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What’s been chilling Europe’s Washington-based diplomats more: the seasonally frigid weather or the icy blasts of Trumpian disdain for America’s supposed transatlantic allies?
Hard to tell.
From the new U.S. National Security Strategy, characterized by the European Union’s former top diplomat Josep Borrell as “a declaration of political war,” to President Donald Trump’s scorn offered in an exclusive interview with POLITICO, it certainly hasn’t been a season of good cheer for Europe’s envoys.
After attending a handful of Christmas parties at European embassies this week, it was clear the mood is quite dour. It was as if the European Whos of Whoville have been watching aghast as the Grinch stole Christmas.
“The Western alliance is over. The relationship will never be the same again,” an envoy of a midsized European nation told POLITICO Magazine. He decided discretion was the better part of valor, and was granted anonymity to avoid causing an international ruckus, particularly after his political counsellor intervened to announce, “That’s off the record.”
So too with other European diplomats rubbing shoulders, nibbling on canapés and drowning their sorrows at soirées along Washington’s famed embassy row. Why comment on the record about the turbulence Trump has brought to transatlantic relations? Why court further trouble?
Reticence is understandable considering the Trump administration guns for diplomats who talk out of turn. Last month Belgium’s defense attaché, a brigadier general no less, had to resign when Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth took offense at his remarks describing Trump’s administration as “characterized by chaos and unpredictability.”
Nonetheless, despite the hesitancy to speak out, there was a broad consensus at the Christmas parties I attended that Borrell might be right in urging European leaders to recognize that Trump sees the continent as a foe and to cease “hiding behind a fateful and complacent silence.” But you first, Mr. Ambassador.
A psychologist might diagnose what Europe’s envoys in America are experiencing as psychosocial disorientation, a state of confusion about one’s very identity or future triggered by the administration’s emphatic break with the post-1945 order that Harry Truman first shaped and that’s been nurtured by every successive U.S. president — that is until Donald J. Trump.
There are several stages of transition if one wants to cope with disorientation, starting with accepting the loss of what’s familiar. Those suffering from upheaval should focus on what’s small and manageable to anchor themselves, like organizing, say, a Christmas party, and then shift from trying to resist change and slowly learn to adapt. Recovery in highly transformative times requires a readiness to embrace uncertainty.
I am no professional psychologist but as Trump turns the world upside down, it isn’t hard to discern how most normally unflappable diplomats and attachés are still caught in the early transitional stages. “It will all go back to normal in two years’ time when there’s a new president,” a deputy head of mission from a south-eastern European country confidently confided to me.
Another whispered that Trump has a point when he describes Europe as decaying, noting that he is in a way echoing the criticism of the bloc by Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president who’s also warned that the EU faces irrelevance and decline unless it gets its act together and reforms dramatically. “Do something” has been Draghi’s mantra. But then Draghi has Europe’s best interests at heart. Does Trump?
“Maybe not,” the envoy conceded, “but he might be doing us a favor by prompting us to be stronger, more capable allies.” But does Trump really want Europe to be stronger? After all, he says the EU was formed to screw America. “Hmm, probably not,” they mused.
This conversation took place just minutes after a septuagenarian old-school former Republican congressman, Robert Pittenger of North Carolina, delivered a brief speech that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Reagan era, lauding liberty. Seemingly he’d not read Trump’s new National Security Strategy that clearly states that America’s foreign policy moving forward shouldn’t be values-based and “grounded in traditional, political ideology” but guided by “what works for America.”
And what works isn’t liberty and promoting democracy but cozying up to autocrats and refraining from criticizing the authoritarianism of the members of the group once frequently dubbed the “axis of autocracy” — China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. And rejecting any silly old-fashioned interventionist notions about cajoling countries to adopt “democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.” (Just don’t ask why that approach doesn’t extend to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.)
Others in the European diplomatic corps, as they munched on delicate, bite-sized appetizers at seasonal gatherings, still seem to be holding out hope that Trump and his aides don’t really mean what they have being saying consistently since arriving in office.
In short, that they can still be tempered, moderated.
That was the same hope among some to the blasting speech Vice President JD Vance delivered at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, which prompted audible gasps in the auditorium. In his speech, Vance advocated MAGA illiberalism and warned Europeans to embrace Trump’s nationalist-populist ideology or be considered unworthy of defense guarantees and friendship.
But not all diplomats in Washington are disoriented. Or they’ve nimbly adapted already. Take the hale and hearty Germans: They not only brave the chill winds but lean into them. Their Christmas Market-themed embassy party was actually held outside, and they fortified guests with mulled wine and steaming Bratwurst. “It would be cheating to hold it inside,” the German ambassador Jens Hansfeld, told shivering attendees.
His defense attaché was equally robust when it came to Russia’s war on Ukraine. “We shall do everything to keep Ukraine in the fight,” Gen. Gunnar Bruegner told me.
Trump has also been smiling on gas-rich Qatar, and the Qataris had a big bash at the imposing National Building Museum this week to celebrate their National Day. They were able to fill the cavernous hall with lawmakers, Trump administration bigwigs and the city’s great and good.
And no little canapés here.
There was an endless supply of authentic Qatari food … and alcohol. And good cheer and no glumness. “We’re happy,” beamed a Qatari diplomat.
English (US)