BERLIN — Richard Grenell arrived in the German capital as Donald Trump’s ambassador last year with a reputation as a diplomatic bad boy.
A Fox News commentator and former aide to John Bolton — the outspoken head of the National Security Council — Grenell was known as a man who didn’t let diplomatic decorum stand in the way of his professional agenda.
He hasn’t disappointed.
Eight months after exploding on to the scene in Berlin, tweets blazing, Grenell remains as controversial as ever. He has cajoled, prodded and antagonized Berlin’s political establishment over everything from Germany’s tepid military spending to its commercial ties with Iran, prompting howls of consternation from the country’s strait-laced political establishment over the future of the transatlantic relationship.
What’s more surprising is that Grenell, 52, has proved to be something else: a success.
“I think the White House looks at Grenell and sees a successful ambassador” — Julianne Smith, former national security adviser to ex-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden
Love him, hate him or hate him more, there’s no denying Grenell has made his voice heard, becoming in the process the highest profile American ambassador in Europe and arguably the world.
The man whom critics dismiss as “the little Trump” may not have captured many hearts and minds in Germany but more often than not, he has succeeded in winning the argument. Across a range of issues — from opening the German market to American LNG (liquified natural gas) to taking custody of a suspected Nazi war criminal, to pulling the landing rights of an Iranian airline — Berlin, after much resistance, has succumbed to Washington’s (read Grenell’s) will.
“I think the White House looks at Grenell and sees a successful ambassador,” said Julianne Smith, a national security adviser to ex-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. “They take no issue with his style, and they believe that what needs to be done right now is that Germany needs to change.”
Long before Trump, Washington had tried and failed to convince Berlin to commit more to defense and rein in its giant trade surplus. Grenell can’t claim victory on all of those fronts, but it’s clear the Germans are listening in a way they haven’t in the past.
Ric Grenell’s winner-takes-all attitude has rubbed some Germans up the wrong way | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“I open up every conversation by saying I speak very frankly to friends, and the Germans are our friends,“ he said in an interview this week. “There’s an overwhelming appreciation of being able to speak honestly and openly. Sometimes, there will also be people who respond very respectfully, ‘I like your frankness, so let me also be frank in my reaction,’ and then they push back on U.S. policy. I enjoy this dialogue.”
‘A Roman governor’
Whether the Germans really enjoy it is another question.
At an exclusive gathering of German CEOs earlier this month, Grenell had just rested his case on how Trump is making America great again when a man across the wood-paneled room declared: “Trump lies.”
An attendee at a similar forum where Grenell spoke said he came across like a “Roman governor,” as he presented the American agenda on trade and energy policy. “Grenell’s winner-take-all attitude turns a lot of people off,” this person said.
Nonetheless, it’s difficult to dispute the results.
When he arrived in May, recommending on Twitter that German companies in Iran “wind down operations immediately,” he was pilloried for lacking diplomatic sensibility.
But when it comes to Nord Stream 2, Germany’s controversial gas pipeline project with Russia, Berlin has turned a deaf ear to U.S. concerns.
Since then, just about every German company of note, from Volkswagen to BASF, has pulled out of Iran for fear of running afoul of U.S. sanctions and drawing Trump’s wrath.
Grenell also ratcheted up Trump’s calls for Germany to spend more on defense, a demand Berlin has grudgingly begun to heed, if not with the speed or to the degree the U.S. would like to see.
Over the summer, Grenell quietly pressured the Germans to take a 95-year-old Nazi labor camp guard who had been living in New York for decades. Berlin had resisted Washington’s efforts to extradite the man for years, arguing that he wasn’t Germany’s responsibility because he had never been a German citizen.
But Grenell’s persistence paid off. In August, Germany agreed to take the former guard, who died earlier this month at a German hospice.
On energy policy, another U.S. priority, Grenell’s record is more mixed. After intense U.S. lobbying, Berlin agreed in the fall to subsidize the construction of facilities to handle LNG, a step that would ease U.S. imports to Germany.
But when it comes to Nord Stream 2, Germany’s controversial gas pipeline project with Russia, Berlin has turned a deaf ear to U.S. concerns.
| Carstenn Koall/Getty Images
The U.S., along with a number of European countries, has warned Germany against making itself and Europe too dependent on Russian gas.
“We stand on the side of the EU Parliament and 16 European countries who are opposed to the Nord Stream 2 project,” Grenell said. “We think a multilateral approach is needed for a project like this. But this is a decision for Germany. The German government gets to decide. No one is trying to say this isn’t their decision to make.”
Still, many in Berlin regard Washington’s objections as a transparent attempt to peddle the country’s LNG, which is more expensive than Russian gas. Some also believe Grenell’s aggressive criticism of the German position could end up hurting his cause.
“I agree with him that Nord Stream 2 is a problem, but I think that the way he’s pursuing it is sadly highly likely to isolate the German critics,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller, an analyst on transatlantic affairs with the Brookings Institution. “I find that unfortunate.”
Trump’s ear
Grenell downplays the friction he’s created in Berlin, blaming much of it on the German media, which portrays him as Trump’s hatchet man. Earlier this month Der Spiegel, a left-leaning weekly, ran an unflattering profile, caricaturing him as a far-right fanatic, shunned by Germany’s political elite.
He argues that on most substantive bilateral issues, the U.S. and Germany are closer than ever, citing intelligence-sharing, China, and military coordination involving the 33,000 U.S. troops stationed in Germany. And despite German disappointment over the Washington’s decision to abandon the Iran nuclear deal, the two countries are closely coordinating policy towards Tehran.
“We both understand that the Iranian regime shouldn’t get a nuclear weapon and that their ballistic programs and malign activity especially in Europe are a problem,” he said. “The Germans have made all this very clear and we’ve made clear that we share these same goals.”
While Grenell’s provocative tweets and regular appearances on Fox make him an easy target, the suggestion that he’s isolated is off the mark. He regularly hosts and visits a parade of German and European dignitaries, be they ministers or senior parliamentarians.
What gives Grenell sway in Germany is that he has Trump’s ear and everyone knows it.
On Monday, he met with Manfred Weber, the Bavarian politician who is leading the European People’s Party’s ticket in the upcoming European election. That evening, he hosted a dinner at his residence for Peter Beyer, a senior German MP responsible for coordinating transatlantic relations.
The company he keeps hasn’t softened Grenell’s edges, however.
Responding to news reports this week that a man had been publicly hanged in Iran for being gay, Grenell tweeted: “Many of our European allies have Embassies in Tehran. This barbaric act must not go unanswered. Speak up.”
“That’s just how he is,” said a German MP from Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats who has regular dealings with Grenell. “Some people have difficulty accepting that.”
Whether his interlocutors like him or not is largely beside the point. What gives Grenell sway in Germany is that he has Trump’s ear and everyone knows it.
Donald Trump and Angela Merkel have famously not always seen eye-to-eye | Benoit Tessier/AFP via Getty Images
The deeper question occupying Berlin’s foreign policy circles is what Grenell’s no-holds-barred style will mean for the transatlantic bond in the long-term. Will the relationship erode amid growing acrimony, as some fear, or is this new “tell-me-what-you-really-think” approach the partnership’s salvation?
Some argue that with a softer touch, Grenell would be more effective.
“What I worry about is that the damage that’s being doing to the relationship will stretch beyond the Trump administration,” said Smith, Biden’s former national security adviser. “Certainly, the attacks from the White House and Grenell have helped spur change, but that approach could also backfire.”
Others are less troubled.
“When you’re really nice is when the Germans stop listening to you,” a senior U.S. official said. “Under Obama, the Germans stopped TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership], they went ahead with Nord Stream 2 and ignored our calls to increase defense spending.”
Transatlantic degradation
It’s difficult to overstate just how reliant Germany remains on America. Not only is the U.S. Germany’s largest trading partner and the biggest market for its exports, U.S. firms and individuals are also the largest foreign investors in Germany.
In addition, Germany is almost completely reliant on the U.S. for its security, whether in terms of the nuclear deterrent or intelligence-sharing. For the foreseeable future, talk of a “European army” is little more than a fantasy; even if Europe could agree on a strategy and funding (which it hasn’t), such a force would take decades to build.
So while France, which has a much more robust military capability than Germany, is happy to distance itself from Washington, Berlin can ill afford to.
German troops training in Münster, Germany | david Hecker/Getty Images
“They have no other option,” Smith said.
Even so, officials in Berlin warn against downplaying the long-term effects Trump’s presidency will have on transatlantic relations.
German elites understand that after 70 years, the U.S.’s paternalist approach to Germany, guaranteeing its security and asking little in return, was bound to end. But they didn’t expect shock therapy.
Germans who came of age looking up to the U.S. are particularly rattled by Trump’s reference to the EU as an “enemy.” They also fear that Trump’s attacks on Germany have emboldened populists in places like Poland and Hungary to take a harder line with Berlin.
“Trump is not a kind of jack-in-the-box you can just stuff back into the box” — Senior German diplomat
Ralf Beste, the head of policy planning at the German foreign ministry, said in a speech to the German Council on Foreign Relations earlier this month that Berlin has begun to assess the U.S. in the same way it does China, Russia — that is, not just as a potential partner, but also as a potential threat.
“We have to come to terms with the fact that we also have to evaluate the Americans on this basis,” he said.
To those with that view, Grenell’s approach is a representation of the new reality — a symbol of both a new American approach and, more broadly, the new global parameters that must be dealt with.
“Trump is not a kind of jack-in-the-box you can just stuff back into the box,” a senior German diplomat said, arguing that Trump’s presidency represents a seminal shift in transatlantic relations. “I don’t think things will just snap back when he’s gone. The genie is out of the bottle.”
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