Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, already embroiled in a row with Donald Trump over the Iran war, has said he would not advise his children to study or work in the US in the current climate.

Speaking to a conference of young Catholics in Würzburg, the conservative leader, viewed by many as a transatlanticist, said he no longer saw the US as the land of opportunity.

“I am a great admirer of America. At the moment my admiration is not growing,” he said during a podium discussion, citing the quickly changing “social climate” in the deeply polarised country.

“I would not advise my children today to go to the US, get educated there or work there, simply because a certain social climate has suddenly developed there.”

The 70-year-old father of three continued: “Today, even the best-educated people in America are finding it very hard to get a job.”

Speaking about his own country, Merz urged Germans not to fall into a “disaster mode” about the state of the world and encouraged them to feel more optimistic about their homeland’s potential.

“I firmly believe that there are few countries in the world that offer such great opportunities, especially for young people, as Germany,” he said.

The remarks about the US immediately drew a furious response from Trump’s camp. Richard Grenell, a longtime Republican foreign policy adviser who served as ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term, posted on X: “@_FriedrichMerz has become the European President of the TDS Society,” referring to so-called Trump derangement syndrome.

He said that when Merz met Trump at the White House, most recently in March, he was “completely soft and complimentary”, and said Friday’s comments contradicted that conciliatory approach. “Germans have a leader who has no strategy – and is completely controlled by the German woke media,” Grenell said.

The German far-right leader Alice Weidel, whose anti-immigration, pro-Kremlin Alternative für Deutschland party has been supported by members of Trump’s Maga movement, also commented on the chancellor’s remarks.

“Merz advises against travelling to the US due to the ‘political climate’. Ironically, it is a chancellor who is deliberately leading his own country towards social and economic ruin who is now pointing the finger in warning,” she wrote on social media. “This is not in Germany’s interests.”

Disputes over trade and military aid for Ukraine have fuelled tensions between the US and its European allies and tested the Nato alliance.

Merz is struggling to revive an anaemic German economy and has said the impact of the US-Israeli military action in Iran and the ensuing closure of the strait of Hormuz has been severely damaging to European interests.

Late last month he stunned listeners in Germany as well as the US with blunt comments stating that the Americans were being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership in the current conflict, angering Trump.

Days later, Washington announced a partial troop withdrawal from Germany, where it has about 36,000 military service members, and tariff hikes on cars imported from the EU, a sector crucial to the German economy.

Merz, whose popularity ratings are plumbing record depths in German polls, has since then said he was “not giving up on working on the transatlantic relationship”, while declining opportunities to retract his criticism of Trump.

On Friday he posted on X that he had spoken with Trump by telephone while the US president was travelling home from China and that they had discussed Iran, Ukraine and the upcoming Nato summit in Ankara. “The US and Germany are strong partners in a strong Nato,” Merz said.