Hey @Caitlyn_1990 honestly, my short answer would be to go for a .com for a US audience. Local vs global generally really depends on your product, your brand and most importantly your market. There’s not a lot of definitive answers I can give without knowing about your company, brand and products to be honest, but from my experience the US market engage a lot more with “local” brands. I found a .com is much more of a global domain, .de can push a person to think that it may not be a priority to serve their area, or that it might be a hassle. For example if you’re selling physically products they may immediately think to shipping costs, if it’s a consultation service they may immediately think of timezone or language barriers, if it’s a service they may immediately think of support issues.
My initial instict would be to go with the .com, but that’s without any knowledge of your company, product or market. Realitically the first thing I would do is create personas for your new audience, find out who the market actually is and what they’re interested in. If the personas are used to multinational companies or international work then it likely won’t affect them, if you’re primarly targeting people who are brand new to your business and might not be familiar with the EU/DE markets then .com might be your best bet.