Mayor Mamdani Mixes Up Municipal Government With Global Moralizing

When news broke this week that an official in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s NYC Office for International Affairs scheduled — and after State Department pressure, canceled — a meeting with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nation, my first question was: Did everyone else know that New York City has an Office for International Affairs? My next question was: What does it do?Part of the answer is obvious. New York City is home to the United Nations headquarters and the world’s largest concentration of consulates. Thousands of diplomats, along with their families and staff, live and work here. Someone has to issue parking permits, facilitate delegation visits, handle consular notifications during emergencies, and coordinate basic protocol with the State Department. These are critical housekeeping functions in a global hub like New York City.Yet is that all the Office for International Affairs does? A quick glance at the office’s website suggests it has far more ambitious goals than administrative order. The first sentence on its home page claims that the Office for International Affairs “provides a global platform from which the City promotes its goals for a more equitable and inclusive society.”Ideological framing features throughout the OIA’s own description of its work. Its Global Vision / Urban Action program promotes local policy alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals on climate, poverty and global peace. The city’s Junior Ambassadors program engages seventh-graders with the Sustainable Development agenda. Voluntary Local Reviews are produced by the Office of International Affairs to report back to the United Nations the city’s progress on the world body’s goals. Scroll the site and you will find the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion and of progressive global norms everywhere. By contrast, the Washington, D.C. Office of International Affairs’ web page appears mercifully dull. The D.C. office, housed under the aegis of the Secretary of the District of Columbia, describes itself as “the primary link to the 177 embassies and two special interest sections located in the District of Columbia.”The D.C. office reports such responsibilities as: Sharing best practices and planning sessions for international delegations, managing sister city relationships, facilitating municipal services for ambassadors, providing protocol on events and replacement of flags, and meeting with foreign officials.The emphasis is practical and administrative — no mission to save the planet or protect “gender-equity,” just municipal government doing municipal government work. New York City’s Office for International Affairs must have decided dealing with diplomats was too dull. It broadened its mandate so it could become another left-leaning advocacy shop with moral authority and global ambitions, all while being supported by taxpayer funds.The people we hire to work for us often don’t seem content to simply do their jobs. Last month, Mr. Mamdani planned a meeting with Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, which was also scuttled by federal officials, who are the ones actually responsible for such international tête-à-têtes. How many times will Washington have to remind City Hall that it does not run its own State Department?New York needs a lean office for the narrow, necessary work of managing its diplomats. That may not be as sexy as hosting members of the Iranian regime or saving Mother Earth, but it is the actual task we pay our city officials to execute. The Office for International Affairs may have dreams of being a George Soros-backed NGO, but the people of New York City shouldn’t be paying for those fantasies.

Mayor Mamdani Mixes Up Municipal Government With Global Moralizing

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