Very Normal US Embassy Orders Sweden To Cancel 'Diversity, Equity, Inclusion' Because F*ck You Is Why
Why is everyone In the world laughing at us? Why?
The city of Stockholm, Sweden, plans to defy a demand from the US Embassy that it eliminate its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. It turns out that those Swedes don’t think they have to follow executive orders from the president of the United States, even when it’s an order that’s on letterhead and everything. Maybe Trump’s ambassador to Sweden should have gotten it notarized first.
The embassy made the demand in a form letter accompanying a contract sent to the Stockholm City Planning Office. Since April, the State Department has been trying to force contractors doing business with US embassies to comply with Trump’s January executive order pretending to ban DEI across the US government, as well as for all contractors doing business with the government. Why wouldn’t that also apply in other countries that actually have their own laws, huh?
Jan Valeskog, Stockholm’s councilor for city planning, called the request “bizarre,” and “completely absurd,” explaining that the US government could go stick its head in a pig if it expects to impose Trump’s order to US agencies on his city.
“We absolutely do not intend to do that, it is the opposite of everything we stand for. It's contrary to everything we stand for. They should withdraw these strange things,” Valeskog told the Swedish outlet Dagens Nyheter. (Google translation)
Valeskog suggested the US Embassy doesn’t really seem to understand who would be harmed if it insists that Stockholm comply, which it won’t, adding, “If the US terminates its relationship with the city planning office, the embassy will have difficulty getting a building permit if they want to rebuild, for example. That is their headache, not ours.”
The form letter from the State Department certainly makes some very demanding demands. We are not a lawyer, but we’re pretty sure that before Trump, US embassies didn’t make a habit of trying to force American presidential whims onto foreign companies doing business in their own countries.
The relevant bit of the document demands that any US contractor must certify “that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws[.]” Or at least the law as interpreted by Trump’s executive order, which doesn’t have the force of law anyway. None of that shit has been upheld in courts because it is “bizarre” and “absurd” and absolute nonsense.
The letter goes on to threaten that the federal government can decide not to pay its bills if the contractor signs the form but is sneakily doing DEI anyway, citing the “False Claims Act” as justification.
Newsweek reports the State Department acknowledged in April that US diplomatic missions really are checking all their contracts and grants in Not America to make sure they comply with Great Leader’s executive orders, and that it’s not too much to ask foreign companies and government agencies to completely revise their policies to comply with Trump’s decrees.
This relates only to vendors or other organizations who have or seek to have contracts with, or grants from, U.S. missions, and only asks contractors and grantees to certify compliance with U.S. federal antidiscrimination laws, it said.
"In other words, we are just asking them to complete one additional piece of paperwork," the statement said.
Newsweek follows that by drily noting that American antidiscrimination laws don’t actually apply “to foreign firms operating outside the U.S. unless controlled by a U.S. employer and employ U.S. citizens.”
Wonkette follows that by drily noting that actually the Supreme Court has held that our antidiscrimination laws are, like, the opposite of what Trump’s EO’s say, man. Or at least that's what it said a few years ago. Maybe it'll change its mind!
As of blogtime, the US has not yet threatened to annex Stockholm, as far as we know.
In April, CNN reported that the dumb letters have been sent by American embassies to companies they do business with in France, Belgium, and Denmark as well. So far, no countries appear to have gone along with Trump’s white supremacy orders for the sake of selling stationery or croissants to US diplomats, and the rest of the civilized world continues to be completely puzzled by what’s happened to America.
[Independent / Sweden Herald / CNN / Daily Kos / Newsweek
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if a one-time donation works better for you, this here button will let you do that. No, it won’t send you any IKEA meatballs, you still have to get those yourself.
A DËI once bit my sister ... No realli!
OMG, second Married With Children references in a single day!
(if you read the Tabs gif link, that is)