…from outside the United States, Spiegel Online, the English language, Internet edition of the German magazine Der Spiegel, is a useful source:
On Monday, US President George W. Bush bypassed Congress and installed the pugnacious John Bolton as UN Ambassador. While diplomats are trying to smile graciously, academics and European specialists insist the appointment is a direct slap in the face to Europe and to the UN.
To put it in other words, Europe is reacting to this appointment exactly as I predicted, as Bush giving an upraised middle finger to the international community.
For those who feel this appointment is “needed” to “shake things up”, allow me to remind you, pissing off allies, even if they do not agree with you in all respects, is not a good way to ensure continued success.
The article continues:
Officially, politicians in Germany, France and Spain are being quietly diplomatic about United States President George W. Bush’s somewhat back-handed installation of the controversial John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations on Monday. But political scientists and academics fear the move could increase tensions in trans-Atlantic relations.
“Bush is sending the message that the UN in general is not on the front burner anymore for the United States,” said Professor Frank Unger, a professor at Berlin’s John F. Kennedy School of Foreign Relations, who specializes in international relations and US policy. “It’s not a message Europeans like hearing.”
Europeans still believe in the idea of the UN as an independent world player, an institution that can and will act independently from the US, he said. “For Europeans, the UN is a body that can function as an antagonist to the United States. What Bush is saying is that is not true. He’s saying the UN is not a real power and cannot replace the power or influence of the US.” He’s also showing his disdain for international diplomacy in general, Unger said.
But others disagree, pointing out the UN’s many scandals and its inability to act quickly enough to stop the genocides of the 1990s in the Balkans and Rwanda. The UN, they say, is in desperate need of serious reforms.
“The reason why Bolton was nominated is because Bush needs a tough guy at the UN, and wants bottom up reforms,” said Jan-Friedrich Kallmorgen of the German Council on Foreign Relations. “Bush is committed to reform, that’s why he put someone like that in there. I don’t agree with some analysts who say it’s a punishment of the Senate or because he’s anti-democratic or all that … He chose Bolton because he needs someone tough enough to take on the bureaucracy.”
As is plain to see, there is more than one opinion in Germany on the motives behind Bush’s appointment of Bolton as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
However, this is not the only ambassadorial appointment causing heartburn in Germany. Again from Spiegel Online:
How Bush’s Berlin Ambassador Pick Profited from Protective Tariffs against German Companies
By Georg Mascolo and Juergen Dahlkamp
Washington’s choice for future US ambassador to Germany has all the makings of a political bombshell. For years, a company owned by the multimillionaire and newly-appointed diplomat William Timken, Jr. has been profiting from anticompetitive tariffs — at the direct expense of German companies.
As Washington’s new ambassador to Germany, William Timken, Jr. will face, among other things, the task of patching up damaged relations between the two countries. But there’s one small problem with this picture. The multimillionaire who US President George W. Bush nominated to the position two weeks ago also happens to be Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Timken Company, an Ohio-based firm that claims to be the biggest manufacturer of roller bearings in the world. And ever since the 66-year-old Timken, a major donor to the Republican Party and decorated with the honorary title of “Super Ranger,” (reserved for those who contribute more than $200,000) has been slated to take over the position in Berlin, his company’s questionable business practices have suddenly become taboo among German politicians and industry lobbyists.
Here are some good examples: Last Tuesday, the usually outspoken Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs Otto Wiesheu said he was not the right person to talk to about the Timken Company. On Wednesday, Randolf Rodenstock, the head of the Bavarian Business Association, also declined to comment on the matter. Even Germany’s federal Minister of Economics and Labor, Social Democrat Wolfgang Clement, has opted to discreetly downplay the issue.
In other words, no one wants to talk about the fact that the Bavarian roller bearing industry is suffering because it’s being forced to pay protective tariffs for products it exports to the United States as a result of charges of price dumping. To make matters worse, the Bush administration is funnelling the proceeds directly to the Bavarians’ US competitors, primarily Timken. In response to a complaint filed by the European Union and other states in January 2003, the World Trade Organization, or WTO, ruled that this practice is clearly illegal. Yet, no one dares speak out against it — or against America’s newest ambassador.
Fascinating, an accusation of a “conspiracy of silence” by the German Government with respect to how the company for which the newly minted US Ambassador to Germany serves as chairman of the board profited from certain tariffs imposed by the US on German products.
More details from the article:
Jürgen Geissinger, CEO of the Schaeffler Group in the northern Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach and also president of the Federation of European Bearing Manufacturers Associations, complains: “Timken, one of the biggest beneficiaries of a trade policy that violates the WTO ruling, has been named ambassador to a country whose businesses suffer as a result of this policy.”
Schaeffler’s holdings include roller bearing manufacturers FAG Kugelfischer and INA which are responsible for about 26,000 German jobs. According to Kugelfischer, the company has already paid more than $35 million in tariffs, with most of the money going into the coffers of Timken’s company. And, according to Geissinger, the proceeds from the tariffs could even enable the Americans to sell their products at rock-bottom prices on the world market, “which would not only deprive us of revenues, but would also jeopardize German jobs on a massive scale.”
To this day, hardly any other US company has insisted so steadfastly that the United States should continue to ignore the WTO’s 2003 decision. More importantly, no other US company has profited as much from America’s anticompetitive protective tariffs since 2001 as Timken (including its subsidiary, the Torrington Company, which Timken acquired in 2003). But the companies that are paying the lion’s share of these tariffs include German industrial bearing manufacturers — and at $70 million in tariffs, the Germans are only in second place behind the Japanese.
Merely by filing the appropriate forms, Timken managed to cash in on $52.7 million from the US customs jackpot in 2004, twice as much the second-largest beneficiary of the tariffs. Timken’s take was even bigger in 2003 — $92.7 million, or five times as much as the number two company on the receiving end. Even President Bush believes that there is something wrong with this practice of milking the competition despite the WTO decision. He attempted — albeit unsuccessfully — to overturn the 2000 legal basis for the tariffs, known as the “Byrd Amendment.”
So, to put it simply, in addition to nominating as Ambassador to the United Nations a man who said in a speech that the top stories of the UN building could be removed with “no loss” to the world, the President of the United States nominated as Ambassador to Germany, nominally an important ally, the chairman of the board of a company that not only profited from tariffs imposed upon German imports to the United States, but a company that also lobbied to continue the punitive (from the German point of view) tariffs.
If that is not a second upraised middle finger to our allies in Europe, especially Germany, I do not know what else would be.
Think about it a while. Do what your mother always asked of you, put yourself in their place.
Is there any wonder that the United States is losing support in the world, even among formerly strong allies?
Is this any way for us to win a “war of ideologies”?
This ain’t rocket science….