The Problem Meghan Has With Fake Royal Tours
In this case, Meghan and Harry's non-royal status presents an interesting problem.
I think that Harry and Meghan’s faux tour could land them in hot water. I have been writing up a quick (loo, ooong) overview of their four-day trip, and as I write, it has hit me again and again how ego-centric the entire visit really was—wholly centered on them and their host. Vice President Marquez started the tour by telling everyone that she decided to invite Meghan and Harry while watching their Netflix series. I am sure she meant it as a compliment, but it immediately underscored the very unofficial nature of the tour. The Colombian government did not decide the Sussexes would really give the nation a boost if they spent a few days swanning around their biggest cities, no. No, a single woman (politician) decided (for reasons not explicitly known but easily inferred) to spend four days running around the country with two anti-royal activists. And she had her country foot the bill.
As I was drafting my write-up, I hypothesized that the nation is funding the trip, and now Andres Escobar, the security chief of the city of Cali, has made that clear to the Daily Mail: “The country paid almost two million US dollars for the security of this trip and there are many, many Colombians who are hungry and have a lack of basic needs,” he told the news outlet. Yikes. Mr. Escobar went on to say:
They invested this money because the vice president wanted to meet two high profile public figures and brush aside criticism and problems that we have here through a corrupt government.
We are in an economic crisis and eight billion pesos have been spent for the visit of Harry and Meghan, Colombian military planes and helicopters have been used and the money could have been better spent.
Before this current government came to power they campaigned that they would save money and not waste it but they have done just the opposite with this visit.
The vice president asked them here because she saw them on Netflix, can you believe that? How ridiculous, I can't believe she said that.
When William and Kate visit a foreign country they do so officially. They represent the monarch and they undertake engagements that celebrate the host nation. A lot of people have asked how long can Harry and Meghan keep these faux-tours up. Technically, they could continue them indefinitely, so long as there are countries with politicians willing to flatter their vanity at tax-payer expense. But this is only their second (right?) such “tour,” and the cracks are already showing.
Their first “tour” was at the invitation of the then-Minister of Defense and it was tied to Invictus (which actually is a successful global organization, as I have pointed out before, because it was created by the British government, with government resources, as a platform for a senior royal).