Congress is usually viewed as a supporting player when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. But as President Donald Trump has doubled down on his interest in acquiring Greenland and his disdain for NATO and European allies, members of the legislative branch are stepping in as public and private diplomats: traveling abroad, working the phones and setting up meetings with foreign officials to tamp down simmering tensions.
“I think that it’s important that we do,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told NOTUS on Thursday. “I mean, the State Department has been decimated, so we don’t have the kind of individuals on the ground, the diplomats that we’ve had … So I think it’s important for us to be in Europe, to be in Canada, to be in various countries, to show up.”
Meeks returned earlier this week from a congressional trip to Copenhagen, where eight congressional Democrats, plus Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski, met with leaders from Denmark and Greenland. Meeks said he saw the trip as a way to reassure the Danes and Greenlanders that Congress is not in line with Trump’s public talk of “taking” Greenland or the dismantling of NATO.