Ends and means

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The letter sent by the Trump administration to the authorities in Stockholm instructing them to drop all schemes related to diversity, equity and inclusion, or else explain themselves to US federal lawyers, was mildly amusing to start with. It appears that the US Embassy has occasionally needed permits from the authority for building activity, there is a fee involved, and the only way of paying such a fee is to set the authority up as a supplier (and thus payee) on US systems. A simple case of someone pressing a computer button to send a letter to all payees without giving the matter any real thought. It’s hardly as though the US can simply ask someone else to give it the relevant building permits (although it’s possible that some members of the US government don’t actually realise that).

It isn’t just an amusing little gaffe, however. What it reveals is that the US government is attempting to force any organisation which receives any money, for whatever purposes, from the US government to drop any attempts at building a more balanced and representative workforce, not just in relation to the specific US government related activities, but to all its activities, world wide. There is room for some doubt as to whether the presidential directive is entirely lawful when employed solely to US companies operating solely in the US, but the idea that it can be extended to any activity carried out by any organisation anywhere in the world just because they might be in receipt of a small payment for goods or services supplied to the US government is a dramatic piece of over-reach. It assumes, for example, that US law and Trump’s authority automatically over-rides the laws and mores of whichever country in which an organisation might be based. We’ve already seen some UK companies start to remove all mention of diversity from their websites, and one wonders how many others are quietly complying without making any public statement, as though – heaven forfend! – having a diverse workforce was never really important to them, but was seen as a means to present themselves in a good light and thus make money in a particular marketplace (the UK/EU).

The reaction of some of Trump’s UK acolytes in the UK, praising his actions despite their impact on UK companies, betrays a belief that ends are more important than means to them. The much-vaunted ‘sovereignty’ to ‘make our own laws’ that they sought through Brexit is only important to them if it delivers on their agenda. Who’d have thought it?