Thousands of Trump supporters have captured Congress, making American democracy the laughingstock of the world.
At this time, U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo, who had entered the countdown, was also treated coldly by European allies.
On January 12th, local time, the official website of the U.S. State Department suddenly issued a statement announcing that in order to ensure the handover with President-elect Biden, the State Department cancelled all plans for this week’s foreign visits, including the Secretary of State’s trip to Europe.
This was originally Pompeo’s last foreign visit. In response to the reason why the itinerary was cancelled, Reuters quoted European diplomats as saying that it was because Luxembourg’s foreign minister and senior EU officials refused to meet with him.
The U.S. State Department suddenly issued a statement on the 12th, declaring that the transition between the U.S. State Department and Biden’s team is progressing smoothly.
“We are fully committed to completing a smooth and orderly transition process in the next eight days. We are satisfied with the level of cooperation and professionalism they have shown.”
“We look forward to the incoming administration’s proposal to determine which career officials will remain in charge as agents until the Senate completes confirmation process for new officials,” the statement read. As a result, we canceled all planned trips this week, including the Secretary of State’s trip to Europe.”
Regarding the reason why the trip was cancelled, Reuters reported that European officials refused to see Pompeo.
Three people familiar with the matter said that Pompeo originally planned to travel to Luxembourg to meet with the country’s foreign minister Jean Asselborn before meeting with EU leaders and foreign ministers at EU headquarters in Brussels.
A diplomat also said that Pompeo wanted to travel to Luxembourg to meet Foreign Minister Asserborn, but the trip was cancelled because the country was unwilling to arrange officials to meet with him.
Pompeo’s trip to Europe was not cancelled until the last minute.
Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the visit had been cancelled, but declined to give more details.
After the outbreak of the American Congress riots on January 6, Asserborn expressed shock at the violence, and he publicly described Trump as a “criminal” and “political arsonist” on the radio.
The report also said that during Pompeo’s visit to Brussels, he did not plan to meet with any EU officials and attend any public events of NATO.
Another diplomatic source revealed that after last week’s outbreak of violence in the United States, European allies were “embarrassed” to meet Pompeo.
It is planned that Pompeo will have dinner with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at his private residence on the evening of the 13th, and then meet with Sophie Wilmes, the Belgian Foreign Minister of NATO allies.
Both officials have publicly described the deadly riots in the U.S. Capitol as “shocking”, and leaders of other European countries condemned the riots in unusually harsh terms.
On the same day, Reuters also reported that Kraft, the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, originally scheduled to visit Taiwan on the 13th, has also been cancelled.
The report pointed out that Pompeo’s indifference this time was in sharp contrast to his visit to Brussels over the past three years, when despite Europe’s dissatisfaction with Trump’s foreign policy, Pompeo also gave an important speech on U.S. policy in Europe and met with the CEO of the European Union.
However, some sources said that Pompeo cancelled his trip to Washington because he was eager to continue his planned foreign policy mission before the end of his term to help maintain the continuity of the government.
According to the report, Pompeo has not achieved significant success in addressing the long-term foreign policy challenges faced by the United States such as North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and China in the past four years.
However, at the beginning of the new year, Pompeo tweeted every day, saying that thanks to the foreign policy of the Trump administration, the United States today is “far safer” than four years ago.
The tweets were largely seen as part of Pompeo’s involvement in the preparations for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, as did his overseas trip, according to the report analysis.
Regarding Pompeo’s “last madness” during his term, Zhao Lijian, spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was angry at a press conference on the 11th, sarcastically saying, “Pompeo left not the so-called ‘legacy’, but poison?”
