A NATO expert criticized Trump on Twitter. So a U.S. ambassador barred him from speaking at a conference.

By Teo Armus
12/9/2019, 8:23:34 a.m.

For three decades, whenever he delivered talks on NATO and U.S. foreign policy, scholar Stanley R. Sloan was always proud to note that he could criticize his own government freely — and, in fact, was often invited by the State Department to do just that at venues around the world.

That’s what he had expected would happen on Tuesday, when the former CIA officer was set to deliver a keynote speech at a Danish think tank’s conference, meant to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the landmark alliance of North American and European countries, including the United States.

But there was just one problem: Carla Sands, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, wanted Sloan removed from the event — reportedly over criticism that the academic had leveled at President Trump on Twitter.

Rather than follow her orders, the Danish Atlantic Council went a step further: On Sunday, it canceled the conference entirely.

Now, the episode has critics questioning the United States’ attitude toward public diplomacy, scrutinizing the qualifications of the former chiropractor and actress appointed by Trump to head the embassy, and pointing to the incident as “a weakness in our democracy,” as Sloan put it.

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