In February 2022, Amy Gutmann, then the United States ambassador in Germany under President Joe Biden, sat in the back seat of the armored Audi A8, who accelerated Autobahn from Berlin to Munich.
The clock was racing to inform the German government that Russia intends to attack Ukraine – a crisis that required the readiness and cooperation of one of the strongest European allies of the United States. About a week later, February 24, Russia attacked.
“This is the morality of this little story,” said Gutmann, recalling the story on Tuesday at the University of Pennsylvania, “What is: There is really no time to save.”
Today is also crucial for the United States to build and maintain robust international alliances when President Donald Trump continues his unstable foreign policy decisions, such as burdening relationships with key global partners, said Gutmann during a performance in Penn’s Perry World House with House House David L. Cohen – Ambassador Biden in Canada and former Executive Comcast and Philadelphia Power. These decisions, as they said, questioned the relations of the United States with Europe and other allies among global threats, such as the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine. The event, entitled “Common Sense Diplomacy”, was moderated by Penn Alumn and NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell.
Gutmann and Cohen were in a well-known territory when they spoke to the Global Center for the Policy involvement of the University of Gutmann was the president of Penn for 18 years (the longest president of the school) and Cohen, who for decades has a significant political influence in Philadelphia and beyond, is Grad Penn Law Grad and was the chairman of the University Council of the University trust. For almost 12 years.
Before Biden appointed their ambassadors, his connections with Gutmann and Cohen ran through Philly. After completing two terms as a vice president in 2017, Biden caught a lucrative professor of presidential practice in Penn, while Gutmann was the president. When Biden began the presidential campaign, his first formal event took place at Cohen West Mount Airy, where over $ 700,000 was raised for his offer.
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During the hour’s discussion on Tuesday, the two were ambassadors focused on the difficulties that they think foreign policy from Trump-Penn Grad-creates for the strongest, closest international partners in the country.
“Having allies and knowing who your allies are, is extremely important for the United States,” said Gutmann.
She said that Germany’s support for the US has become so robust that the Germans “mourn … When someone in America, especially the boss, the president of America, calls Ukraine, the president of the Ukrainian,” dictator “and does not call and does not call and does not call [Russian President Vladimir] Putin One or blames Ukraine for starting a war when Putin was actually a clear aggressor. “
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And in Canada, Cohen said he felt his citizens are more injured Trump’s rhetoric to attach the country as a state 51. than through general tariffs for many exports of the country that caused uncertainty in Canada and around the world.
Cohen said that Canada must defend herself against the US, she has long been a sore place for its citizens, and believes that Trump “knew how sensitive Canada” suggesting that the US consumes their northern neighbor, and the president and former prime minister Justin Trunk have “personal anti -apathy.”
“Donald Trump is doing many things badly,” said Cohen. “One of the things he is right is that he knows the gaps in security. He knows how needles and countries and says that Canada is 51. I believe that he knew how sensitive Canada would be.”
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Ambassadors also discussed the implications of the best American political figures covering far -right parties and leaders on the international stage. Cohen said that alliances between the US and other countries are now even more crucial among the global growth of right -wing entities.
“I am sometimes even more important for people to look for even more ways of cooperation and behavior of these alliances, and not let Donald Trump, Putin or any of these other right-wing movements, took over the conversation and dialogue,” he said.
In February, the vice president of JD Vance met with Alice Weidel, the leader of the growing far -right German political party alternative to Deutschland (AFD), and to the shock of many at a security conference in Munich, he called on other political parties of the country to cooperate with her. Elon Musk, an adviser to the billionaire Trump, who manages the performance of the government department, supported Weidel and conducted a conversation with the X Spaces with her before the German election, like his strategy, to win Trump in Pennsylvania.
AFD doubled his support in German elections, becoming the second largest part of the nation.
“Nothing can be more terrifying for the Germans to have its greatest ally since the Second World War, who will say 80% of the Germans that immediately saved us from the Nazis, saved us from our worst, their greatest ally-Siller with a neo-Nazist party,” said Gutmann.
The path forward, Gutmann said: “A lot of diplomacy” and “a great change in the sea in our politics at the top.”
