The Trump administration invited foreign ambassadors as VIP guests to an IndyCar race in Washington marking the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, then abruptly canceled the invitations a day before the event, drawing criticism as a diplomatic slight.
The State Department sent emails to some embassies on the 23rd, the day before the IndyCar race — the Freedom 250 Grand Prix — began, notifying them that their VIP invitations had been revoked, the New York Times reported on the 25th. The invitations had been sent to ambassadors two weeks earlier and were withdrawn one day before the event. The department instead directed them to apply for free general-admission tickets through an app, the same way ordinary spectators did.
The move left ambassadors from several countries in an awkward position. Some who had not seen the cancellation email learned of it only after arriving on the morning of the race at the Harry S. Truman Building, the State Department headquarters designated as the gathering point.
Ambassadors who had invited guests of their own, after being told two days before the race that they could bring a companion, were also left in a difficult spot. One senior diplomat told the Times that he had cut short a vacation to come to Washington because he regarded the event as an important official function. Ambassadors whose invitations were canceled asked that their countries not be identified, saying they did not want to provoke the White House.
Empty seats in the VIP area on the day of the race have deepened questions about the reason for the cancellations. Maguy Maccario Doyle, Monaco's ambassador, who attended the event, said there were empty seats in the suite where she was sitting and that she had not even known other diplomats' invitations had been canceled. About 20 ambassadors from Germany and other countries were in the same VIP area, she said.
The State Department attributed the cancellations to changes made by the corporate organizer. An IndyCar spokesperson disputed that account, saying no individual's access level had been downgraded. Penske Group, the organizer, built a three-story structure at the track for the race and set up 78 VIP suites, each accommodating 30 to 40 people, at a rental price of $200,000 per suite (about 280 million won). The organizers also sold individual VIP passes, called the Champions Club, for $5,500 each (about 7.6 million won).
Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official, said the Trump administration does not care much about diplomats or about how other countries view it. The Times said the controversy over VIP invitations to the Trump-hosted IndyCar race had ended up becoming a diplomatic breach of etiquette.
A year and a half into his second term, President Donald Trump has yet to name ambassadors to 98 countries. Ambassadorships to Germany, Ukraine, Pakistan and Malaysia are currently vacant, as are the U.S. representative posts at UNESCO, the U.N. Human Rights Council, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. According to the American Foreign Service Association, some 3,500 diplomats have resigned or been dismissed, while only about 1,000 new diplomats have been hired to replace them.
