During the first Donald Trump presidency, the easiest way to annoy Angela Merkel’s inner circle was to ask them about a state visit for the German-American president to his ancestral homeland.
Trump’s grandfather left the wine-growing town of Kallstadt, near Frankfurt, for good in 1905, but repeated Merkel invitations for Trump to return fell on deaf ears.
On Thursday, when Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz meets the US president for the first time they will have plenty to discuss, from Ukraine to tariffs.
To build rapport, however, Merz is likely to offer Trump a round of golf in Germany to sweeten a public invitation to visit his ancestral homeland.
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The two men don’t just share a love of golf: Germany’s 69-year-old conservative-liberal leader is closer in age and political outlook than his younger, centrist predecessors as chancellor.
As opposition leader and in office, Merz has taken a pragmatic approach to Trump – even if his lifelong Atlanticist convictions have taken a beating of late.
Ahead of the visit, Merz sought advice from recent survivors of Trump’s new reality television format: the Oval Office endurance test.
“It’s always important that you don’t talk too long, instead talk briefly and let him talk,” said Merz on public television, revealing the two had swapped mobile numbers after a recent telephone conversation and occasionally texted.
“You have to prepare for him and get involved with him,” added Merz, “and at the same time not make yourself smaller than we are. We are not supplicants. The most important thing is that we can talk to him reasonably.”
Merz and his advisers have been war-gaming the meeting for weeks, including how to approach Trump on the actual war in Ukraine.
[ Germany’s Merz vows long-range weapons for Ukraine following talks with ZelenskiyOpens in new window ]
On this front, Merz will flag how Germany is second only to the US in military and humanitarian support, and has just signed bilateral deals with Kyiv to build long-range weapons.
Gingerly, he will press Trump to back further sanctions on Russia and keep the US fully committed to finding peace through talks and security guarantees.
Ahead of the June Nato summit in The Hague, Merz will be anxious to address the Nato elephant in the room: how much longer the US will maintain its current military strength this side of the Atlantic.
To stretch any withdrawal timeline, and avoid presidential swipes about freeloading Europeans, Merz will acknowledge Europe’s previous underspend as a strategic error. Then he will flash his government’s effective blank cheque for military investment that will help push German security spending to 5 per cent of annual economic output, including 1.5 per cent on defence-related infrastructure.
Merz meets Trump a day after a doubling of US tariffs to 50 per cent on imported steel and aluminium, likely to have a devastating effect on Germany’s already ailing metal manufacturers and car companies.
The wider trade picture is no better: the US is Germany’s most important customer, buying €161.4 billion in goods last year, but the EU’s responsibility for trade talks means all Merz can do is appeal to joint interests.
On Gaza, both leaders have shifted recently, with Trump appearing to avoid Israeli president Binyamin Netanyahu during his recent Middle East tour. Meanwhile Merz has hit out at the Israeli government in an unprecedented shift, saying last week: “Allowing the civilian population to suffer in such a way can no longer be explained as a fight against Hamas terrorism.”
Given some recent visitors didn’t even get a warm meal, the Merz team are delighted their visit includes talks, lunch, a joint press conference and even a bed for the night in Blair House, the 119-room official White House guest digs.
German international relations analyst Carlo Masala suggests Merz should “constantly give Trump the feeling that he is a great statesman who has a right vision”.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham struck an upbeat note in Berlin this week, predicting a “new, more open and fairer” US-EU trade deal within a month. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily he said he was “very impressed” by the harder Merz line on defence and migration.
And what of Team Trump’s commentaries on German politics: endorsement of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and describing efforts to ban the party as “tyranny in disguise”?
A jovial Graham called the Russia-friendly AfD an expression of voter insecurity over growing criminality linked to “irrational immigration and wokeism”.
“The people have had enough of it so they are saying, ‘go f*** yourselves’,” he added. “The antidote is certainly not friendship with Putin but instead a society with a rational immigration policy of mutual benefit.”
And what if Trump accepts the invitation to Kallstadt, famous not just for the future president but also the Heinz ketchup family?
Despite previous Trump disinterest, mayor Thomas Jaworek said his town is ready to play its part to improve bilateral relations – so long as the president’s armoured car can make it down the narrow streets.
“I believe that Friedrich Merz’s initiatives are important for Germany and Europe to put relations with the US on a solid footing,” said Jaworek to the Wirtschafts Woche magazine. “If we can contribute, then we will do it.”
