Social media users have misleadingly attached importance to the fact that European heads of state and government have been excluded from Trump’s guest list.
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00:00Have European leaders been snubbed in Trump s inauguration?
00:08Social media users have misleadingly attached importance to the fact that some European
00:13leaders have been excluded from the guest list for Trump s inauguration as U.S. president.
00:20World leaders including Italy s Giorgia Meloni, China s Xi Jinping, El Salvador s Nayib Bukele
00:25and Argentina s Javier Mille were invited to the ceremony. European far-right figures
00:31such as France s Eric Seymour and the UK s Nigel Farage were also on the guest list.
00:36But this is a break with tradition. Inauguration Day is considered an event for Americans and
00:42foreign leaders are not usually invited. Countries are rather represented by ambassadors or other
00:48diplomatic envoys. We checked U.S. Department of State records and found no evidence that
00:54any European leader had attended a presidential inauguration in the U.S. since records began
01:00in 1874. Yet, social media users and commentators have suggested the exclusion of leaders such
01:07as the UK s Keir Starmer, Spain s Pedro Sánchez and European Commission President Ursula von
01:12der Leyen is unprecedented and a sign of souring relations. A British journalist misleadingly
01:19describes Starmer s exclusion as a massive stain on British history. Several Spanish
01:25media outlets have also misleadingly reported that Trump has ignored or snubbed Prime Minister
01:31Sánchez by inviting Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain s far-right Vox party instead.
01:38Spain s foreign minister clarified that While it is striking that so many hard-line right-wing
01:49figures have been invited by Trump, the fact that EU heads of state and government will
01:53not be joining celebrations in Washington does not in itself signal a breakdown in relations.