Thanks to the pandemic, diplomats have a bigger, better toolkit

BEFORE THE pandemic, it might have been mistaken for an elaborate April Fool. The State Department announced that Antony Blinken would “embark” on his first “virtual trip” to Africa and “engage with young people from across the continent”. On April 27th the secretary of state would “travel virtually” to Nigeria, meeting President Muhammadu Buhari, before calling on President Uhuru Kenyatta to reaffirm America’s strategic partnership with Kenya; he would then “visit” a few local renewable-energy companies. What next: summitry by hologram?But virtual diplomacy is no joke. It has during the past year, as travel became harder and face-to-face meetings often impossible. In the process, it has enlarged the diplomatic toolkit. Diplomats can make ample use of this in the post-pandemic future, too.