Trump officials are lobbying the Romanian government to lift travel restrictions on controversial influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan.

Andrew, 38, and Tristan, 36, both UK-US nationals who grew up in Luton but now live in Romania, are facing human trafficking and sexual abuse charges in Bucharest and Britain.

The pair are vocal Trump supporters and have achieved colossal online fame by calling on men to “escape The Matrix” by getting rich and rejecting feminism.

They were released from house arrest by a Romanian court last month pending the outcome of an investigation, but remain barred from leaving the country. Both deny any wrongdoing.

US officials raised the Tates’ case in a phone call with the Romanian government last week, the Financial Times reported.

Richard Grenell, a US special envoy, is then believed to have brought up the issue with Emil Hurezeanu, the Romanian foreign minister, at the Munich Security Conference.

Mr Grenell said he supported the Tate brothers “as evident by my publicly available tweets”, but had “no substantive conversation” with Mr Hurezeanu at the summit.

The US government is understood to have asked Romanian authorities to return the brothers’ passports, allowing them to travel while investigations continue.

Earlier this month, Mr Grenell said Romania was the “latest example” of how funds dispensed by USAid had been “weaponised against people and politicians who weren’t woke”.

The new US administration has cut USAid’s funding and is attempting to fire the majority of its staff, with Mr Trump accusing the agency of stealing “billions of dollars”.

Tristan Tate has called on supporters to investigate “if any USAid went to Romania to fund any particular Lawfare base investigations”.