Trump's Ambassador to Germany Caused a Diplomatic Scandal on His Very First Day

By Rafi Schwartz  |  May 9, 2018 | 9:48pm
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There’s something to be said for U.S. ambassadors who are so eager to represent Donald Trump’s vile agenda to the world that they show up on their first day and fuck it all up.

First it was Ambassador to the Netherlands Peter Hoekstra, who got hilariously roasted by the Dutch press mere moments after he arrived on the job. And now there’s newly appointed Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who—just hours into his tenure—responded to the president’s calamitous decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal by pissing off a huge swath of Deutschland in a single tweet.

Now, this is not the worst thing you could do, I suppose. Nevertheless, a Yankee dictating what private German companies should and shouldn’t do was definitely a nein-nein to many in his host country.

“It’s not my task to teach people about the fine art of diplomacy, especially not the U.S. ambassador,” Social Democratic Party leader Andrea Nahles, whose party currently controls the German foreign ministry, said. “But he does appear to need some tutoring.”

German news anchor Christian Sievers was slightly less coy in his response to Grenell’s lame excuse that he was simply using “the exact language sent out from the White House talking points & fact sheet.”

“Is this some kind of apology from America’s (rather undiplomatic) top diplomats in Germany?” Sievers tweeted in German.

Even Luxembourg—Luxembourg!— got in on the action, with Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn complaining to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that it was “an impertinence,” according to the Washington Post.

Michael Tockuss, chairman of the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce—a group with some serious vested interest in maintaining the ability to do business between the two nations—was blunt in his assessment.

“I’m sure that our foreign ministry will indicate to the ambassador that it’s not his role to give direction or utter threats to German companies,” Tockuss said, firmly.

The Post wrote that neither German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas nor a spokesperson for Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s government would comment on Grenell’s tweet. Off to a great start!

 
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