BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday downplayed the impact of remarks he made about Brazil that drew sharp criticism from officials there, and the German leader's spokesperson said he hadn't denigrated the South American country.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Belem's mayor, the governor of Para state and several lawmakers pushed back against comments Merz made last week following a Nov. 7 visit to Belem, the Brazilian city that is hosting this year's U.N. climate summit. Merz appeared to be trying to put into perspective complaints about the current situation in prosperous Germany, whose economy is struggling to generate growth, in a speech to a trade conference in Berlin.
“We live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Last week I asked some journalists who were with me in Brazil: Which of you would like to stay here? No one raised their hand,” Merz said. “They were all happy that, above all, we returned from this place to Germany in the night from Friday to Saturday.”
Merz met Lula in Belem and will see him again at the Group of 20 summit in South Africa this weekend. “I expect that we will have another good meeting in South Africa, completely unencumbered” by the flap, he told reporters at a news conference in Berlin with his Swedish counterpart.
“I said that Germany is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and President Lula will probably also accept that,” he added, without directly addressing a question as to whether he regretted his remarks.
Earlier Wednesday, Merz spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said that “it is far from the chancellor to comment in a derogatory way about Brazil.”
Kornelius said at a regular government news conference that Merz's impression of his trip had been “very positive” and “there is no doubt that Brazil is our most important partner geostrategically and economically in South America."
The disputed remark “essentially concerned the wish of the delegation to return home after a very tiring night flight and a long day in Belem,” he said. “When the chancellor says that we live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, that doesn't mean other countries aren't also very beautiful.”
Asked whether Merz would apologize and whether he saw any damage to relations, Kornelius replied: “No, twice.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrives for the cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up one of the term’s most consequential cases, President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens, and he was in the courtroom on Wednesday for some of the arguments.
The justices are hearing Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them. They have not taken effect anywhere in the country.
Trump is the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court. He spent just over an hour inside the courtroom, hearing arguments by the government’s lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer. He left shortly after Sauer wrapped up and the plaintiff was invited to present her case.
The case frames another test of Trump's assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court that has largely ruled in the president's favor — but with some notable exceptions that Trump has responded to with starkly personal criticisms of the justices. A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
Birthright citizenship is the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.
Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.
He issued a preemptive broadside against the court on Sunday on his Truth Social platform. “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!,” the president wrote. “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!”
Trump's order would upend the long-standing view that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
The 14th Amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.
In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as illegal, or likely so, under the Constitution and federal law. The decisions have invoked the high court's 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.
The Trump administration argues that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.
The court should use the case to set straight “long-enduring misconceptions about the Constitution’s meaning,” wrote Sauer, the solicitor general.
No court has accepted that argument, and lawyers for pregnant women whose children would be affected by the order said the Supreme Court should not be the first to do so.
“We have the president of the United States trying to radically reinterpret the definition of American citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director who is facing off against Sauer at the Supreme Court.
More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would be affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright restrictions also would apply to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.
Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Donald Trump leaves the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Demonstrators holding opposing views verbally engage ahead of President Donald Trump's arrival at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
President Donald Trump's limo exits the White House en route to the Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen as the moon rises Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
