Originally published by Foreign Policy
An expert in diplomatic gift-giving describes the use and abuse of official presents.
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Protocol officials in the world’s foreign ministries all have horror stories about diplomatic gifts. Like choosing a present for a particularly hard-to-please relative, they can be difficult to get right, offering opportunities for missteps and misunderstandings. For foreign leaders and their teams preparing for meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump, discussions about what to say are likely to be accompanied by fraught discussions about what to give.
Yet such gifts have been a feature of diplomatic exchange since ancient times, as I describe in my book,Diplomatic Gifts: A History in Fifty Presents. The Amarna letters, written on clay tablets in the 14th century B.C. and discovered in the ruins of the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten, are full of accounts of magnificent gifts offered by one great king to another. Gift exchanges accompany the meetings of today’s leaders, even if the gifts themselves are a little more modest than the consignments of gold and slaves recorded in the Amarna letters.
Protocol officials in the world’s foreign ministries all have horror stories about diplomatic gifts. Like choosing a present for a particularly hard-to-please relative, they can be difficult to get right, offering opportunities for missteps and misunderstandings. For foreign leaders and their teams preparing for meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump, discussions about what to say are likely to be accompanied by fraught discussions about what to give.
Yet such gifts have been a feature of diplomatic exchange since ancient times, as I describe in my book,Diplomatic Gifts: A History in Fifty Presents. The Amarna letters, written on clay tablets in the 14th century B.C. and discovered in the ruins of the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten, are full of accounts of magnificent gifts offered by one great king to another. Gift exchanges accompany the meetings of today’s leaders, even if the gifts themselves are a little more modest than the consignments of gold and slaves recorded in the Amarna letters.
Essai sur le Don, a 1925 work by French sociologist Marcel Mauss, suggests why gifts are such an enduring feature of diplomacy. According to Mauss, they have a social function. The simple purchase of an item creates no enduring link between buyer and seller, but a gift establishes a continuing relationship. Diplomacy relies on such relationships, and gifts help to facilitate them. To create a bond of this sort, three obligations must be met: the obligation to give presents, the obligation to receive them, and the obligation to repay gifts received.
What, though, to give? Looking at gift exchanges in Melanesia, Mauss found that they involved items that were different from things usually purchased or bartered. Diplomatic gifts should be special. They should generate wonder—hence the use of exotic animals as diplomatic gifts, from the elephant gifted in 802 by the Abbasid caliph to Charlemagne to the contemporary Chinese practice of panda diplomacy.
An engraving by Italian artist Giulio Bonasone depicts Trojan soldiers accepting a giant wooden horse gifted by the Greeks.Giulio Bonasone after Francesco Primaticcio/The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gifts serve the interests of the giver, a consideration the Trojans would have done well to remember when the Greeks presented them with that lovely wooden horse. And when it comes to choosing a gift for the U.S. president, the most powerful leader on earth, givers are looking to make a good impression with a view to productive trade and security relationships. When that president is Donald Trump, who expects deference and places great store in personal impressions, the stakes around the right choice of gift appear so much higher.
Selecting a gift for the leader of another state may take one of several approaches. The gift may serve as a form of soft power, highlighting the culture and traditions of the gifting country. Boxes of cigars, for example, are a favored gift of Cuban leaders. A somewhat more obsequious approach is with a gift highlighting the culture and traditions of the recipient country. The gift may recall positive moments in the relationship between the two powers, or it may take on a more personal tone by appealing to the interests of the recipient.
Consider the recent gifting strategies of Chinese presidents. Formal gifts such as silks and lacquer objects, typically demonstrating fine Chinese craftsmanship, characterize relationships in which Beijing views itself as the senior partner. Personal gifts are more often modest in cost but the product of greater thought. These are reserved for senior world leaders. Gifts might also be personalized through attention devoted to them by the giver. Russian emperor Peter the Great would give favored recipients items that he himself had fashioned on his lathe.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (center) gifted Trump a 30-pound book on South African golf courses during his visit to Washington on May 21, 2025.Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
The gifts received by Trump during his second term have frequently reflected the thought that goes into selecting a suitable personalized gift. The president’s well-known passion for golf has offered inspiration. In May 2025, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived at the White House not only with a book about South African golf courses but also in the company of two noted South African golfers, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen.
Other leaders have sometimes used a golf-related gift to make a wider point about bilateral ties. During Trump’s tour of East Asia in October, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi poignantly gifted Trump a putter that had belonged to the late Shinzo Abe, the country’s prime minister during Trump’s first term, with whom Trump had enjoyed a warm relationship.
Such gifts have also been used to emphasize a wider narrative. Visiting the White House in August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brought a putter that had belonged to Ukrainian soldier Kostiantyn Kartavtsev, who lost a leg while fighting the Russians in the early months of the war and had used golf in his subsequent rehabilitation. The putter was engraved with the phrase, “Let’s putt peace together!” After watching a video of Kartavtsev in action, Trump praised his swing.
- Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. President Donald Trump clasp hands in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Nov. 18.Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. President Donald Trump clasp hands in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Nov. 18.Beware of Trump’s Global BroligarchyThe president’s pay-to-play mentality is undermining U.S. foreign policy.Argument|Christian Caryl
Beware of Trump’s Global Broligarchy
The president’s pay-to-play mentality is undermining U.S. foreign policy.
This strategy—anchoring a personalized gift to Trump in a wider statement about the strength of a bilateral relationship—reaches its apogee in gifts that underline the interconnectedness of Trump’s personal history with the country concerned. Last July, Scottish First Minister John Swinney presented Trump with a 1921 census record from the Isle of Lewis containing details about his mother, then 9 years old; he also handed over the record of the marriage of Trump’s maternal great-grandparents in 1853. Similarly, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz presented a copy of the birth certificate of Trump’s German-born grandfather on his first visit to the White House.
Personalized diplomatic gifts may veer towards the transactional. During his visit to Washington in October, Argentine President Javier Milei gave Trump a gold-framed nomination letter for the Nobel Peace Prize, which the U.S. president has beenwidely reported to covet. In January, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado went one step further, handing Trump her own prize medal nestled in a golden frame. (The Nobel Peace Center made clear that what changed hands was the medal, not the honor of the Nobel Peace Prize itself.)
Not every gift to the U.S. president has taken on a personalized quality. Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s visits for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations both this year and last were marked by giving Trump a Waterford crystal bowl filled with shamrocks. This annual ritual dates to 1952, when Irish Ambassador to the United States John Hearne sent a box of shamrocks to President Harry Truman. This tradition is the envy of Washington’s foreign diplomatic corps, allowing coveted yearly access to the world’s most powerful leader.
Though the objectives of the giver in their choice of present for Trump are often clear, the more difficult question is whether the gifts work. Does a well-chosen gift have any effect on the recipient’s behavior? There are many historical examples of gifts that clearly did. Returning to ancient Egypt, the Amarna letters record the fury of King Tushratta of Mitanni over the receipt from Akhenaten of two wooden statuesonlycovered with gold plate, rather than the promised statues of solid gold. This was a gift the recipient really cared about, and it was found wanting.
Most examples of impactful diplomatic gifts are to be found in centuries long past. As a rule, gifts presented to world leaders today are modest in value. The United States is an important reason why. Delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention fretted over the dangers posed by European monarchies’ attempts to corrupt the political life of their new republic through gifts and favors. The delegates devised the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, requiring the consent of Congress before gifts or titles could be accepted from “any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Essentially, this transformed diplomatic gifts from personal transactions to regulated ones.
To avoid Congress debating the matter every time a U.S. official is offered a present, the Emoluments Clause today operates through the 1966 Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act and its subsequent amendments, under which the president and other U.S. officials are permitted to keep gifts costing less than a “minimal value.” They can accept more expensive gifts when refusal would cause offense or embarrassment, or otherwise harm U.S. foreign relations. But these cannot be personally retained and are instead deposited with the National Archives and Records Administration. Gifts to a president often end their days in presidential library and museum collections.
The United States is far from alone in setting limits on the value of gifts that may be kept. Some countries, such as Australia, also limit the value of gifts that can be offered. The intent is to minimize the risks associated with diplomatic gifts, particularly perceptions of corruption and the creation of obligations to another power, by transforming the gift from an object of material significance like that familiar to ancient rulers to something more akin to a token: a diplomatic signal rather than an item of intrinsic value.
Like all general rules, there are exceptions. Some countries, particularly in the Middle East, still adopt a gifting strategy characterized by lavish and costly gifts that underline the status and munificence of the giver. In 2015, Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud gave U.S. President Barack Obama gifts valued at $522,972. So far, the most eyebrow-raising diplomatic gift of Trump’s second term is the Boeing 747-8 jetliner given by the Qatari royal family to be used as Air Force One.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba holds up a copy ofSave America, gifted to him by U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Feb. 7, 2025.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Mauss emphasizes that gifts must be reciprocated, which prompts questions about what might be expected in return for such largesse. The Trump administration’s response to concerns about the Boeing was tosuggestthat this was athank you from Qatarin recognition of the U.S. role in supporting the region’s security. In other words, the gift was already a reciprocation, and nothing further was sought. There is something of a tradition of thank-you gifts in diplomacy. The city of Oslo has given London a Christmas tree every year since 1947 in recognition of the British role in providing sanctuary for the Norwegian king and government during the Nazi occupation. Admittedly, a Boeing jetliner is a more substantial gift than a Scandinavian conifer.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee alleged that the first Trump administration failed to properly record some foreign gifts as required by the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, but this might simply be a matter of sloppy accounting.
During a state dinner at the White House last month, King Charles III presented Trump with an original bell used on the World War II-era submarineHMS Trump. As diplomatic gifts go, this was magnificent. As a gift of modest value, it raised no concerns about improprieties. It directly and personally referenced the U.S. president—and did so in a way that reinforced the visit’s underpinning messaging about the strength of the transatlantic partnership, linking the British-U.S. wartime alliance to modern-day collaboration.HMSTrumpwas part of an Australia-based submarine squadron, so the gift immediately evoked AUKUS, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States pact, and its focus on submarine collaboration. And being a bell, the gift gave the British king the cue for his winning line: “[S]hould you ever need to get hold of us, well, just give us a ring.”
But there is little evidence that such painstakingly chosen offerings have provided the giver any lasting benefit. Most gifts to Trump seem to have served in the manner of theatrical props, icebreakers in meetings that may have entailed reasons to make the giver nervous, to be picked up and quickly discarded when the real business of state-to-state relations is reached.
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Paul Brummellis a career British diplomat, the current British high commissioner to Mauritius, and the author ofDiplomatic Gifts: A History in Fifty Presents.
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