To mark its 100th anniversary, the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany gathered 1,000 business people last Tuesday at a baroque palace on the banks of the Rhine in Wiesbaden

To mark its 100th anniversary, the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany gathered 1,000 business people last Tuesday at a baroque palace on the banks of the Rhine in Wiesbaden near here for champagne, canapйs and a rousing speech about German-American friendship, delivered by a local conservative leader, Roland Koch. . The talk in the crowd, however, was about the bitter rift between Berlin and Washington - a political row that many business people fear could sunder the close commercial links between the countries. "Germans initially found the dispute amusing," said Fred Irwin, the chairman of the chamber and an executive at Citibank in Frankfurt. "But this is no longer amusing. This has become extremely serious." Republican members of Congress are calling for punitive gestures such as moving American troops out of Germany, or placing health restrictions on imported wine and bottled water from France. However sulfurous the words from Washington, Germany and France are, along with Britain, the dominant partners in the world's most durable trading relationship. For all the talk in Washington about the shifting balance of power toward Central and Eastern Europe, the emerging economies of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic barely register in trans-Atlantic trade statistics. Even Spain and Portugal are relative minnows. Germany exported $56 billion worth of cars and other goods to the United States last year, making it the fifth-largest exporter, after China. Poland's exports amounted to less than $1 billion. While Poland, one of the countries whose leaders are close to President George W. Bush, imported $620 million worth of American goods, Germany imported $24 billion. Yet executives here worry that U.S. companies might steer future investments away from France and Germany to countries in southern and eastern Europe, which have pledged fealty to the Bush Administration. The stakes are high for companies on both sides of the Atlantic. German carmakers like Mercedes-Benz and BMW depend on American customers to offset their depressed home market. Porsche sells nearly half its high-octane cars in the United States and is rolling out a sport-utility vehicle tailored to American tastes. Fifty years after the United States rebuilt Germany through the Marshall Plan, American business still has a massive presence here: 1,800 companies, employing 800,000 people, with combined sales of $583 billion. Ford and General Motors each generate $16 billion in sales from their German automotive divisions, which employ a total of 63,000 workers. With their high costs and rigid labor markets, Germany and France are already vulnerable to losing American investment.