During his visit to the White House, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) presented U.S. President Donald Trump with another gift. Merz gave Trump a facsimile of the 1785 “Prussian Treaty”, a friendship and trade agreement between the young United States and Prussia. The gesture is meant to remind the president that bilateral trade with Germany and Europe need not be hampered by excessive tariffs. A detail that should please the chancellor is that the treaty was concluded on the German side by King Frederick the Great.

At Merz’s first visit to the White House he had already presented Trump with a framed facsimile, this time of the birth certificate of Trump’s grandfather – who also bore the first name Friedrich.