BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz cancelled a planned phone call with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, hours after Trump publicly celebrated a regional election win by Germany’s far-right AfD party.
A spokesman for Merz declined to give a reason for the cancellation, but noted in response to questions from journalists that it was not due to scheduling conflicts. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, hailed the “really big night” for the AfD.
“They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly,” Trump wrote on Tuesday night Washington time. Merz’s spokesman did not directly respond to Trump’s comments, but noted that the chancellor had frequently objected “in general terms” to “interfering in or commenting on the domestic political situation, particularly regarding elections”.
A new date for a phone call between the two leaders had not yet been set, the spokesman added.
The German chancellor accuses AfD of calling for ‘ethnic cleansing’
The AfD — which Merz has repeatedly attacked as racist and a threat to democracy — scored a breakthrough win on Sunday in a regional election in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
At the end of his message, Trump also wrote the acronym “MGGA”, an apparent pro-AfD play on his own “MAGA” slogan standing for “Make Germany Great Again”.
Other figures in Donald Trump’s political orbit, including a former ambassador to Germany and billionaire Elon Musk, also publicly celebrated the AfD’s victory.
Musk has openly endorsed and supported the AfD for several years, including while serving in the Trump administration as the head of the “DOGE” effort.
Musk made an appearance by video at an AfD campaign rally during German national elections in early 2025, which Merz’s centre-right CDU/CSU bloc won.
‘Ethnic cleansing’
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz accused the Alternative for Germany on Wednesday of supporting Russia against Germany’s interests and advocating anti-migration policies that were tantamount to “ethnic cleansing”.
Merz was addressing the German parliament following his party’s bruising defeat against the AfD, which surged to victory in an election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on a platform to curb migration and restore ties with Moscow.
In an email, the AfD said Merz was deliberately mischaracterising its position as a way of demonising the party, and said its policies were legal. Merz is trying to regain the initiative after Sunday’s election loss and his own record-low approval ratings put his position and his government’s reform programme in question. He has brushed off suggestions that he might resign.
“If what is being advocated here, namely ‘remigration’, were to become reality, it would be nothing other than a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin colour,” Merz said, in answer to an earlier speech by AfD co-leader Alice Weidel.
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