German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has penned a handwritten letter of congratulations to US President Donald Trump for his 80th birthday, which is to be delivered to the White House by a messenger, government sources said in Berlin on Friday.
Merz will also personally present the US president with a gift at the G7 summit in the French town of Évian on Lake Geneva on Monday. What the gift is has not yet been revealed.
Trump is celebrating his 80th birthday on Sunday in front of the White House in Washington with many guests and a cage fight.
He then plans to travel directly to the G7 summit in France, where he is due to meet Merz and the other leaders of the group of economically powerful Western democracies on Monday evening.
On his inaugural visit to meet Trump almost exactly a year ago, Merz brought a copy of the birth certificate of Trump's grandfather from the village of Kallstadt in Germany's Palatinate region, along with a golf club as a gift.
In March, the German chancellor gave Trump a replica of a friendship and trade treaty between the US and Prussia dating from 1785, during his third visit to Washington since taking office.
Merz and Trump had a very good start to their relationship last year. More recently, however, relations between the two have cooled considerably following sharp criticism from Merz over the Iran war.
The US president subsequently announced the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany.
A bilateral meeting between the two on the sidelines of the G7 summit has not yet been confirmed.
