FOREIGN POLICY/TRUMP FAMILY/IVANKA: “German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to the White House last month may have been filled with awkward moments, but she left with one key takeaway — identifying the first daughter as her back-channel to President Donald Trump.
The White House was broadly criticized for seating Ivanka Trump, who at the time held no official government position, next to the German chancellor during a meeting on workforce apprenticeship, essentially elevating a family member with no political experience to the level of Europe’s most important leader.
But for Merkel, a skilled political operator forging relations with the third American president to gain power during her 12 years in office, it was a useful signal of how to work the Trump White House.
She followed up by elevating Ivanka Trump even higher, inviting her to speak Tuesday [4-45-17] at the W20 Summit in Berlin alongside Queen Maxima of the Netherlands and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, among others, for a panel on women’s entrepreneurship.
A White House official said the panel will be more in the weeds and wonky than sweeping and symbolic; Ivanka Trump has been prepping for the meeting for weeks, immersing herself in McKinsey & Company reports on women in the workforce, rather than searching for soaring language with a speechwriter.”
-Annie Karni, “Ivanka Trump faces skeptical audience in Berlin,” Politico, April 24, 2017 2:53pm