What is behind Guilfoyle's attack on Cosco - The US plan to "kick" the Chinese out of Piraeus

particular, when asked by ANT1 journalist Maria Sarafoglou, she described the fact that the port of Piraeus is in Chinese hands as unfortunate, while at the same time noting that there is a way for the US to manage the situation, offsetting Chinese influence in Piraeus with American investments in other ports.

“It is very important that so many are interested, in terms of infrastructure, in having American infrastructure here, in order to help support the region, to improve, perhaps, the performance of other ports and regions, to offset Chinese influence in the port of Piraeus,” emphasized Kimberly Guilfoyle. Adding that the port during the period in question fell into the hands of Chinese interests, as at that time "Greece did not have the required stability".

"Unfortunately at that time, as your Prime Minister had mentioned, there were no other bidders. It was a period of economic recession, things were a bit difficult. There was not that much stability in Greece and I think that is why it happened. It is unfortunate, but I think there are ways to circumvent it, to find a solution", he concluded meaningfully, noting at the same time that he is examining ways to deal with the issue and that there will probably be some concrete development on the issue soon.

American concerns about the control of Greek ports

However, the attack by the new ambassador is not at all accidental. In the past, major international agencies such as Reuters had claimed in their reports that the US was deeply concerned about Chinese control over the port, which has high geopolitical importance, while at the same time emphasizing that they were even considering providing support to American or Western companies to purchase Chinese shares in them.

The port of Piraeus, which is managed by the Chinese state-owned company Cosco with 67% of the shares it holds, is a primary target of the US, as it is a central hub, connecting Europe, Africa and Asia. As is known, the sale of the port began during the period of government by Costas Karamanlis and was completed during the turbulent era of the memoranda.

It is recalled that similar fears had been expressed about the port of Thessaloniki, which is approximately 80% owned by the consortium controlled by Ivan Savvidis, who is a former Russian Duma member with Putin’s party.

For this reason, the US had recently expressed its strong concern to the Greek government about the fact that the two largest port infrastructures in the country through which critical defense equipment and NATO troops regularly pass, are controlled by the two most serious strategic competitors of the US, namely the Chinese and the Russians.

Therefore, it is now clear that the Trump administration is working on various plans to disengage the Russian and Chinese factors from these critical infrastructures.

Moreover, the scenarios that Athens wanted to receive pressure from the American factor and the Commission to disengage the Chinese of Cosco from Piraeus and the Russians from Thessaloniki are recurring at regular intervals. In this context, geopolitical analysts in Greece have considered the effort of the Dutch company LeonidsPort B.V. belonging to the French business dynasty of Louis-Dreyfus to aggressively enter the shareholding structure of the port as part of a plan to remove the Russian factor from a critical infrastructure that serves the West's geostrategic plans, transferring, among other things, military vehicles and equipment to the eastern wing of NATO.

It is recalled that at the beginning of the year, LeonidsPort B.V. submitted an optional public offer for the acquisition of up to 21% of the share capital of the Thessaloniki Port Authority S.A. (THPA), offering a price of 27 euros per share. However, its effort was not crowned with success, as the company's intention to acquire shares both through a public offer and through purchases on the Athens Stock Exchange or over-the-counter did not find a response from small shareholders, because the offered price was considered too low.

In fact, as Reuters revealed a few months ago, a similar plan to Thessaloniki has been on the table for the port of Piraeus, and as a result, some Chinese investors are concerned that Washington will likely target COSCO's activities in Greece.

Of course, Washington has already targeted COSCO, as the US Department of Defense included it in January on the blacklist of companies that maintain ties with the Chinese army. The development is part of a Trump administration plan to weaken the global network of ports under Chinese control and bring more strategic terminals into Western hands, according to three sources cited by Reuters.

What could the American response be?

A second scenario for reducing Chinese influence involves further activation of the American factor in other critical infrastructure, which are underutilized, as a counterweight to the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki.

For example, the ports of Volos and Alexandroupoli could potentially be included in the American plans.

This is because in both areas there is a strong American presence, on the one hand the port of Alexandroupolis for quite some time functioned as a hub for the transport of military equipment and soldiers of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance to the eastern arm of NATO and on the other hand the Greek Marines unit is based in Volos where American forces have also been hosted for a long time.

The interesting thing is that in the past period the super fund to which the majority stakes of both ports belong has frozen the procedures for their exploitation, canceling, for purely geopolitical reasons, tenders that it had announced.

The scenarios for potential involvement of the American factor in these specific ports are also strengthened by the fact that in the case of Volos it seems that there was a strong background against the acquisition of the port by Ivan Savvidis.

The tender process that was underway, with the initial winner being the Thessaloniki Port Authority, representing the interests of the Russian businessman, was cancelled after the legal appeal of the competing company in the tender, namely Goldair, which had appealed to the Council of State against the procedure.

In fact, as the super fund had pointed out in the case of Volos in a statement, “issues of public interest require the readjustment of the strategic development of the port, in order to ensure its optimal development for the benefit of the national economy and the local community.”

The same model was adopted two years ago in Alexandroupolis, where the then tender for the sale of a majority stake of 67% of the share capital of the Alexandroupolis Port Authority (OLA) was again cancelled for geopolitical reasons, with the government putting a "stop" on the sale process that was underway one day before the bids were to be opened.

As government sources had stated at the time, the port infrastructure of Alexandroupolis is of strategic and geopolitical importance for Greece and therefore must remain in the ownership of the Greek State and specifically the Superfund, which also has the ability to develop the port and fully utilize all its potential.

The history of the concession to Cosco

According to the data he has cited in an extensive article on the agreement between Cosco and the Greek state, Professor Nikos Belavilas, the first direct concession contract was made to the Chinese company Cosco Pacific Ltd in 2008.

Then Prime Minister K. Karamanlis himself, accompanied by a hundred businessmen, traveled to China. The agreement provided for shipbuilding in Chinese shipyards with loans from Chinese banks to Greek shipowners. The exchange was the concession of part of the port, the Piraeus Container Terminal in Ikonio, for operation under a “free regime”.

The expansion continued with successive amendments to the original contracts and Cosco's dominance over the port was finally imposed with one of the last acts of the Samaras government, Law 4315/2014, which was passed on December 24, 2014, that is, on Christmas Eve while the country was already heading towards elections, just twenty-five days before SYRIZA took office.

2013 was the only time that the European Commission lukewarmly raised the issue of compliance with European legislation as the port had been given to the Chinese without any type of negotiation. However, this soon ended with a tender that gave the port back to Cosco and the process progressed after 2014 with the Troika and the IMF calling out Greece for delaying the sale of the port of Piraeus.

On New Year's Day 2015, the sale of the port of Piraeus was now "locked", as it had been included in the harsh terms of the Memorandum.