pInterpretation is the most valuable currency of diplomacy. However, since January 20th, in Washington, the Trump administration has been abandoning and interfering with the domestic politics of foreign nations, so there is clearly a supply.
This has made it much more difficult as many diplomats around the world struggle to adjust the country’s tone to Washington, leaving a stable churn of anxiety radiated from their bosses. Trade spats and tariff tiffs, reciprocity and revenge are all piled up as President Donald Trump appears to be intimately infected with various long-standing alliances and overturning a steady economy.
Embus is able to shout the neration lurking as he is trying to hunt down the best US insiders who can help decipher the signal coming from the new administration, coming from the new administration, for new clients, to appear to have no ceiling per month. The lobbying shop is about to take on yet another client.
Canada and Denmark are currently offering noticeable contrast in their playbooks to deal with us suddenly hostile while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is doing a stiff tactic for now.
“We know these are dark days, dark days brought about by countries we no longer trust,” Carney said after Trump was elected party leader in a massive, looming landslide vote. A few months ago, the Liberals had sought an overwhelming defeat among disgruntled Canadian voters. It changed in the aftermath of Trump’s campaign to make Canada become the 51st state, reminding Canadians that their leadership is important.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was even more direct than Carney in his recent farewell remarks. “Democracy is not given, freedom is not given, even in Canada.”
That pessimism has permeated throughout the diplomatic community of Washington. Sometimes it appears as a bit of a gallows, or Freud’s slip, as is the case when the Danish ambassador in Washington addressed the acceptance of business leaders, academics and investors.
“I would like to raise my glasses with toast to the longstanding friendship between Denmark and the two great nations of the Kingdom,” Jesper Morell Sorensen suddenly clad in a room full of nervous laughter, given Trump’s persistent demands to take Greenland from Denmark’s hands.
“Can I try again?” he asked. “you know what i mean.”
Danish leaders have not adopted Carney and Trudeau’s favorable stance, but they are seeing their own Trump-related political changes. This is expected to unfold in Tuesday’s election in Greenland.
More seriously, Denmark’s de facto business hype, industry, business and finance affairs, Morten Bozkov said the day after toast that the kingdom, which covers more than half of Greenland’s budget, is trying to maintain a uniform keel and historical stability.
“Denmark-US relations are very strong, and then there’s friendship and trust and easy ways to do things,” a Danish political insider told me.
It’s a general warning these days. Words like partnerships, alliances and friendship follow the embassy line, but it is no secret that Trump brought the machete to the diplomatic universe. As he overturns decades of international norms, his own diplomat at the State Department endures extensive slashes and hill hands, particularly those involved with the Senate’s foreign policy committee.
Even Trump’s apologies are dull against other government counterparts.
“President Trump approaches diplomacy and has economics as the foundation and driving force behind international affairs,” Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the special envoy of Ukraine and Russia, told the Foreign Relations Audience Council last week.
To put it plainly, there will be winners and losers, and Trump has no intention of being the latter.
Diplomats get this and often try to adjust it as needed without alienating it. For example, 16% of Danish export markets are caught up in the US at around $40 billion.
The long-standing assumptions about stable US policies are no longer Given. Since Trump returned to power, he has been allying to Russia in his invasion of Ukraine and insisting on permanent ousting of Palestinians from Gaza. Taiwan’s security guarantees are no longer envisaged. And he even suggests that the US needs to seize the Panama Canal, perhaps even force.
Those whimsical moves and bold reversals have fueled the unrest in the diplomatic corps here in Washington, despite allies and exiles alike trying to understand the moment. Take your Bozkov trip to the state last month. The charming offensive chief of Denmark visited Texas and stopped in Washington to promote a long-standing relationship between Washington and Copenhagen. Like many other global leaders, his message was to highlight the benefits of the United States, noting that Danish companies employ around 200,000 Americans. However, it is becoming more difficult to maintain a friendly attitude as Trump is so openly upset due to Greenland’s control.
“Washington has a new position, rhetoric is new. Of course, we need to handle it,” Bozkov says. “The ties between Danish and American companies have reached the highest level ever.”
But the same goes for tension.
