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Bayer: Donations for the US election campaign
Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa
US presidential elections are material battles, financed with sums of billions that seem grotesque by German standards.
The money for this comes together through donations - also from the German economy.
This year, a total of almost three million US dollars (a good 2.5 million euros) flowed into the US election campaign through US subsidiaries of German corporations.
A good half of the money (50.2 percent) went to the Republicans of US President Donald Trump, according to a report in the newspaper "Welt" on Tuesday.
In the 2016 election, however, the proportion was significantly higher at 64 percent, although Trump was still a blatant outsider in the race against the Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Under US law, campaign donations are only allowed by individuals.
However, there are so-called Political Action Committees (PAC) which - often controlled by senior managers of the companies involved - collect donations from employees and forward them centrally.
The "world" referred to an evaluation of official databases by the "Center for Responsive Politics" based in Washington.
In his opinion, the donations are actually attributable to the companies, as they control their passing on.
According to the report, the largest donors are Deutsche Telekom with $ 1.065 million, ahead of the chemical company BASF ($ 423,250), Fresenius Medical Care ($ 413,000) and Bayer ($ 313,500).
According to "Welt" this time, BASF, Continental, Fresenius Medical Care and Siemens - unlike four years ago - gave Joe Biden's Democrats more money than the Republicans.
The Berlin newspaper "tageszeitung" reported slightly different figures at the weekend.
The majority of Bayer's money (58 percent) went to the Republicans, in particular to candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives.
"The Bayerpac supports candidates who are in line with Bayer's political goals," the newspaper quoted a Bayer group spokesman (the full article can be found here).
Among the recipients are therefore the Republican Senator Joni Ernst and the MP Blaine Luetkemeyer.
Both claimed that there is no man-made climate change.
The "taz" also referred to Trump's support for Bayer against claims for damages because of the controversial herbicide glyphosate and for the re-approval of the controversial new active ingredient dicamba, which had previously been banned in the USA because of environmental damage.
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beb / afp