“Diplomacy” may be the last word Atlantans think of when it comes to Bill White, the brash, audacious New Yorker who spent much of his brief residency in Georgia trying to split the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood apart from Atlanta.
But diplomacy is the exact role President-elect Donald Trump envisioned for his old friend when he tapped White last week to be his ambassador to Belgium. Belgium is both the site of NATO headquarters and is home to the capital city of the European Union, Brussels. That means multiple countries from across the globe will have multiple ambassadors with multiple important roles in Brussels. And at the top of the pile is the American ambassador to Belgium — possibly soon — Bill White.
Trump and White have know each other for more than 30 years, from their heydays in Manhattan through Trump’s ascent in politics and his 2020 loss in Georgia, which White protested with a Buckhead “Stop the Steal” rally. White even moved to Palm Beach during Trump’s self-exile to Florida.
In an hourlong interview, White laid out the “America First” and even English-language first agenda he expects to carry out for the incoming president.
But White was exceedingly careful to point out from the outset that he’s not official yet.
“I will just repeat this, rinse and repeat this. I am not talking as if I’m some ambassador,” he said. “If and when the Senate is kind enough to confirm me, then these are the things I know we’ll be working on.”
Your eyes are not deceiving you. The famously combative White is being … diplomatic. And it seems to be part of the crash course in becoming a (maybe) ambassador that he’s undertaken since he was tapped for the job by Trump with the support, I’m told, of first lady Melania Trump.
Helpfully, he also happens to already speak some French, one of Belgium’s official languages.
“Oui, je parle Francais un peu (Yes, I speak a little French),” he said, explaining that his family is French Canadian. “But President Trump wants me to speak English.”
Credit: Courtesy Bill White
Credit: Courtesy Bill White
To get ready for what may be next, White has spoken with multiple past American ambassadors to Belgium and is boning up on everything from the details of domestic politics in Belgium to the names and titles of Belgian royal family members. Primarily, though, he’s gone knee-deep into the weeds of the Trump policy priorities he’d focus on in Europe.
Among White’s top priorities in Belgium, “if and when we’re confirmed,” will be convincing the country to increase its own defense spending as a member of NATO, or, as Trump and White both put it, “Getting them to pay their fair share.”
“This is going to be a great, concentrated, coordinated effort to get this done in the first 90 days for us. It is the most important thing any ambassador to (NATO) countries needs to be immediately working on,” White said. Soon, he predicted of European leaders, “You’re going to get a phone call, ‘What’s going on?’”
Along with conversations about beefing up defense budgets, White expects another focus to be tackling diamond, drug and sex trafficking cartels flourishing in Belgium.
“There’s a lot of big-time shenanigans going on with the diamond trade into the port of Antwerp,” he explained, saying the funds are being used to fund various forms of terrorism against the United States.
While fighting terrorism and cartels seems like a heavy lift for a Palm Beach financier, White said he and many Trump appointees have the advantage of already knowing each other well.
“I have Pam Bondi’s cellphone. I have Kash Patel’s cellphone. I can go through the list,” he said of Trump’s nominees for attorney general and FBI director. “When there is a problem or there’s an issue, (we’re) not going to be calling somebody’s secretary looking for us to help fix a problem. We’re going to be talking directly. There are channels, of course, that we go through , but we can connect with each other pretty quickly.”
White and his husband, Bryan Eure, have already sold their place in Palm Beach to Steve Wynn (read all about it in the New York Post) and are thinking about receptions and parties they could throw at the Ambassador’s residence. July 4 is a big one, but White would also like to find ways to honor American veterans while he’s there.
No prep for a diplomatic posting would be complete these days without watching episodes of “The Diplomat,” the thriller on Paramount about the exploits of the American ambassador in London. White has watched twice, he said.
“Bryan just came in and said, ‘Are you watching that show again?”
Unlike the first Trump administration, when the president-elect appointed a mix of friends and newcomers, White said Trump is now bringing in truly trusted confidants for appointments, including him. At the top of the list of qualifications, along with personal success and a willingness to be “a disrupter,” is loyalty to Trump.
“A lot of people don’t know how to interpret that, or they want to interpret it in some negative way,” White said, adding. “I am a company man. So I think that’s what he’s also wanting and hoping for — and what he deserves.”
With his possible station in Antwerp, you may think that Buckhead has heard the last of Bill White. But you’d be wrong.
He still wants the “City of Buckhead City” to get a vote and he has plans to make it happen at some point down the road. “I will never give it up,” he said.
But in the meantime, he’s got a different role ahead of him.
“I feel very at ease and calm with this,” he said, still sounding awfully diplomatic. “I’m excited, I’m nervous. It’s a little overwhelming, but we’re taking every single day aside to learn and study and research so we’re prepared.”
Buckle up, Belgium. Here comes Bill White.
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