For some months, Lord Mandelson had been going round London suggesting he had no desire to be appointed to the role of Washington ambassador, saying he would rather not become a hotel manager so late in his career.
His feigned lack of interest in shepherding a succession of middle-rank ministers through the British embassy, a 96-year-old recently restored Lutyens building, is typical of the smoke and mirrors that has surrounded his potential appointment.
At another point, it was suggested that the appointment of Mandelson was being blocked by the foreign secretary, David Lammy, who feared one of the key roles in his job – guiding the special relationship through a second Trump term – would effectively be snatched from him by the publicity-attracting former minister.
Lammy had already lost responsibility for EU negotiations and had to swallow the appointment of one Blairite, Jonathan Powell, as national security adviser, so tolerating a third reduction to his portfolio might be too much.
In the end, if Lammy ever harboured such doubts – and the evidence is thin – he was big enough to see the virtue in the appointment of the first political ambassador to Washington in 50 years.
A celebrity politician, rather than a conventional diplomat, might make Britain’s sometimes lonely voice heard in the cacophony of Washington.
There are also self-evident dangers in the appointment. It had been suggested that either Mandelson or David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, would be offered the post if Kamala Harris was appointed, since they were natural ideological soulmates, but a lower-profile professional diplomat would handle relations if Trump triumphed.
Instead, Keir Starmer has taken the risk of appointing Mandelson.
The two men are not personally close, although Starmer was one of a tiny number of elected MPs invited to his wedding to long-term partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva.
Starmer, if anything, has kept Mandelson at a distance, but the former Labour cabinet minister still had full access to Downing Street through Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff and a close ally of Mandelson.
One Labour figure said: “It’s a curious appointment, not very Keir. Does not feel right, but not very much does now. Feels very Morgan.”
An internally famous paper attributed to McSweeney written in 2021 on how Starmer had to “embrace the conflict that is inevitable” with the left in the party was heavily influenced by Mandelson’s thinking, or in fact may have been authored by him.
On the surface, Mandelson may not be natural material for Maga fans. Liberal, internationalist, pro-European, free trading, he in some senses personifies what Republicans dislike about Europe.
But the calculation is that the collective mentality of the Trump team – apart from loyalty to the leader – is to respect those who stand their ground, express a view backed by evidence and defend their national self-interest.
If anything, Trump has a thing for strong men. It is a point Nigel Farage has acknowledged, one of the few non-Labour politicians to endorse his appointment.
On the other hand, if Trump turns against someone, it can prove fatal. In 2019 Trump effectively enforced the resignation of the British ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, branding him “a very stupid guy” after confidential emails emerged in which the ambassador had called his administration “clumsy and inept”.
With two dismissals from public office under his belt, he cannot afford a hat-trick.
One diplomat said that “the trick with Trump is to steer a course between respect and fawning. He likes to collect different options.”
In the transatlantic debates ahead, Mandelson will be able to lean on his knowledge of trade built up as European commissioner between 2004 and 2008, and then as president of the Board of Trade in Gordon Brown’s administration from 2008 to 2010, having first taken the role under Blair in 1998.
Trump famously puts tariffs at the centre of his politics, not just as a means to right trading wrongs, but as a lever to secure political advantage.
By contrast, as commissioner Mandelson was an unabashed advocate of free trade. In 2005, he argued: “The European economy stands or falls on our ability to keep markets open, to open new markets and to develop new areas where Europe’s inventors, investors, entrepreneurs can trade.”
But drill deeper and Mandelson was a more subtle thinker on globalisation’s threats, the growth of Brics countries and trade at the service of development.
Many of these more technical speeches passed the political class by. At the same time, he grasps the weeds of trade deals, including tariffs, regulations and service agreements.
As a result, there is succession of on the record criticisms of Trump made by Mandelson in the past that he will just have to acknowledge and play down, including in 2018 describing Trump as a “bully and mercantilist”.
His views on China also put him closer to the Elon Musk camp than the many China hawks in Congress and the administration.
But Mandelson is not just being hired as a trade buff; his biggest task will be to predict, navigate and influence the Trump administration’s approach to China, Ukraine, Israel and Iran, as well as bilateral issues such as the Chagos Islands, all the time trying to synchronise with other western powers.
He reads people, or in his own phrase, “I see into people,” making often summary judgments about personalities and motives.
In a sense, the appointment, surely the last in an extraordinary chequered career, is a return to his first role under Tony Blair – the man charged with seeing round corners.
But it is a skill set that now faces its greatest challenge.
Trump’s modus operandi is to put unpredictability at the centre of his statecraft, so as to destabilise his adversaries.
The test of Mandelson’s success at the end of the four years may well be if he has helped the UK avoid making the fateful choice it has always sought to avoid since the second world war – between an isolationist US and multilateral Europe.
