You're right, it wasn't a very clear article. Kinda fluffy actually. But it did have one good point: that native English speakers often are not required to learn a second language to facilitate business, and so are less aware of the intricacies of intercultural communications (whereas everyone else had to learn English as a second language, so they're on more or less equal footing with each other).

Even in the English-speaking world, we run into similar issues communicating across borders, whether that's cultural differences across states, urban/rural divides, regional accents, or across countries (US/UK/Australia/South Africa/India, etc.)

I don't think the article presented enough evidence to support the headline that "native English speakers are the worst communicators". It's less about English vs any mother tongue being worse or better; rather, bilingualism has numerous benefits (intercultural communications being one of them), but many in the Anglosphere are not bilingual (because they're not forced to be, unlike people who have to learn English as a second language): https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428634-000-oh-to-be...

TLDR: Fluffy article, interesting underlying point