20:17

After months of bashing the German chancellor on the campaign trail, Donald Trump declared that Angela Merkel was his favorite world leader.

Donald Trump Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

In an interview with a local reporter in New Hampshire, the Republican presidential nominee proclaimed: “I think Merkel is a really great world leader.” Though, he added, “I was very disappointed that, when she, this move with the whole thing on immigration, I think it’s a big problem and really, you know, to look at what she’s done in the last year and a half. I was always a Merkel person. I thought really fantastic. But I think she made a very tragic mistake a year and a half ago.”

Trump was criticizing the German chancellor’s openness to taking refugees from Syria. Despite the ongoing civil war and humanitarian crisis in that country, Trump has long warned of the danger of taking in refugees, whom he has compared to the Trojan Horse.

The statement marks a change in tone from Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Merkel on the campaign trail.

In December, after Merkel bested him to be Time’s Person of the Year, Trump tweeted she was “ruining Germany”. He had previously said Merkel should be “ashamed of herself” over refugee policy.

Trump has since gone on to compare Merkel to his election rival Hillary Clinton. In August, he said, “Hillary Clinton is running to be America’s Angela Merkel, and we’ve seen how much crime and how many problems that’s caused the German people.”