Whether strategy or not, President Donald Trump’s diplomatic envoys are on a streak of distinctly undiplomatic behavior.
It may be that US ambassadors are simply pushing back against what they see as the hypocrisies of the rules-based international order.
Either way, they are riling up the body politic across Europe and the Middle East with a striking number of diplomatic incidents in recent weeks.
In France, Ambassador Charles Kushner is in hot water after the embassy in Paris reposted a message from the State Department warning that “violent radical leftism” was on the rise. It cited the killing of a 23-year-old — described in French media as a far-right activist — as evidence of a threat to public safety.
Kushner didn’t bother to appear when summoned by the Foreign Ministry yesterday, the second such snub.
The subsequent French statement, while partly written in high diplomatic style, was also plain in its anger, citing Kushner’s “apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial mission and the honor of representing one’s country.”
It’s not just France.
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, rattled his host government’s neighbors last week when he asserted in a podcast that Israel had the right to take control of much of the Middle East.
In Belgium, Ambassador Bill White called for an end to the “anti-semitic ‘prosecution’” of Jews in Antwerp, and complained about a “very rude” Belgian minister. Prime Minister Bart De Wever accused him of sowing discord.
And in Poland, Ambassador Tom Rose said that he’ll cease all contact with the speaker of parliament after the latter refused to sign a letter nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Haranguing Chinese envoys became known as Wolf Warriors for their undiplomatic ways, before they were reined in by Beijing.
Now it’s US ambassadors fanning the flames of discord in Europe and elsewhere rather than tamping them down. — Alan Katz