LONDON — Peter Mandelson is settling into his first weekend in Washington, D.C. as Britain’s new ambassador to the United States. And he’ll need all the help he can get.
The veteran United Kingdom political operator — dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” back home but now to be addressed as “his excellency” — will be settling in to an opulent new home that is the British residence in D.C.
Front of mind? How to convince Donald Trump that what Britain wants is actually what the unpredictable U.S. president wants too.
POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast spoke to experts on both sides of the Atlantic to harvest a few tips for Britain’s new man about town.
Find the billionaires
Rather than spending all of your energy building connections with Trump’s White House staff, Kim Darroch, who served as U.K. ambassador to the U.S. from 2017 to 2019, highlighted the “very wealthy businessman” — what he termed “the billionaires’ club” — whom Trump talks to regularly.
“It’s interesting when he is trying to form a view on things,” Darroch reflected. “I suspect he listens far more to his businessman friends who he will phone up and say: What do you think about this?”
Darroch argued Trump has greater confidence in these “practitioners out in the field” that the president sees as having a “better feel for the American economy” than he does in his Washington bubble political staff.
The theory goes that if you can influence the billionaires, you can influence Trump.
Copy Shinzo
John Bolton, U.S. national security adviser during Trump’s first term, said people that want to get along with the U.S. president should study the approach of the late, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“I think he was the most popular leader with Trump, and I think he worked at it very diligently,” Bolton recalled.
The key? Bolton said “it helps to play golf and to talk to Trump, not to ask for something from him every time or to complain about something. Just talk to him.”
Mandelson had best get working on the golf swing.
Have parties
Peter Westmacott, U.K. ambassador to the U.S. between 2012 and 2016, told Westminster Insider that the glamorous British residence itself is a key diplomatic tool for any new ambassador.
Its storied history — adored by Winston Churchill, visited by The Beatles and the setting for many Thatcher-Reagan love-ins — helps build a British mystique in Washington.
“It’s also about laying on events that people want to come to, whether it is a Downton Abbey [themed event], a party in honor of Hillary Clinton, or whether it is a Beatles legacy party that I gave on the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first visit to Washington, which was probably the best party I ever gave,” Westmacott reflected of his own time. (Note to Mandelson: Don’t repeat the Hillary one.)
Westmacott said that “you can fill the house five times a day if you want to” — but insisted the key question an ambassador should ask is: “Who do you get and how do you get them?” With his new home, Westmacott said, Mandelson “will be very, very well equipped to get that right.”
Remember access is everything
David Manning was U.K. ambassador to the U.S. between 2003 and 2007, and so served under Tony Blair during an Iraq War that pushed two leaders with starkly different political backgrounds together. He said access is “the lifeblood for an ambassador in Washington.”
Manning said being plugged into the key players proved vital during the Iraq War, in which “good access to the Bush team” meant he was able “to take a lot of messages in both directions.”
Also key to building influence is making the British case to Trump’s team on “every issue” — and proactively making ties on Capitol Hill with Congress and the Senate.
“Washington’s a town of lobbyists and, you know, you are a lobbyist, among other things,” he said. “So you’ve got to work out, how can I be a good lobbyist?”
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