Geneva fights to remain ‘kitchen’ of world diplomacy as Trump cuts bite

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. 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.” Though sometimes caricatured as a sleepy nest of long lunches and large expense accounts, the inhabitants of Switzerland’s second ...