The Stockholm City Council has rejected the US Embassy's demands that it comply with the Trump administration's rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. In an email to the city's planning office, dated April 29, the embassy in Sweden's capital asked that Stockholm officials sign a certification that their contractors do not operate any programs promoting DEI that would violate US anti-discrimination laws. The city council said Friday that it will not comply with the embassy's demands or respond officially. "We were really surprised, of course," Jan Valeskog, vice mayor for city planning, tells the AP. "We will not sign this document at all, of course not."
Valeskog says that while the city wants to continue its good relationship with the embassy, it will follow Swedish law and city policies to include DEI practices. "It's so bizarre," Valeskog, tells the Guardian. "It's our political priorities that count, not the ones from this embassy or any other embassies." Diversity, equity, and inclusion are "values that we strive for and stand up for in Stockholm," he says. "It's very important for us."
It's the latest in President Trump's efforts to terminate such programs within the federal government—and beyond—in what he described in his inauguration speech as a move to end efforts to "socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life," the AP reports. Countries and cities across Europe have received similar outreach from US embassies, including France, Belgium, and the city of Barcelona, all of which lashed out at the US efforts to expand its anti-DEI policies to the continent. "American interference in the inclusion policies of French companies—along with threats of unjustified tariffs—is unacceptable,' France's trade ministry said in March, per the Guardian.
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