DHL doesn’t seem likely to reconsider [Updated]

John McCain wrote a letter to Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post World Net, which owns DHL, asking him to come to Wilmington. But DHL’s making noises that it won’t matter:

DHL, however, this week expressed concerns that go beyond Wilmington. Put bluntly: sacrifice the limb (Wilmington) or put the patient (DHL in the United States) in grave danger.

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung yesterday reported that Appel told it: “There’s no real alternative. Otherwise we would threaten our entire express operations in the United States,” and more jobs would be in jeopardy.

Read German? Here’s the FAZ article. And roughly translated.

UPDATE: Sen. George Voinovich and much of the Ohio congressional delegation has also written a letter. They’ve gone over Appel’s head and written to German Chancellor Angela Merkel (DHL’s parent is mostly owned by the German govt DHL is about 32% owned by a German state bank):

“We raise this issue with you not only out of concern for the Ohio workers that will be impacted by this decision, but also because we are concerned that such dismissive treatment by such a significant German company will not be easily forgotten in the United States,” the letter says. “The situation and DHL’s indifference could easily undermine U.S. views on matters such as completing the next stage of the Open Skies, how foreign investment into the United States is viewed, and general U.S.-German trade relations.”

So there.