US envoy blasts German minister for ‘insult’ of US with communist China comparison
President Donald Trump’s highest-profile envoy in Europe, Richard Grenell, slammed German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s economic affairs minister, Peter Altmaier, who promotes trade with Tehran, for equating communist China with United States and the envoy garnered praise for his work in sanctioning Iran’s Mahan Air.
US Ambassador to Germany Grenell told FoxNews.com on Tuesday, without naming Altmaier, that his comparison is “an insult to the thousands of American troops who help ensure Germany’s security and to the millions of Americans committed to a strong Western alliance.”
Grenell continued, “These claims are likewise an insult to the millions of Chinese citizens denied basic freedoms and unjustly imprisoned by the CCP [Communist Party of China].” The bitter row over China sparked a national conversation in the German media about defending the West and opposing totalitarian states like China and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The US government opposes China operating Germany’s fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology network. Altmaier said during a weekend show about Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei: “Germany did not impose any boycott” on the US after the NSA scandal.
During the tenure of President Barack Obama, it was revealed that the US National Security Agency spied on Merkel. Reports also emerged showing that German spies from the BND, Germany’s Foreign Intelligence Service, carried out surveillance of the White House and American businesses.
After Grenell’s robust criticism blanketed the German media, Altmaier
walked back his comparison, stating he did not mean to say the US and China are “on the same level.”
Altmaier told the Bild newspaper, “It’s clear that we want the highest possible security standards for sensitive data, regardless of where the products come from.”
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo has said, “The Chinese Communist Party has access to information that runs across Chinese networks. It’s in their basic laws. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of any country to take the data from their private citizens and place it in the hands of the CCP.”
The US government has said, “Countries must take action now to safeguard their emerging 5G networks, because the stakes could not be higher.”
The American Embassy in Berlin tweeted on Monday: “You need to be able to trust that 5G equipment and software companies will not threaten your national security, privacy, intellectual property or human rights. Trust cannot exist where telecom vendors are subject to an authoritarian government that lacks an independent judiciary.”
Grenell, known for his sharp commentary, prompted a lively debate in Germany about Huawei. The ambassador stressed, “There is no moral equivalency between China and the United States, and anyone suggesting this ignores history.”
Markus Becker, the European Union correspondent journalist for the largely left-wing Spiegel, found himself in agreement with Grenell. Becker wrote on Twitter that Altmaier’s parallel between the “US and China in terms of mass surveillance is quite wrong.” Altmaier, in the remarks in question, also said, “The US also demands from its companies that they pass on certain information needed to fight terrorism.”
Norbert Röttgen, the chairman in the Bundestag of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, took Altmaier to task via Twitter, saying that the legislature “does not just advise but decides regarding 5G according to the law.”
Merkel’s intelligence agencies have warned about the dangers of China controlling the country’s wireless technology network and urged her not to let Huawei secure the tender.
The sea change in German-American relations that Grenell seems to have set into motion is garnering attention. Gabor Steingart, a prominent German journalist and former editor-in-chief of the business daily Handelsblatt, wrote: “Grenell not only communicates the interests of the US government, he also asserts them. His track record is impressive.”
Steingart wrote, “The Chinese network supplier Huawei is a thorn in the side of the US. In March 2019, Grenell wrote a letter to Minister Altmaier in which he threatened a boycott of security-relevant information from the CIA, NSA, and the FBI if Huawei were to be involved in building the German 5G network. The consequences: Huawei has become the focus of public debate. The CDU [Christian Democratic Union] party conference in Leipzig also dealt with the topic. In addition to AKK [Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s minister of defense], Grenell was also able to win over the leading CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen for the U.S. position.”
According to Steingart, “The dispute over the Iranian airline Mahan Air also ended with a win on points for the Americans: The Iranian government is suspected of supporting terrorism. In September 2018, Grenell asked the German government via Twitter why the airline was still being allowed to land in Düsseldorf and Munich. In January 2019, the German government withdrew the airline’s landing permit.”
Steingart concluded, “One would wish that the German foreign minister would be half as effective in asserting German interests abroad.”