U.S. Ambassador George Glass delivered an ultimatum to Portugal last weekend that it must choose between maintaining its security alliance with the U.S. and NATO and its economic relations with China. The diktat was delivered in an interview with Expresso’s weekly magazine, published on Sept. 26.
“Portugal inevitably ends up being part of the battlefield in Europe between the United States and China,” Glass pronounced. He added that for the three years he has been ambassador there, Portugal has looked to Americans as security and defense “friends and allies” and to the Chinese as “economic partners,” but Portugal “cannot have the two … [the Portuguese] must now choose” between them.
Glass specified the U.S. economic and security reprisals which would be taken against Portugal, should it permit Chinese investment in three specific areas: its 5G network (the auction is planned for this October), the Port of Sines, and Portugal’s largest construction and engineering company, Mota-Engil.
According to Glass, any participation of Huawei in Portugal’s 5G network will have consequences for Portugal’s security “partnership” with the U.S. and NATO. If the nearly-finalized deal for China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) to take a 30% stake in Mota-Engil proceeds, the U.S. will slap sanctions on Mota-Engil. (Glass went so far as to accuse Mota-Engil of selling its soul to China “for 30 pieces of silver.”) And if a Chinese company wins the contract to build a second terminal at the “incredibly strategic” Port of Sines, the U.S. could take its planned huge LNG investments at Sines elsewhere, he specified.
