Brussels diplomats mourn end of US-hosted ‘like-minded’ dinners

Monthly gatherings were once a staple of Washington’s influence operation in the EU capital. Now that key channel for informal diplomacy has all but disappeared.

By ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH
in Brussels

^{Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO}

For years, U.S. ambassadors used intimate dinners to bring together European allies, compare notes and build consensus in Brussels — a tradition that diplomats say has largely disappeared since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The regular suppers, usually hosted at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in the affluent suburb of Uccle, brought together a carefully curated mix of envoys from EU countries, close partners such as the U.K. or Japan, and senior European officials for off-the-record conversations on trade, security and foreign policy.

The soirées were among the most useful diplomatic forums in town, said nine current and former diplomats from EU and non-EU countries, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss their experiences of the confidential gatherings. The “like-minded” dinners, as American diplomats referred to them, were held roughly once a month with usually fewer than a dozen participants.

The guest list typically included envoys from a handful of EU countries, as well as representatives from strategically aligned non-EU partners. Bjoern Seibert, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s influential head of cabinet, sometimes attended, a former U.S. diplomat said.

Over glasses of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay and plates of steak and fish cooked in a freshly renovated state-of-the-art professional kitchen, participants exchanged candid views to understand where governments and EU institutions stood before formal negotiations began.

“This stuff is the blood in the veins of the diplomatic system,” the former U.S. diplomat said. “It’s like, ‘I can’t say this formally, but informally, these are our red lines, these are my considerations, the political realities in my country, and I don’t understand why you can’t do X, Y and Z.'”

Their disappearance is emblematic of a broader U.S. disengagement from Brussels as Trump intensifies pressure on the EU. Since returning to office, Trump has imposed tariffs on European goods, threatened to pull troops out of NATO countries, vowed to seize Greenland and repeatedly cast Europe as an adversary rather than a strategic partner.

Against that backdrop, the U.S. mission has become less focused on the relationship-building that once underpinned American influence in Brussels, two EU diplomats said, and shifted away from the informal diplomacy that long helped Washington shape debates and rally support among European allies.

Friends with benefits

The U.S. mission has not entirely abandoned smaller-format diplomacy under Trump. Two non-EU diplomats said there have been occasional lunches and dinners hosted by the mission, though less regularly and in a different format.

The like-minded dinners were a hallmark of former U.S. Ambassador Mark Gitenstein’s tenure, though predecessors hosted similar gatherings. The appeal of those dinners was their intimacy, one EU diplomat said. “With 10 or 12 people around a table, you can actually have conversations,” they said. “You can talk to everybody. You come away having learned something.”

Current U.S. Ambassador Andrew Puzder tends to host larger, glitzier receptions and social events, the diplomat said. “They are pleasant. But when there are a hundred people in a room, you spend the evening saying hello, not having meaningful conversations.”

Another EU diplomat said: “Gitenstein threw parties like a diplomat and Puzder throws parties like a businessman.”

Gitenstein declined to comment.

The U.S. Mission to the EU said the idea that Puzder had scaled back informal meetings was “categorically false.”

“He meets regularly with EU and non-EU ambassadors on a range of topics,” the mission said in a statement. “Ambassador Puzder has also hosted and attended multiple dinners and gatherings with like-minded counterparts, bringing together groups with shared interests to ensure EU policy outcomes support EU and American security and prosperity.”

One diplomat said there are periodic gatherings of members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance — the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand — or of the Quad, comprising the U.S., Japan, India and Australia. Another envoy recalled a lunch when U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer visited Brussels last November for a ceremony marking the symbolic groundbreaking of a new Mormon temple in the Belgian capital.

But the EU and non-EU diplomats POLITICO spoke with said these events do not replicate the network of like-minded gatherings that once brought together European and allied ambassadors with top EU officials.

“There was a whole ecosystem that developed around these things,” one EU diplomat said. “Mark [Gitenstein] would host. Then somebody else. Then another.”

The former U.S. diplomat said there was even a light-hearted one-upmanship over who could offer the best food and wine. “The ambassadors, through their chefs, would try to outcompete each other. There was an ego thing about who had the best chef.”

Intel-sharing

The dinners also provided something vanishingly rare in Brussels: A chance to speak freely without fear of leaks.

“At Coreper, you have all 27 around the table,” said one former EU diplomat who’d attended the gatherings, referring to the committee where member countries’ ambassadors meet. “But here we had much more honest conversations.”

The loss of the dinners has also had practical consequences, with one diplomat from a non-EU country recalling receiving regular calls from their capital seeking intelligence about the mood in Brussels and governments’ positions on sensitive policy issues.

When their minister asked, “What such and such thought about something, I could answer,” the diplomat said. “Now I can’t.”

A second former U.S. diplomat argued there are practical reasons for the change. “Puzder has done a good job overall, the best job that he can,” they said. “It’s brutal being Trump’s ambassador. Trump is not making Puzder’s job easy.”

Still, diplomats see the shift as symbolic of something larger: a gradual erosion of American influence. While for decades the U.S. was viewed as an indispensable diplomatic actor in Brussels, capable of convening allies, shaping debates and gathering information through a dense network of formal and informal relationships, that perspective is shifting.

“The erosion of trust is detectable by the amount of pressure exercised on the EU regarding our legislation and uncertainty regarding the tariffs and troops,” said Sergey Lagodinsky, the lead Green MEP for U.S. affairs in the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

“That’s really how the U.S. exerted global leadership,” the first former U.S. diplomat said. “You build these relationships, you get people aligned in a common direction around common goals, you find out where people’s red lines are. That’s why the U.S. was able to do this for 70 years before the system broke down under Trump.”

Max Griera contributed to this report.