The Global Effort to Flatter Ivanka

The international project of flattering Ivanka Trump—which some of the world’s most notable women, from Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, to Queen Máxima, of the Netherlands, engaged in at a panel discussion during the W20 conference, in Berlin, this week—does not always run smoothly. There was, first, the achingly obvious oddity of deciding that Trump, whose experience on the public stage largely consists of marketing her clothing and jewelry lines, and her efforts to get her father, Donald Trump, elected, was qualified to sit between Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and Chrystia Freeland, the Foreign Minister of Canada. That was quickly followed by the dispiriting thought that Trump might actually have as much power over people’s lives as the other women, through the influence that she supposedly wields over her father. Why else would the head of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, have co-authored an op-ed in the Financial Times with her, on the importance of promoting female entrepreneurship? Their insights include this: “mentorship opportunities and access to networks bring learning opportunities and connections to capital and markets.” There are probably many people in the world who would like to mentor Trump and have access to her networks. It might even explain why Merkel invited her to Berlin, a move that the German press praised as “klug,” or clever, in terms of opening a route to President Trump—and why Merkel suggested, from the stage, that the World Bank look at ways to get funding to women entrepreneurs in the developing world, and then, at an event afterward, complimented Ivanka for supporting the idea. But that is also where it all got a little bit confusing, as things tend to with the Trumps.

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