Fear of the coronavirus and its spread to the U.S. led Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to cancel a long-planned second visit to meet President Trump this week.
The Austrian Embassy on Saturday sent out messages telling guests at a reception planned for Sunday evening in honor of Kurz that “[d]ue to urgent government business concerning the Coronavirus,” the reception was canceled.
Along with sending out emails, Austrian embassy staff came to work on Saturday and telephoned invited guests to make sure they knew the reception was off.
“We are sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused,” read the message to guests from Claudia Wilson, assistant to Austrian Ambassador to the U.S. Martin Weiss.
At 34, Kurz is the youngest head of government in Europe. During a previous visit to Washington a year ago, Kurz told Newsmax how well his meeting with Trump went and how he was impressed with Trump’s keen interest in Europe.
“He’s strongly interested in the European elections — very much so, in fact,” Kurz said at the time.
Kurz, who heads the center-right Austrian People’s Party, also told us he and Trump had disagreements on trade and energy but, in his words, “we agreed to disagree and got along fine.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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