The proposed stop in Luxembourg was not made public by the Foreign Ministry, which announced on Monday that the top US diplomat would make his last trip abroad to Brussels. Less than 24 hours later, they said the trip was over.
State Department sources told CNN that officials in Luxembourg canceled scheduled meetings with Pompeo ahead of Monday’s travel announcement, but that the trip as a whole was not the way Pompeo and his team proposed, especially given the criticism leveled by President Donald Trump faced world leaders after the Capitol invasion.
According to Monday’s announcement, Pompeo would meet with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmès, both of whom also condemned the deadly attack.
“Shocking scenes in Washington, DC The outcome of this democratic election must be respected,” Stoltenberg said on Twitter on the day of the riot.
A NATO spokesman told CNN Pompeo called Stoltenberg earlier Tuesday to inform him of the cancellation of the trip.
And Luxembourg’s foreign and European affairs minister, Jean Asselborn, has spoken out against the US president following the attack he and his allies incited.
“There is not a whole lot you can do as secretary of state if there are only days left, the president is accused and the world looks terrified,” said one foreign ministry official familiar with the planning and cancellation of the trip. .
A former top State Department official said they were pleased that the trip was canceled after Trump encouraged the protests last week, and that they expect U.S. relations with European countries to be taken up quickly by the incoming Biden team .
“They are in the dying days of the Trump administration. I am glad they did,” John Heffern, the former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said of the canceled meetings. “I do not think it is a long-term problem at all. Hopefully we will never have a Secretary of State like this or a President like this or a relationship like this with Europe again.”
State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement on Tuesday that the trip would be canceled due to the need to work on the Biden crossing.
“We expect soon a plan from the incoming administration that will identify the career officers who will remain in charge on an acting basis until the Senate confirmation process for incoming officials is completed,” Ortagus said. “As a result, we are canceling all planned trips this week, including the secretary’s trip to Europe.”
However, two officials familiar with the transition said it was not necessary to cancel the trip for the sake of a smooth transition.
As part of the cancellation of ‘all planned travel’, the US Ambassador Kelly Craft was also canceled after the United Nations trip to Taiwan.