MacroPolis

The direction in which Kimberley Guilfoyle’s ambassadorship to Greece would go was clear from the moment last autumn when she stepped off the private jet of a Greek‑American businessman to take up her position in Athens.

The early indications that her relationship with Greece would be short‑lived and tempestuous were all there. She was loud, brash, appeared to have no respect for protocol and seemingly no intention of putting in the hard work of proper diplomacy – the kind of patient, meticulous effort required to build an understanding of the country she had arrived in or to build bonds of substance between Greece and the US.

Before presenting her credentials to the Greek president and officially starting her new role, Guilfoyle held a dinner at a luxury hotel in central Athens and attended a nightclub performance by Greek singer Konstantinos Argyros, attracting the kind of frenzied publicity that would follow her throughout her brief tenure.

At exactly the same time last year, the new ambassador of another large country arrived in Greece. Her embassy issued a brief press release and attached her CV, confirming her to be an experienced and accomplished diplomat who had held substantial positions and had impeccable qualifications. This ambassador presented her credentials without any fuss and began the work of understanding her host country and nurturing relations. The contrast could not have been starker.

Much of the Greek media fixated on Guilfoyle’s outfits, public appearances and social engagements. Discussions about what she was wearing, where she had been, who she was with and what she had said were a regular feature of morning TV shows. Lifestyle reporters followed her movements, and she embraced the attention. She was, in essence, a celebrity rather than a diplomat.

In that sense, Guilfoyle was in the right place. Greece has a long tradition of treating its politicians as celebrities, and turning some of its celebrities into politicians. Neither of these tendencies has served the country well.

Guilfoyle was also embraced – figuratively and literally – by some business leaders and several ministers from the conservative government. They believed that Guilfoyle – due to her previous personal relationship with Donald Trump Jr – would be the perfect conduit to the Trump administration.

It appears the businessmen saw her as a shortcut to deals with the White House or the Trump family, or to advance their business interests in general. The politicians had a different motivation. A substantial part of the Greek right identifies with the ideology of the MAGA movement and President Trump’s political agenda. They felt having Guilfoyle in Athens brought Greece closer to Trump and would help some of his stardust rub off on them. Evidently, this was a fantasy.

Admittedly, there was also a realpolitik element to the Greek government’s desire to ingratiate itself with the new US ambassador. Decision makers in Athens face the same quandary that their counterparts in all the capitals of small and medium powers across the world have to contend with: how to reach an understanding with this particular administration in Washington – one that is unpredictable and can easily go from being an ally to an adversary.

In this respect, the government in Athens thought that Guilfoyle – with her personal connections to the Trump family – might help put Greece on a better footing with the White House. This enhanced relationship never really materialised. The former US ambassador was extremely active in advocating for US‑backed energy projects, such as the Vertical Corridor for LNG. Athens believes such projects enhance Greece’s geostrategic significance, but the groundwork for them was done by serious diplomats and officials who preceded Guilfoyle, and there is no indication that she brought anything substantial or new to the table.

When one examines the way US–Greek ties evolved in the decade before her arrival in Athens, it is clear that there had been a substantial improvement, leading to close cooperation in several fields, such as defence and energy.

Guilfoyle departs without leaving behind any tangible evidence of her diplomatic work. Her bizarre and brief ambassadorship seems only to have contributed to the damage being done to relations by an erratic and choleric US president, which is leading to an erosion of trust between the two countries and a wearing down of the belief that the US is an ally on which Greece can truly rely.

The deterioration in Greek public sentiment towards the US is already evident. Opinion polling carried out by our partners Prorata for the quarterly ProMacro_Scope underlines this point. Over the course of three surveys stretching from last year until earlier this year, the percentage of Greeks who would like their government to limit trade and diplomatic ties with the US rose from just 9.5% to 26%, while the proportion of those wanting to strengthen them fell from 47.5% to 32%.

Overall, almost two‑thirds of Greeks want ties with the US to stay as they are or to be limited. It is an indication of how wary Greeks have become about the direction in which the US is going. Guilfoyle’s tumultuous sojourn in Athens compounded this feeling.

It is no surprise, therefore, that the Greek government has tried to move on swiftly after the ambassador’s dismissal, while others who cultivated relationships with her during her time in Greece also sought to distance themselves from the departing envoy. The leader of the main opposition party, PASOK’s Nikos Androulakis, made a point of highlighting in a TV interview that he avoided meeting Guilfoyle while she was in Athens because he felt that her behaviour was inappropriate and showed a lack of respect towards Greece.

So, as Hurricane Kimberley blows out of town and we are left picking up the pieces, the learnings we can draw from this frenetic experience are crude and limited, much like Guilfoyle’s tenure.

She epitomised an arrogance that seems to have become pervasive in Washington. At its heart are the narcissistic beliefs that making grandiose pronouncements magics away the need for actual work; that posturing is the same as doing; that commanding publicity is an achievement in itself; and that rules, norms and respect for institutions, roles and people are redundant.

As we have found out repeatedly over the last few years (Katie Zacharia’s revolving-door appearance as White House press secretary is another example), when such people are put in important positions which require emotional and intellectual intelligence, real skill, experience, civility, consideration and putting in the hard yards, they fail miserably – and the rest of us pay the price.