White House economic adviser Gary Cohn later confirmed the remarks but clarified that the president "said they're very bad on trade, but he doesn't have a problem with Germany."

Mr Trump spoke with the officials in Brussels a few hours before he met with Mrs Merkel and other leaders at a Nato summit.

Mr Juncker on Friday sought to downplay the incident.

“It’s not true that the president took an aggressive approach when it came to the German trade surplus,” he said. “This is a translation issue. If someone is saying the Germans are bad that doesn’t mean this can be translated literally. He was not aggressive at all.”