Since prevailing in last November’s election, US president Donald Trump has used US heft to try to influence domestic policy decisions across much of the rest of the world. The imposition of tariffs on the US’s main trading partners is the most obvious case in point, but there are other more insidious moves. In the past few days, US embassies across EU member states have issued letters to companies that have contracts with the US government to cease immediately any DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes they are operating.
The diktat from the US State Department baldly claims that the White House’s anti-DEI directive is not just confined to America, as it includes all companies, universities and security services throughout the world that have commercial or related contracts with the US government. Politicians from France and Belgium have rightly rejected what they have described as unacceptable interference from the US - and some Irish companies are also likely to receive the same letter.
President Trump is heavily influenced by a handful of technology billionaires, most notably Elon Musk, who have an ultra-libertarian worldview, and this provides much of the ideological and intellectual basis for his second term. The “war on woke” is a cornerstone of this approach, and consequently the US government has forced the corporate sector, academic and other bodies to abandon many of the DEI policies that were introduced during the Biden presidency.
This is a mistake. There is an abundance of research that shows DEI programmes are good for the economy and society. They foster collaboration, lead to higher levels of innovation and help reduce economic inequality.
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President Trump is the democratically elected leader of the US. But his mandate does not extend beyond the US’s borders into the domestic policy decisions of other countries. There should be a collective response at an EU level that any attempts by the US administration to interfere in the sovereign decision-making of its member states will not be tolerated.
