Donald Trump said he hit a home run on his diplomatic tour but the Los Angeles Olympic Bid Committee members may fiercely disagree.
How would you like to be a fly on the wall eavesdropping on a conversation between Casey Wasserman who is trying to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles and that city’s mayor Eric Garcetti following Donald Trump’s recent swing through the Middle East and Europe. The Los Angeles Olympic Bid Committee may not agree with Trump’s assessment that he hit a home run on that trip. Trump appeared to not win friends and influence people such as Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkle or Britain Prime Minister Theresa May. Calling Germany bad because of auto industry trade could influence some of Germany’s International Olympic Committee delegates to not vote for the LA 2024 bid. Same holds true of Britain’s IOC delegates and throw in the NATO members, and you can see why Wasserman and Garcetti may be in a damage control mode. Whether people like it or not the Olympics is highly political and delegates when not looking at money might turn away from countries with unfavorable policies although China and Russia have hosted recent Olympics.
The IOC has been wary of Trump for a while despite Garcetti’s proclamation that Trump is fully supportive of the bid. The IOC has had problems with Trump’s policies. But the President’s talk at NATO, the intelligence breeches with Israel and Britain are going to be factors even though the IOC President Thomas Bach really does not like the geo-political aspect and government policies impacting Olympics bidding. The thought going into the final process of the bidding was that Paris had a leg up on Los Angeles for the 2024 Games but that the IOC would award the 2024 and 2028 Games at the same time at a meeting in Peru in September. The IOC has just Paris and LA wanting the 2024 Games. The loser would get the 2028 Games. That may have changed last week.
The LA bid committee may have a major diplomatic problem with a good many IOC delegates.
