Trump ambassador alienates Germans after just 4 weeks on the job

Richard Grenell, Trump’s ambassador to Germany, has so quickly offended the country’s leaders that calls for his expulsion have begun just one month after he arrived, continuing with the current administration’s apparent goal of wrecking relations with every longtime U.S. ally.

The almost-immediate calls for Grenell’s expulsion came after the ambassador gave an interview to the white nationalist site Breitbart, where he clearly insisted he wanted to help interfere with internal German politics a and boost domestic voices on the far-right, anti-immigration fringe.

“I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders,” he announced. “I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left.”

Grenell’s loose talk almost certainly violated the 1961 Vienna Convention, under which diplomats are not allowed to interfere in the domestic affairs of a country.

In other words, if Germany’s ambassador to the U.S. suddenly began speaking at rallies for Democratic candidates, he or she would likely be expelled.

“Someone like U.S. ambassador Richard Grenell, who thinks he can lord over Europe and determine who is governing here, he can no longer stay in Germany as a diplomat,” Sahra Wagenknecht, head of the Germany’s Die Linke party, insisted. “If the government takes the democratic sovereignty of our country seriously, then it shouldn’t just invite Grenell to a chat over coffee, but expel him immediately.”

Germany represents the most populous nation in Europe, the continent’s economic powerhouse, and the biggest overall contributor to the European Union. Yet Trump seems determined to demolish America’s long-standing cultural, economic, and military ties to the country.

Just days after being sworn into his role as ambassador in Berlin, Grenell infuriated local leaders when he tried to threaten Germany into violating the Iran nuclear deal along with Trump.

The ambassador’s brash incompetence only confirms that Democrats were right to try to block his position for more than a year. With nothing on his right-wing resume or in his background as a professional troll to suggest he was up to the task of becoming German ambassador, Democrats tried to keep Grenell away form Germany.

Now, setting some kind of land-speed record for ruining relations with a key European ally, Grenell continues to embarrass the U.S. in the name of Trump.