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The party manifesto also outlined a sweeping change of course in terms of data protection policy, encouraging more “pragmatic” rules that allow data to be used for innovation and growth, as well as law enforcement.

Friedrich Merz is set to become Germany’s most American chancellor.

Never in history has a German head of government had more affinity for the United States. Merz has traveled to the U.S. over 100 times, by his own tally, and counts former U.S. President Ronald Reagan as one of his role models.

Merz became a conservative member of the European Parliament in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. Five years later he was elected to the German Bundestag, where he developed a close relationship with Wolfgang Schäuble, the CDU stalwart and forceful advocate of European Union integration. Under Schäuble’s tutelage, Merz rose in stature and was considered a likely choice for chancellor candidate.

His rise ended in 2002, however, when he lost a power struggle with the more centrist Angela Merkel.

Seeing no role for himself in the CDU under Merkel, Merz withdrew to the back benches, and in the midst of the world financial crisis of 2008 published a paean to free markets titled “Dare for More Capitalism.” A year later he left the Bundestag to work as a corporate lawyer while also taking the helm of Atlantik-Brücke, a lobby advocating transatlantic ties.

While with Atlantik-Brücke, Merz pushed for an EU-U.S. trade agreement — the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP — and forged closer connections with the U.S., networking with American politicians and corporate leaders.

Over a decade in the private sector, Merz sat on a series of corporate boards, including a four-year stint with U.S. asset manager BlackRock, a time he counts as among the happiest in his life, according to biographer Resing. Merz says this time provided him valuable experience outside of politics, but his critics accuse him of simply using his political connections to lobby for powerful interests, making himself a millionaire in the process.

Though Merz and his conservatives emerged victorious in Sunday’s election, surveys suggest he’s not particularly popular among the public.

In a country that remains deeply skeptical of the financial industry, Merz’s wealth and time at BlackRock, the American investment company, are often viewed with suspicion.

Merz has also vowed to make “deals” with Trump. In an interview last month he suggested Germany could endear itself to Trump by buying American F-35 fighter jets and boosting defense spending to put Germany consistently above the NATO spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product. Despite the U.S. president’s love of tariffs, Merz also floated trying to bring back negotiations on TTIP, which collapsed during the first Trump administration.

In an interview the following day, Merz warned that Europe should prepare for Trump to end NATO protection and hinted at a major strategic shift, saying Germany needed to discuss the possibility of “nuclear sharing, or at least nuclear security” with European nuclear powers the United Kingdom and France. German conservatives have previously favored maintaining strong ties with the U.S. over calls from Paris to cultivate European “strategic autonomy.”

Merz has expressed a willingness to do so, but the way forward remains murky.

“Within this Europe, Germany must play a leading role,” Merz said at the rally in Hesse. “We must take on this responsibility. I, for one, am determined to do so.”>