British Gov't Issuing Apology to Ivanka Trump in Person
This is one diplomat who needs a lesson in diplomacy.
During a tough year for politicians in the U.K. – with the Brexit disaster costing Prime Minister Theresa May her job – Sunday’s publication of memos from British Ambassador Kim Darroch criticizing the inner workings of the Trump White House has made another mess for the government in London to clean up.
And that cleanup is going to get started in earnest with an apology to President Donald Trump’s daughter.
According to Reuters, British Foreign Minister Liam Fox, who is visiting Washington, D.C., told the BBC that he planned to meet with Ivanka Trump.
“I will be apologizing for the fact that either our civil service or elements of our political class have not lived up to the expectations that either we have or the United States has about their behavior, which in this particular case has lapsed in a most extraordinary and unacceptable way,” he said.
“Malicious leaks of this nature … can actually lead to a damage to that relationship, which can therefore affect our wider security interest.”
Obviously, Ivanka Trump – and the whole Trump administration – have learned a thing or two about “malicious leaks” since before Inauguration Day in 2017.
Confronted constantly with a uniformly hostile mainstream media, as well as outlying snipers such as author Michael Wolff of “Fire and Fury” infamy, the Trump White House has experienced media hostility unlike any other.
But the supposedly confidential comments made by Darroch — who was appointed in August 2015 and started his stint in Washington in January 2016, during the final year of the Obama administration — were a class apart.
“We don’t really believe this Administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” Darroch wrote in one, according to Reuters.
Now, ambassadors are supposed to present their own views of their host governments, and their comments are supposed to be confidential.
But considering Darroch was only mouthing the conventional wisdom of the Washington establishment – “wisdom” he probably picked up from the Obama White House and the Washington press corps – he sounds more like a columnist for The New York Times, the U.K. Guardian or some other lefty alleged “news” outlet than an experienced envoy from one of the United States’ closest allies.
Not surprisingly, he’s also clearly not high on the Trump administration’s list of favorite people.
In an impromptu news conference Sunday in New Jersey, the president made his feelings pretty clear.
“We’ve had our little ins-and-outs with a couple of countries, and I would say that the U.K. and the ambassador has not served the U.K. well,” Trump said.
“We’re not big fans of that man, and he has not served the U.K. well.”
How Ivanka Trump will handle the proposed apology is anyone’s guess.
But considering the long “special relationship” between the United States and Great Britain, it’s not likely a dispute arising from some ambassador’s ill-chosen words is going to do it deep damage.
The British, confronted by their own voters’ rejection of the European Union and demand that the government pull out of it – a demand now older than the Trump presidency and still unfulfilled – are in a position where getting along with the United States should be at the top of their priorities, if only for the countries’ trading relationship.
Despite the memo leak, a spokesman for outgoing Prime Minister May said the government has “full faith” in the ambassador, according to the Washington Examiner.
How much confidence May has in anyone or anything is pretty close to a moot point, with her Conservative Party set to choose a new leader — and a new prime minister — before July is out.
That new leader — quite possibly the pro-Brexit, pro-Trump Boris Johnson — might find the United Kingdom has a better person among its citizenry than Kim Darroch to represent Whitehall in the White House.
But if Ambassador Dorrach does lose his posting in Washington, maybe he’ll have learned something about diplomacy.
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