Sometimes international diplomacy delivers all the subtlety of a pigeon in the Louvre. Case in point: the city of Stockholm recently received what can only be described as a uniquely audacious piece of mail from the US embassy. According to the Guardian, US officials sent Stockholm’s planning office a letter, politely requesting—well, insisting—that the city scrap its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The catch? This demand echoed President Trump’s latest rollbacks in the US, and, apparently, the new logic is: if it’s good enough for America, Europe should give it a whirl too.

Diplomatic Déjà Vu: Stockholm’s ‘Thanks, But No Thanks’

Jan Valeskog, Stockholm’s vice-mayor for planning, summed up Sweden’s reaction with a dry frankness that makes you wonder if Scandinavia is just naturally good at understatement. “It’s so bizarre,” he told reporters, explaining that Stockholm’s “political priorities […] not the ones from this embassy or any other embassies” set the tone in their city.

This wasn’t just another form letter. Both the Guardian and Inkl describe how the US requested recipients complete and sign a document certifying that they do not run any programs to promote diversity or inclusion, and politely asked for detailed reasons if they refused, to be handed over to the embassy’s legal teams. For officials in Stockholm, the experience was unprecedented—Valeskog noted he’d never before seen another municipality or foreign government receive such a demand. The fact that the planning office received the letter appears to stem from its role handling building permits, placing it on the embassy’s radar by bureaucratic coincidence rather than calculated strategy.

Not surprisingly, the request didn’t land well. Valeskog recounted how, after confiding in local paper Dagens Nyheter, emails and social media buzzed with feedback from a thoroughly unimpressed Swedish public. Suddenly, abstract debates about US policy became intensely local.

Cultural Exports: No, Thank You

This wasn’t Stockholm’s first time brushing off outside pressure, but the whole maneuver struck many Europeans as especially foreign. French officials, cited in both outlets, labeled it “a form of interference.” And all this comes while research continues to suggest that companies with greater gender and ethnic diversity significantly outperform those without, an angle notably at odds with the proposed rollback.

Previously, several European companies had reported receiving similar “DEI rollback” letters tied to new US federal contract requirements for foreign firms, but Stockholm is the first municipality to be directly targeted. The local government’s stance remains steadfast: no signature, no return, no acknowledgement—just a dignified silence. As Valeskog put it, “Of course, we’ll not sign it, we won’t return it, we’ll do nothing about it.”

Transatlantic Relations and the Art of the Paper Trail

The letter arrives during what the Guardian details as a delicate moment: US-European relations are already rattled by escalating tariffs, security quagmires, and recently leaked communications that haven’t exactly showered the Trump administration in European goodwill. As Valeskog dryly observed, the situation hasn’t been helped by the absence of a sitting US ambassador in Sweden—leaving the request sitting awkwardly with nobody at the embassy able (or perhaps willing) to walk it back.

Perhaps my favorite diplomatic twist is the city’s gentle reminder that bureaucratic leverage is a two-way street: the US embassy, as Valeskog pointed out, still occasionally needs Stockholm for building permits. So really, who needs who?

Wait and See: The (Ironic) Power of Inaction

For now, Stockholm’s reply is a masterclass in the art of strategic waiting. The city will simply let the matter sit, watching to see if and how US officials follow up. Does anyone in Washington anticipate how these heavy-handed memos might land on foreign desks, or is this the diplomatic equivalent of a misfired “unsubscribe” email?

While the Trump administration doubles down on its “war on DEI,” Stockholm appears content to let its own values (and the silence) do the talking. In an age of overzealous international correspondence, there’s something refreshing about a city choosing, with understated confidence, not to respond. Do global values travel best by force, or by example? For Sweden, the answer seems delightfully obvious.