“My father was born, right? He knows all about my father. My father was born there [Germany].”

Public remarks during meetings with European leaders

Fred Trump was born on October 11, 1905, in the Bronx, New York, a fact documented in U.S. birth records and stated plainly in his 1999 New York Times obituary. He was never born in Germany.

Trump is conflating his father with his grandfather. Friedrich Trump was born in Kallstadt, Germany in 1869 and emigrated to New York in 1885 at age 16. His son Fred, Donald Trump's father, was conceived during the family's brief attempted return to Germany, but the family was back in New York months before Fred's birth. This is not a one-time slip. PolitiFact rated the identical claim "Pants on Fire" in April 2019, noting Trump had already made the erroneous statement at least four times as president, typically while criticizing Germany over NATO spending or trade. He repeated it again in remarks with European leaders in March 2026.

"As we know, that does not make him born in Germany. Conceived in Germany? OK. But, born in Germany, no." — Gwenda Blair, Trump family biographer, to PolitiFact