BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Former NATO Secretary General and future head of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), Jens Stoltenberg, will travel to Washington for the swearing-in of US President Donald Trump on January 20th. “In my future position as MSC chairman, I will continue to work towards strengthening relations between the USA and Europe,” he told the German Press Agency.
The Norwegian Stoltenberg will take over the chairmanship of the world’s most important meeting of experts on security policy after the next conference, which will take place less than four weeks after Trump’s swearing in from February 14th to 16th under the leadership of Christoph Heusgen. The MSC hopes that the Trump administration will then be prominently represented in Munich. Most recently, after a change in the White House, the Vice President always presented the foreign policy of the new US government in Munich. Trump’s designated deputy JD Vance was already at the security conference last year as a Republican senator.
As things currently stand, Germany’s official representative at Trump’s swearing-in will be the ambassador to Washington, Andreas Michaelis. “It is protocol in the USA for foreign states to be represented by ambassadors at the inaugurations of new US presidents,” said a government spokeswoman.
However, Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a television interview in mid-December that Chinese President Xi Jinping and heads of state and government from several other countries were also invited – without naming any other names. However, nothing is known of any concrete commitments so far. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has announced that he wants to visit Trump in Washington as soon as possible after his inauguration./mfi/DP/zb