Geneva Fights To Remain 'Kitchen' Of World Diplomacy As Trump Cuts Bite

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) On a balmy April afternoon, the five-star Hotel d'Angleterre on the banks of Lake Geneva was recovering from a crowded lunch hour. The denizens of the world's diplomacy capital, however, had not been displaying their usual joie de vivre. This content was published on May 6, 2025 - 10:39 6 minutes Mercedes Ruehl in Geneva, Financial Times

With global trade in disarray, autocracy on the march and aid organisations reeling from US funding cuts, officials at the roughly 450 international bodies based in Geneva fear for the city's future as a pillar of global politics.

“The world is changing every day right now. People need to meet and discuss, and we see that in our hotels and restaurants,” said Xavier Rey de Lasteyrie, CEO of Geneva-based Rey Group, which owns and develops hotels and other real estate in Switzerland and abroad.“Geneva is still the place for exchanging information. What we worry about is how different the picture is in six months' time.”

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Though sometimes caricatured as a sleepy nest of long lunches and large expense accounts, the inhabitants of Switzerland's second city say it plays a critical role in the global order. It hosted historic summits during the cold war, a Biden-Putin meeting in 2021 and negotiations that laid the groundwork for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“We have a saying here that for the UN, New York is the restaurant but Geneva is the kitchen. The real work – often behind the scenes – is done in Geneva,” said Sami Kanaan, the city's deputy mayor.

President Trump's decision to leave the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) set off a cacophony of alarm bells, Kanaan said.“We have faced crises before, but I don't think we have faced this level of complexity and urgency.”

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