Following President Donald Trump’s decision to no longer abide by the Iran nuclear deal, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, has urged the German businesses to stop trading with the Islamic Republic of Iran. “US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately,” Grenell tweeted on Tuesday.
Besides Iranian regime, European countries like Germany and France have been the biggest beneficiaries of the economic windfall generated from the 2015 nuclear deal. Carmakers Daimler and Peugeot have joined forces with Iranian partners to set up manufacturing plants in the country. Siemens landed a huge contract to upgrade Iran’s railway network. Aircraft maker Airbus, in which both Germany and France hold stakes, signed a $27 billion deal to supply airliners to Tehran.
As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.
According to the Hamburg-based weekly DerSpiegel, German companies urged the Merkel government to protect their business interests in the wake of the U.S. decision. “Worried about Iran Trade, German Businesses Seek Government Support,” the headline in DerSpiegel said.
The German business sector responded with shock to the U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement to pull out of the Iran deal.
“The companies are worried that their trade with Iran could lead to loss of business in the United States.” The Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) said. “European firms face the threat of sanctions–eventually–if their Iranian business partners end up on the U.S. sanctions lists.
The U.S. sanctions will hit German firms even if the EU unilaterally abstains from imposing sanctions against Iran, according to the association. It is unclear if the U.S. will allow the old contracts to stand. “The German government and the EU need to act now to protect Europe’s Iran trade and restore the lost confidence.” demanded the DIHK. [Translation by author]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already declared her opposition to the U.S. President’s move. “We remain committed to the Iran deal,” the German newspaper DieWelt reported, quoting Chancellor Merkel.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass assured that nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic was still in place. “The agreement is not dead,” Mass told the German broadcaster ARD. “We will try to keep this important agreement alive–an agreement that ensures security in the Near and the Middle East and thereby in the entire world.”
Similar efforts are underway in France as well. “We will obviously do everything, in conjunction with our businesses, to protect their interests,” a French source told the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post.
“Europeans want to save the nuclear agreement,” wrote the German newspaper Die Welt. The newspaper highlighted the diplomatic efforts underway in Europe following the US withdrawal:
Foreign ministers from Germany, France and the UK are deliberating if and how they can salvage the Vienna agreement of 2015 [Iran deal] without the United States. Iran wants to stick to the deal for the meanwhile, but has made it conditional to the promised economical benefits. [Translation by author]
The German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was more belligerent in its reporting. “Trump’s Act of Destruction,” read the headline of the editorial penned by the newspaper’s DC correspondent. “The European companies, engaged in trading with Iran, will suffer the consequences, too,” the editorial added.
As the media coverage and statements from Berlin indicate, Germany’s political and business establishments are determined to salvage the Iran deal, or at least the lucrative financial gains made in Iran in the wake of the 2015 agreement.
If the U.S. sanctions were to snap back into place following President Trump’s decision, German businesses could try to sabotage the measures. European corporations and banking sectors have a history of colluding with Iranian businesses. In 2014, Germany’s Commerzbank was fined $1.45 billion by the U.S. authorities for violating the Iran sanctions. Following year, France’s Paribas paid $9 billion in legal settlements for committing similar violations.
With leading German and French companies entangled in Iranian trade, it is unlikely for Chancellor Merkel or President Macron to follow America’s example and abandon the deal anytime soon. Despite German Chancellor pledging her ‘commitment’ and country’s Foreign Minister vowing to keep the agreement ‘alive,’ President Trump’s decisive action has killed the deal. The sooner the European political and business elite realize it, the better.
Video: Ambassador Grenell discusses Germany and the Iran deal [May 5, 2018]
Poster Comment:
Grenell didn't even unpack before he lowered the boom on German profiteering with Iran. Sounds like Bolton's idea to me.
For the past year, German officials have been urging their U.S. counterparts to send a new ambassador to Berlin. But after finally receiving one, many may be having second thoughts.
Within hours of assuming his new post Tuesday, Richard Grenell triggered harsh criticism in this Trump-weary country after appearing to threaten one of the U.S. president’s frequent targets: German businesses.
In a tweet after President Trump’s announcement to leave the Iran nuclear deal, Grenell wrote that “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.” Germany, alongside France and Britain, wants to stick to the deal Trump is seeking to scrap. And while Grenell’s post may not deviate from the official White House stance on future European business dealings with Iran, the timing and tone struck some German politicians, journalists and business executives as offensive and inappropriate.
What sin did he commit?
As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.
The truth is that they are offended because they have invested billions in Iran since 2015 and those investments are in danger. The Europeans are making squealing noises about shielding their companies from secondary sanctions, but that is nonsense. Companies doing substantial business in Iran are eventually going to have to have access to international banking networks and secondary sanctions will hit their bankers as well as the companies directly involved. Grennel gave them some sage advice. Wind down your operations now because Treasury is going to have no mercy.
This is an overdue eye-opener for the Germans. Ever since Obama chose to use the Brandenburg Gate as a setting for a campaign speech, the Germans have become accustomed to the US jumping when they speak. Under Obama we were not a superpower, we were the geopolitical equivalent of the big, weak, fat kid who starts crying and hands over his lunch money when confronted by any threat. Under Trump, we are again learning to act like a great power. Grennel, I hope, is just the first of many ambassadors who care more about the United States than they do about the tightly wadded and soiled knickers of people whose opinions really aren’t the final word.
Awww...WaPo and our German allies are offended. Now I'm all shook up...
Apparently, the Germans wanted a new ambassador so they could communicate their dictates to That Idiot In The White House. And it didn't quite work out the way they had hoped.
You can bet that Trump loved this quick decisive action. Somewhere in the background, Mnuchin is smiling and waiting for his chance to sanction major German corporations...
Boeing and Airbus will lose contracts worth roughly $39 billion to replenish Iran's aging fleet of commercial planes as part of the Trump administration's reimposition of sanctions. "The Boeing and Airbus licenses will be revoked," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a group of reporters ...
With Airbus losing a $19B sale to Iran, you can see why the Germans are unhappy. And if they defy us, Airbus will lose its ability to deal with all American banks and financial entities and would be out of business in a matter of weeks.
So this isn't just some threat that they might do something later. This is a very immediate threat that will force the cancellation of these aircraft orders now. Today. No matter what that traitorous scumbag John Kerry is whispering into the ears of the EU political elites.
"Lose"? I don't think so. "Postponed until Iran signs an acceptable nuclear agreement"? Sure.
I have no dispute with WaPo's choice of words.
I posted this because I think that most people thought Trump's pulling out of the Iran deal wouldn't mean all that much or the consequences would only happen years from now.
These are concrete real-world results, in a matter of days.
Trump, Mnuchin, Bolton, Grenell, they are doing exactly the things they intended to do. Takin' names and kickin' ass.
As for Germany, they aren't really even our allies any more. Their current NATO spending is about 1.15%. Barely half of their obligation to spend 2% of GDP on defense as a NATO member. And France does little better, Britain is worse. And, united, they failed to even knock off Ghaddafi, exhausting their missile supply and spare aircraft parts and then whining until 0bama came leading from behind to weaken Ghaddafi enough for some Muslim mob to murder him without a trial. These are our top allies?
If they don't want to be allies any more, as their actions would indicate, that's fine with me. Let's just drop the pretense altogether if that's what they want.
While what you say is true, I don't think it mattered. They could be fully paid up and Trump still would have pulled out of the Iran agreement.
What's really telling is how, time after time, Trump is exposing Obama for the incompetent fool that he was -- Obamacare, taxes, unemployment, federal regulation, the Paris Climate Accord, NAFTA, North Korea nukes, Iran agreement, NATO spending. Eight years of worse than nothing.
While what you say is true, I don't think it mattered. They could be fully paid up and Trump still would have pulled out of the Iran agreement.
Yeah but it is especially galling for a rich country like Germany to be a NATO deadbeat and miss no chances to lecture us about anything. They have plenty of money to spend on supporting their imported Muslim rapist migrants but can't possibly spend any more on their NATO treaty defense commitments.
I would still be annoyed with their furtive plotting with Lurch to undermine Trump's policy (Logan violation) but to get lectured by these nobodies when they won't even support NATO policy and treaty obligations really chafes my hide. Trump and Mattis also think this way and didn't bother to hold back when telling the EU elites exactly what they think of them as allies.
but to get lectured by these nobodies when they won't even support NATO policy and treaty obligations really chaffs my hide.
I agree completely. They've been pampered over the decades by various Presidents. What, to get them to like us? They need us more than we need them.
Now, if we would just apply the same principle to our useless "ally" in the Middle East, Israel. With all we do for them, the billions spent ... you'd think they'd throw us a bone and at least stop building homes in the West Bank when we asked them nicely.
I think their answer was a diplomatic, "Fuck you".
Now, if we would just apply the same principle to our useless "ally" in the Middle East, Israel. With all we do for them, the billions spent ... you'd think they'd throw us a bone and at least stop building homes in the West Bank when we asked them nicely.
You'd have a better point if the EU wasn't so rich. Israel spends plenty on its own defense. And it has been a lone outpost of democracy and human rights in the region for decades as fundamentalist Islam and sectarian strife have risen across the region.
But I do favor reducing Israel's aid package overall. It should probably be cut in half because Israel is a very rich little country; it's economy was one of the few that took no downturns back in 2009 and it's been going gangbusters economically. We should eliminate entirely any funding for the Palis. Let the Arabs support them if they choose to.
We have given a lot of economic incentives to Israel and the Palis to postpone or extend indefinitely any serious negotiations to resolve their differences. They both get more money out of us by maintaining their standoff.
For that matter, North and South Korea have played games with America and China for many years as well. There's no good reason for America or China to keep funding this war that has been going for 70 years. Make a treaty already.
Meh. Now that Syria is falling to pieces and the Russians have backed the wrong horse, keeping Israel, alive, self-interested, and well-funded is a good thing. Keep smacking the Syrian forces. The Gulf no longer favors the former Terror Circle states around Israel, and wants that whole business to be done for.
Overthrowning the Syrian regime and driving the Russians out of the Mediterranean, ending the last of the Terror Circle states around Israel and throwing everything back to Iran greatly simplifies the strategic picture.
I grasp the argument, that the Russians might be tolerated with their bases in Syria. But the West and the Gulf states are determined to eject Syria from doing anything further to set up housekeeping in Syria.
Having Iran in Syria is little better than having ISIS in Syria.
We need to finish off ISIS and get out but make sure that Iran gets out as well. Russia will fade in due course without America and Iran involved. They only care that the Assad regime remain in power.
If they want Assad to remain in power, then they had better get in line with us and control their little monkey. NO MORE chemical attacks. Assad needs to be a cooperative, malleable puppet. He needs to sign a peace agreement with Israel ceding the West Bank, and demilitarize it. He needs to recognize Israel and get on with it.
The jihadis are a spent force. If the peace with Israel revives them, then we will have a basis on which to turn a blind eye and provide intelligence for the Syrian state to commit genocide on a massive scale, against the radicals who are willing to go to civil war mode to prevent peace with Israel.
That is really the key. Muslims are going to fight Muslims over any peace with Israel. Peace with Israel is THE policy that we must force down upon, and enforce upon, Dar es Islaam. Islam must be broken and bent to our will, so that when the mullahs do as Saudi has done: turn on the Palestinians and recognize Israel as the rational actor, and be willing to recognize Israel as the PRICE of Arab countries being allowed to develop themselves - then we will have won.
We're fighting the equivalent of the Thirty Years War, but in Islam, not Christendom. By the end of the 30 Years War both the Protestant AND the Catholic Churches were broken, and driven out of political predominance by the monarchical states who provided greater peace than religion could.
And both sides accepted that it was the King, not the individual subject, who decided what the subjects in any given territory would have for religion.
The fanatics emigrated to America, where none was able to get sway, and where the love of money was so great that the Catholics were able to swamp them with immigration and steer economic and racial policy in a decidedly Catholic direction, without actually making the country Catholic.
There will only be peace in the Middle East when imams and mullahs acknowledge Israel's existence and make peace with it. They say they never will. So did Cromwell's Puritans, Luther's Lutherans, Calvin's Reformed, and Leo's Catholics. But in the end the religions ALL submitted to reality after enough suffering, because the next generation decided that religion was not as important as peace. And thus religion was diminished as a force in the West forever, and has steadily weakened ever since. Which is why the West is where science came from, and with science, industry and military capacity. Which, in turn, is why the secular West is forcing, over time, the Muslims to change their religion and acknowledge the Jews' right to be there (even if the Jews have no real right to be there): because the Muslims are still religious, and religious people are never capable of keeping up with secular scientific people in industry, manufacture, economics or any of the means of hard power. All they can do is harangue with words, and while they may be fierce, they age and they die, or are killed, and the next generation, and the one after that, are less and less willing to sacrifice their whole lives and personal hopes in defense of the pride of a God who does not REALLY exist at all, or who, if he does, is incapable of actually defeating the gods of the West - dollars, science and guns.
Lather, rinse, repeat. The First and Second generation of Lutherans, Calvinists and Counter-Reformation Catholics were not willing to give an inch. But their grandchildren, on all sides, decided that living the good life as French, Germans, Italians, Dutch and English was more important than whatever their grandfathers' gods might have said. They redefined what God wanted, and what he wanted was for them to be peaceful and follow their kings. Which, conveniently, was what they wanted. And peace broke out for a century and a half.
Much better.
We have broken the Muslim spirit in Iraq and in Jordan, in Saudi and in he Emirates. We're breaking it now in Egypt and in Syria. They're giving up on the idea of the extinction of Israel.
The Russians have backed the wrong side. So, they have the capacity to extend the misery, but in the end they cannot win because Russia is a distant country with a crappy economy and no future - the birthrate is low and the Muslim birth rate is high.
Russians complicate things, but they don't stop history. They just ensure that they will, once again, be on the wrong side of it. Their loss. It need not be so.
