The mouse that roared: How tiny Luxembourg provided a fitting end to Trump-era foreign policy

Pompeo cancelled his last trip abroad after an apparent snub from the tiny European state

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US President Donald Trump (AFP via Getty Images)

The administration of Donald Trump began its term four years ago with a promise that it would restore what it had described as America’s lost global grandeur and win the respect of friends and foes.  

It ended with a tiny nation about the size of Louisville, Kentucky or Sheffield brushing it off as an embarrassing nuisance.  

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo abruptly announced that he was cancelling a planned trip to Europe, with stopovers at Nato headquarters in Belgium and in Luxembourg.  

It came as word emerged that top officials in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a landlocked European Union nation of 600,000 known primarily for its lax banking laws and overly rich cuisine, had effectively canceled the meeting by dissing his boss publicly.  

“It was diplomatic malpractice [by the US] to even suggest the trip,” quipped one European Union official, among the many in the continent’s diplomatic corps eager to see the back of Mr Trump and his associates.  

The humiliation was perhaps fitting end to four years of frustration, strained diplomacy and behind-the-scenes trash-talking between the Trump administration and longtime US allies in the European Union and Nato.  

“The Americans have burnt their bridges so badly that no one wants to associate with them,” said one London-based diplomatic interlocutor who has spent time in Luxembourg.  

The visits follow the devastating 6 January attack on the Capitol by pro-Trump operatives seemingly seeking to sabotage the confirmation of President-elect Joseph Biden’s win.  

Unlike other Trump acolytes, he has in recent weeks studiously sought to avoid the controversy over the departing president’s refusal to concede his landslide election loss, though he did famously quip days after the defeat that there would be “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration”.

Mr Pompeo announced the trip to Europe as part of his farewell tour during his final days in power. It has coincided with a days-long series of tweets in which he touts what he describes as his accomplishments. They include the administration's maximum pressure campaign against Iran, which even hardcore anti-Iran operatives in Washington have described as a failure, and “peace” deals between Israel and Arab nations that had never been at war with it.

The Department of State said Mr Pompeo canceled the trip so he could spend time paving the way for his successor, Anthony Blinken, who has been nominated by Mr Biden.  

But sources at the Grand Duchy told Luxembourger media that Mr Pompeo canceled the visit after incendiary comments by Jean Asselborn, the foreiugn minister,  who described Mr Trump in broadcast interviews as an “arsonist of democracy”  who “ignored his own Constitution, the court decisions and obviously the results of the elections".

Though Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had said he was prepared to meet with Mr Pompeo, other European officials had signalled that they would not. Mr Pompeo’s breaches of diplomatic protocol have not endeared him to his counterparts. Late last year he visited Turkey, but declined to meet with Turkish officials in the capital, Ankara, insisting they travel to meet him in Istanbul. They refused.  

Mr Pompeo’s seeming silence following the 6 January attack, which has been described by some as a coup attempt at least partly instigated by Mr Trump himself.  

“After the events in Washington, there’s a general feeling it’s not really a smart thing to do something high-profile with the outgoing administration,” said one senior Western diplomat. “There’s a feeling that (the Trump administration is) pretty toxic. Better to politely decline and wait a week.”

Some have described Luxembourg’s 11th-hour rejection of Mr Pompeo as hypocritical. Under Trump, the US and Luxembourg increased military cooperation -- expanding a major US military site in the country nestled between France, Germany and Belgium.  

Last-minute world tours by departing US officials are not uncommon. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry was warmly feted by officials in Europe and Asia during his final days in office in 2017.  

But some in Washington say that the mercurial and boastful Mr Pompeo himself has been responsible for his own humiliation by turning the office into a platform for his rightwing views and personal ambitions.  

“What the hell was Pompeo doing planning to travel to Europe this week anway?” said one former US official “Pompeo has been personally responsible for turning the office of Secretary of State into a partisan political office, a partisan street warfare job. That has had substantial costs for the United States. It has now had a cost for Pompeo in being seen as a defeated partisan actor that no one is interested in meeting.”