“Trump treats us like a colony — with his rhetoric, which isn’t a big deal, but especially economically and politically,” he told POLITICO. The party’s national leaders, Mariani added, see “the risk of this attitude from someone who now has nothing to fear, since he cannot be re-elected, and who is always excessive and at times ridiculous.”
AfD’s American dream
It’s no coincidence that Bystron is part of a delegation of AfD politicians set to meet members of Trump’s MAGA camp in Washington this week. Bystron has been among the AfD politicians increasingly looking to build ties to the Trump administration to win support for what they frame as a struggle against political persecution and censorship at home.
This is an argument members of the Trump administration clearly sympathize with. When Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declared the AfD to be extremist earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move “tyranny in disguise.” During the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged mainstream politicians in Europe to knock down the “firewalls” that shut out far-right parties from government.
AfD leaders have therefore made a simple calculation: Trump’s support may lend the party a sheen of acceptability that will help it appeal to more voters while, at the same time, making it politically harder for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives to refuse to govern in coalition with their party.
This explains why AfD polticians will be in the U.S. this week seeking political legitimacy. On Friday evening, Markus Frohnmaier, deputy leader of the AfD parlimentary group, will be an “honored guest” at a New York Young Republican Club gala, which has called for a “new civic order” in Germany.
National Rally sees ‘nothing to gain’
In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally has distanced itself from the AfD and Trump as part of a wider effort to present itself as more palatable to mainstream voters ahead of a presidential election in 2027 the party believes it has a good chance of winning.