Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has cancelled a trip to Europe trip at the last minute.
Mr Pompeo had been due to fly out on Tuesday but Reuters reports that Luxembourg’s foreign minister and several top European Union officials have declined to meet with him.
Diplomats and people familiar with the matter confirmed the news to the wire service. The secretary was supposed to meet with his counterpart in Luxembourg before travelling on to Brussels.
The extraordinary snub to Washington comes just days after the storming of the Capitol by thousands of supporters of Donald Trump, an unprecedented attack on American democracy that stunned many world leaders and US allies.
Mr Pompeo, a close ally of the president, had sought to meet Jean Asselborn in Luxembourg, before meeting EU leaders and the bloc’s top diplomat in Brussels.
Three people close to the scheduling of the trip confirmed the news to Reuters.
Before being called off, the final itinerary for the Brussels leg of the trip did no involve any meetings with the EU or public events at Nato.
A diplomatic source said that allies were “embarrassed” by Mr Pompeo following the violence in Washington last Wednesday.
