Stockholm is flatly rejecting a demand by the U.S. that the Swedish community’s City Planning Office gut DEI programs, and that local American embassy contractors and suppliers must not be involved in any diversity operations.
Stockholm Vice Mayor for City Planning Jan Valeskog called the anti-DEI demand “bizarre” and “completely absurd,” and said Stockholm will never agree to it.
“It’s contrary to everything we stand for,” said Valeskog, the Sweden Herald reported. “They should withdraw these peculiarities,”
He warned that the American embassy has now risked future trouble with Stockholm.
“If the U.S.A. terminates its acquaintance with the City Planning Office, the embassy will have a hard time getting building permits if they, for example, want to rebuild. It's their headache, not ours,” said Valeskog.
He optimistically told Newsweek: “I expect the embassy to withdraw its bizarre demand directed at the City of Stockholm’s City Planning Department.”
Vakeskog added: “People in Stockholm and Sweden are surprised and upset that President Trump, through the U.S. Embassy, is trying to oppose diversity, equality and inclusion in Sweden. On the contrary, these are values that we strive for and stand up for in Stockholm.”
The demand was made in a letter addressed to Stockholm’s City Planning Office, Radio Sweden reported. Included with the letter was a “contract” in which the planning office and any contractors doing or wishing to do business with the U.S. to agree to ditch any DEI-like policies that run afoul of the Trump administration’s “anti-discrimination” policy.
Letters to contractors doing or wishing to do business with the U.S. were the same.
The contract was to be signed and sent back within ten working days, the letter demanded. That’s not happening, said Valeskog.
Officials in other European countries, including France, Netherlands and Denmark, have also reported similar demands from the Trump administration. Those letters appear to have been sent only to companies, not to government agencies or authorities.
Letters were also sent out by U.S. embassies in Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Luxembourg, and Spain.
The French Economy Ministry reported in late March that "a few dozen" French companies doing or looking to do business with the U.S. had received letters with an attached form demanding the companies certify that they "do not practice programs to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.”
France's Ministry of Foreign Trade called the demand “unacceptable” interference in national affairs.
"France and Europe will defend their companies, their consumers, but also their values," the ministry said in a statement.
France legally requires companies with more than 250 employees and significant turnover to have boards made up of 40 percent female members in a bid to rectify past discrimination, among its many national laws addressing diversity.
After U.S. anti-DEI letters were sent last month to companies in Spain, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson told Newsweek the Spanish government "considers the defense of equality and diversity to be the central pillar of all its policies – and especially of its feminist foreign policy."
In “this regard, there will be no step backwards in defending the rights of women and the LGTBQ community in Spain and its companies," the spokesperson added.
The U.S. State Department did not reply by deadline to a query about the conflict from The Independent.
