Richard Grenell, the new U.S. ambassador to Germany, formally took up his post in Berlin on Tuesday and immediately got to work as Donald Trump’s representative by offending the German people with a tweet.
https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/993924107212394496
Grenell’s inaugural Twitter address to his hosts, a stern command to German companies doing business in Iran to obey the American president’s decision to sabotage the nuclear arms control agreement that opened the way for Western investment, or face U.S. sanctions, did not go over well.
As Germany’s leading financial daily, Handelsblatt, reported, the tweet drew thousands of comments, “many of them from angry Germans basically telling the ambassador, a longtime critic of the Iran deal, to butt out.”
Among the more temperate replies was one from Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the United States, who advised the novice diplomat to avoid issuing “instructions” to his hosts.
Ric: my advice, after a long ambassadorial career: explain your own country’s policies, and lobby the host country – but never tell the host country what to do, if you want to stay out of trouble. Germans are eager to listen, but they will resent instructions.
— Wolfgang Ischinger (@ischinger) May 9, 2018
Grenell’s comments sparked anger across the political spectrum and were followed by a pledge from Germany’s finance minister, Olaf Scholz, to protect German businesses from any U.S. sanctions, possibly through a European Union statute that would block the implementation of any American penalties.
Fabio De Masi of the far-left party, Die Linke, called on the German foreign ministry to make it clear to Grenell that his threats on behalf of “the arsonist in the White House” were inappropriate.
In response to the wave of criticism generated by his tweet, Grenell suggested that he was just following orders and had used “the exact language sent out from the White House.”
https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/994089192069181440
It was notable, however, that America’s ambassadors to the two other European signatories to the Iran deal, Britain and France, issued no such warnings to companies in those nations.
Rolf Mützenich, an arms control expert who represents the Social Democrats in Germany’s parliament, suggested that Grenell appeared to be imitating his boss.
That, however, is a sign that the German lawmaker is unfamiliar with the new American ambassador’s previous work as a noted Twitter troll.
Grenell, who once served the Bush administration as U.N. Ambassador John Bolton’s spokesperson, resigned from Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012 after deleting hundreds of sexist, rude comments from his Twitter feed. Reports at the time suggested that hiring Grenell, who is gay, might also have alienated Republican homophobes, but the uproar over his tweets was clearly a factor in his resignation.
In addition to mocking the physical appearance of female political figures, Grenell often uses his Twitter account to harass journalists, badgering them to the point where many eventually tire of his inane arguments and block him.
https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/361880474286690305