Congressional Republicans are set to host a large delegation from the German right-wing, anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Washington, DC, in December, Rep Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) announced in an interview with the German outlet Die Welt. The group of 40 German politicians could include AfD co-chair Alice Weidel.

‘It’s not just going to be me; it’s going to be other members of Congress as well,’ Luna said in the interview, adding that the trip is to be followed by a larger-scale Davos-like conference on the ‘sovereignty of nations’ in early 2026. While the Florida Republican did not name the other members of the US delegation, for AfD it is already a major development that the party has been invited to Washington for an official trip—and that the invitation comes from the American president’s party.

Earlier this year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán became the first European leader to receive senior AfD figures on an official visit, as Weidel met him in Budapest ahead of Germany’s early election in February. Mainstream and progressive parties apply a strict ‘firewall’ against AfD both in Germany and at the European level, meaning they refuse to vote with the party in parliament, to form coalitions with it, or—in many cases—to allow it to hold official positions in the legislature. AfD is also subject to high-level state surveillance by German security services and is consistently threatened with a full ban in the country over alleged extremism.

By visiting Washington, the firewall surrounding AfD could crack further, after it began to crumble earlier this year when US billionaire Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance publicly expressed support for the party and its struggle against political oppression. Weidel herself was invited by Rep Luna at the end of October in a post on X, in which Luna asked the AfD co-chair to consider coming with a delegation in December. ‘Thank you for the kind invitation, @RepLuna. I will contact you about how we can make it happen,’ Weidel replied at the time.

The visit comes shortly after AfD-linked political commentator Naomi Seibt announced that she is seeking asylum in the United States, citing political persecution in Germany. She claimed she had become the ‘target of intelligence surveillance, state media defamation, and Antifa threats’ due to her outspoken support for AfD.

Seibt’s case is supported by Paulina Luna, who has already met her in Washington. ‘I think that she [Seibt] is a great young woman, and I do think that she has a promising future whatever she decides to do, and so we’ll be fully backing her,’ Luna told Welt. ‘I’m actually not just going to be helping her, but I’m going to be helping others like her,’ she added. ‘I do hope that maybe this at least provides some open dialogue on how the German government—specifically the politicians, law enforcement—treat their own citizens even if they don’t agree with them.’

While MAGA Republicans view AfD as an ideological—and potentially civilizational, as JD Vance suggested in Munich—ally, the same cannot be said of Democrats. ‘Rep. Luna’s decision to roll out the red carpet for members of a far-right, Holocaust revisionist, Putin-loving party is grotesque,’ Rep Dan Goldman (D-NY) said. Goldman has accused AfD of antisemitism and being ‘hostile towards America’ in the past.

‘At a time where antisemitism is at historical levels in this country, Anna Paulina Luna inviting representatives of a party that has invoked Nazi slogans and imagery to Congress is nothing short of revolting,’ Madison Andrus, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told NOTUS.

AfD co-chair Tino Chrupalla and several party members attended Trump’s inauguration in January this year, while in September, Beatrix von Storch, the AfD’s deputy leader, met at the White House with officials from the National Security Council, the State Department, and JD Vance’s office.

AfD has been leading every credible poll in Germany for months, ahead of the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU), standing at around 25–27 per cent—roughly two points ahead of the CDU.

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