{"id":100603,"date":"2025-05-14T11:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/100603\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T11:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:04:08","slug":"merz-woos-trump-with-invitation-to-german-ancestral-village-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/100603\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz woos Trump with invitation to German ancestral village \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s not yet clear whether Trump will take up Merz on the offer. Despite Trump\u2019s frequent criticisms of Germany,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/07\/29\/us-to-pull-12-000-troops-from-germany-after-trump-calls-country-delinquent-386136\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> a country he had repeatedly called \u201cdelinquent\u201d<\/a> on defense spending, the president has often highlighted his German roots. \u201cI have German in my blood,\u201d he said during a 2019 meeting with Angela Merkel as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/derspiegel\/videos\/g7-trump-spricht-merkel-schmunzelt\/503637386847887\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">then-chancellor reacted with a look of amusement at that phrasing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201csoon.\u201d A former chairman of BlackRock Germany and longtime supporter of the transatlantic alliance, Merz has often said he would appeal to Trump\u2019s love of making \u201cdeals\u201d in order to strengthen frayed relations between the U.S. and Germany over an array of issues, from Ukraine to tariffs.<\/p>\n<p>Merz and Trump have spoken twice since the German election. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/embargo-2230-uk-time-2330cest-western-leaders-head-to-kyiv-to-demand-putin-agrees-ceasefire\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Their most recent call took place during Merz\u2019s recent visit to Kyiv<\/a> along with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not clear whether Trump would be well received in Kallstadt, his grandfather\u2019s birthplace. In 2016, ahead of his first term in office, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/donald-trump-ancestry-forefathers-kallstadt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">many in the town told POLITICO they didn\u2019t care for the then-presidential candidate<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe really don\u2019t give a damn about Trump,\u201d one resident said at the time. \u201cHe\u2019s never been here, and he apparently doesn\u2019t care about us, either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not yet clear whether Trump will take up Merz on the offer. Despite Trump\u2019s frequent criticisms of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[13402,346,473,32,2000,299,1214,1945,1824,479,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-100603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-angela-merkel","9":"tag-cars","10":"tag-defense","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-exports","15":"tag-friedrich-merz","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-tariffs","18":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114505859899173924","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}