criticisms of Germany, a country he had repeatedly called “delinquent” on defense spending, the president has often highlighted his German roots. “I have German in my blood,” he said during a 2019 meeting with Angela Merkel as the then-chancellor reacted with a look of amusement at that phrasing.

The invitation comes as Merz prepares for his first official trip to Washington as chancellor. Although it is unclear when the visit will take place, Merz has said it will happen “soon.” A former chairman of BlackRock Germany and longtime supporter of the transatlantic alliance, Merz has often said he would appeal to Trump’s love of making “deals” in order to strengthen frayed relations between the U.S. and Germany over an array of issues, from Ukraine to tariffs.

Merz and Trump have spoken twice since the German election. Their most recent call took place during Merz’s recent visit to Kyiv along with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. 

It’s not clear whether Trump would be well received in Kallstadt, his grandfather’s birthplace. In 2016, ahead of his first term in office, many in the town told POLITICO they didn’t care for the then-presidential candidate.  

“We really don’t give a damn about Trump,” one resident said at the time. “He’s never been here, and he apparently doesn’t care about us, either.”