US Ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, expressed Washington’s discontent regarding the investment of Chinese Cosco in the port of Piraeus, south of Athens and urged the building of another port in the area.
“We should build another port to offset Chinese interests in Piraeus,” she said during an event on the theme “Nisyros Dialogues – Bridging the East Med”.
“Every day, when I wake up in the morning, I look for a way to promote American interests, money, infrastructure, to cooperate with Greece and our other allies in the region, and that means resisting Chinese interests very aggressively,” she said.
“I will do this every day and I will do it without apology, because this is my job and it is what is best for national security and for China. They are Shesmart. They saw the opportunity. They came to Greece. But to be fair, it was at a time when the economy was not doing as well as it is today, and they were the only bidder. That is the reality,” Guilfoyle stressed.
She pointed out that Europe should learn a lesson from this. “When foreign countries try to invest money in your country, you examine them, you evaluate them, they have to go through a thorough investigation. Now they do that. Back then there was no such thing. So there was no interim measure to prevent something like this from happening. But what we can do is invest money and infrastructure to build another port that can counterbalance Chinese interests in Piraeus.”
PS Kimberly did not explain who are “we” and forgot that Greece is not a vassal of the US – or are we?
She also did not clarify where was the US when Cosco aquired the port of Piraeus, the biggest in Greece, during the economic crisis.
“When foreign countries try to invest money in your country, you examine them, you evaluate them, they have to go through a thorough investigation.”
Especially when that country is the US.
Well how is it that many US ports are owned by Saudi Arabia…not much vetting there……
Tell her to build a Greek port in Smyrna, and the USA will have to defend it from the Turks. You never know: Trump and his minions are stupid enough to do such things.
Countries don’t seem to understand the fundamental basis of trade. If you buy something from China you send your money to China. China can only spend that money back in your country. If you do not produce anything that China wants to buy then they use the money to buy your assets. Land, properties, companies etc. If you continue with the trade deficit eventually China completely owns you. No war fought, no attack, no boots on the ground.