He’s an anti-Brexit advocate for closer China ties — but could Peter Mandelson charm Trumpworld?
Peter Mandelson looks set for a new life in the United States after a long and sometimes-controversial career in British public life.
An announcement confirming him as the government’s choice for next U.K. ambassador to Washington is expected from No.10 Downing Street Friday.
It’s a remarkable next chapter for Mandelson, who is staunchly anti-Brexit and supports more cooperation with China. Those factors alone could make him a tough sell in Donald Trump’s Washington.
Yet his political savvy, deep trade experience and outsize character are all being talked up as assets when it comes to dealing with the U.S. president-elect and his team.
As rumors swirled about Mandelson’s potential appointment last month, POLITICO spoke to key figures on both sides of the Atlantic to find out how a Labour veteran might fare with the Make America Great Again crowd.
Establishment operator
A savvy political operator who helped return the center-left Labour Party to power in the 1990s, Mandelson is firmly part of the British political establishment, with a seat in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British parliament.
After helping new Prime Minister Keir Starmer enter Downing Street last summer, ending another long stretch in in the cold for the party, the former Cabinet minister in Tony Blair’s government is now set to succeed Karen Pierce — current inhabitant of the lavish ambassador’s residence in the exclusive Embassy Row enclave in the north west of the city.
A bête noire of the Labour left, the pro-business and well-connected Mandelson has had a storied career so far — and he’s no stranger to the headlines.
Mandelson was forced to resign twice from government over scandals and has a reputation for saccharine politeness in public but ruthless political maneuvering behind the scenes, winning him the nickname “the Prince of Darkness.”
Despite his media prowess — he is known in Westminster for taking acerbic tones with reporters who cross him.
In 2023 Mandelson’s past links with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who referred to him as “Petie,” were revealed. And a similarly close relationship with the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska caused him headaches when it was revealed in 2008, as have other dealings with the global super rich.
But it’s Mandelson’s views on Europe, China and trade that could make his anticipated new role courting the Trump administration in Washington a tricky one.
For a start, Donald Trump enthusiastically backed Brexit. Peter Mandelson did not.
The Labour peer sat on the board of the official Remain campaign during the EU referendum in 2016, then advocated for a second referendum to overturn the decision after Brexit won.
He understands well how the political institutions in Brussels work, having served as a European Commissioner for trade between 2005 and 2008, and having covered the trade role in government beforehand.
After Trump won the U.S. presidential election last month, Mandelson told the Times Britain can “have our cake and eat it” on trade, building closer ties with both the EU and U.S. rather than choosing between them.
It’s a policy area the next ambassador to the U.S. will spend much of their time negotiating, with U.K. hopes of finally securing a trade deal balanced by fears Trump will carry out his threats to impose tariffs.
Dan Mullaney, a former assistant U.S. trade representative under Trump and other presidents, who crossed paths with Mandelson in Brussels, agreed with his analysis that the U.K. would not necessarily need to choose between closer ties with Washington or Brussels.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a binary choice,” he said. “You can have deeper integration with the U.S. that is consistent with a deeper integration with the EU.”
Mullaney, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, argued the Labour peer could be well placed as a middle-man between the U.K. and U.S. on trade.
“Having someone from the U.K. here in Washington who knows all three systems — the EU system, the U.K. system, and knows the United States and knows trade — I think that’s a very useful skill set for the challenges that are to come,” he said.
He added that Mandelson was “pragmatic” despite being a free trader at heart, and described him as “a good interlocutor on sometimes tense trade issues.”
However, for Mandelson to make progress, Trump would have to forgive him for condemning the past and future president’s America First approach to trade in a 2018 article.
In the piece, the peer said it was “necessary to recognise Mr. Trump’s behavior for what it is: he is a bully and a mercantilist who thinks the U.S. will gain in trade only when others are losing.”
Peter and the dragon
Another awkward conversation between Mandelson and the MAGA crowd would be on China, after Trump picked hardcore China hawks for senior positions, including his choice for secretary of state, Marco Rubio.
Mandelson has advocated fresh economic dialogue between Britain and Beijing, using a speech at the University of Hong Kong earlier this year to call on China to reciprocate the new Labour government’s desire to mend the relationship.
He spent seven years as president of the Great Britain-China Center, a non-departmental Foreign Office body dedicated to U.K. relations with China, and was the sole Labour peer to vote against an amendment aimed at calling out alleged genocide in Xinjiang province.
“It is absurd to imagine putting a country of such weight in the naughty corner,” Mandelson wrote in 2018 of relations between China and the U.S. during Trump’s first spell in the White House.
“What’s truly absurd is to think someone as pro-Beijing as Mandelson is a good pick to be our man in D.C.”, said Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a global network opposing Chinese government practises.
But Eddie Lister, a Conservative former Downing Street adviser who dealt with Trump during the Boris Johnson administration, said sending Mandelson to Washington could work as a useful “balancing act” with the U.S.
“Britain’s interests aren’t to be a hawk on China,” said Lister, who has his own controversial links to Beijing. “Britain’s interests are to work with China. But we’ve also got to work with America. So there’s a real balancing act here.”
Reform U.K. Leader Nigel Farage — a close British friend of Trump — had once talked himself up for the job. But he has described Mandelson as “an intelligent figure who knows his brief well, as I saw when he worked with the European Commission.”
He told his GB News show last month: “While I’m not certain he’s the ideal fit for dealing with Trump directly, his intellect would at least command respect.”
Most of the Trump supporters POLITICO approached last month had never heard of Mandelson, although he is said to have relations with Scott Bessent, a hedge fund manager reportedly in the running to be Trump’s treasury secretary.
“Mandelson ticks a lot of boxes: his U.K. government position; his Labour affiliation and strong links with the U.S,” said one Washington-based business figure. “The question is whether he has the network and access to a Trump administration.”
But Myron Brilliant, a former executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which took Mandelson and Global Counsel on as a client in Europe, said most people in Washington were in the same boat when it came to contact-building with team Trump.
“Even those of us who live in Washington have to have that muscle,” he said. “Peter is a pro. He will know he has to build bridges with president Trump and his team.”
