POLITICO — 2025-02-05
Automotive Industry
DCI Group has worked with sanctioned organizations, the Azeri government and oil companies.
European Union diplomats in the United States have hired a prominent Republican-linked lobbying firm with ties to the first Donald Trump administration to advise on trade and investment communication strategy, according to documents seen by POLITICO.
“DCI Group AZ, L.L.C, shall advise the Delegation of the European Union to the USA on communications and public engagement strategy for external stakeholder audiences, with an emphasis on promoting EU trade and investment in the United States,” said the form, filed to the US Foreign Agents Registry (FARA) on Nov. 1, 2024.
The filing came days before Trump’s election victory on 5 November 2024, as the bloc’s 27 member countries scrambled to understand whether he would follow through on campaign threats to throw up a protective tariff wall around the US market.
So far he has hit China with universal import duties of 10%, while giving Canada and Mexico stays of execution on even higher tariffs. He hasn’t yet targeted the EU directly, but has called its trade policy an “atrocity” and wants the continent to buy more American gas, cars and farm products.
The EU’s top trade official, Maroš Šefčovič, has yet to meet Trump administration officials.
DCI Group said it had signed a contract with the EU delegation, serving under the auspices of the bloc’s diplomatic service, in Oct. 2024, according to the FARA disclosure, which is required of any group taking on work to further the interests of foreign governments.
Hiring a well-connected lobbying outfit follows experiences dating back to Trump’s first term, when the EU delegation lacked access to administration officials and had to rely on national embassies to get a clearer idea of their thinking.
“The DC delegation has been accused of intelligence failure in the past,” said one former European trade diplomat, granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. DCI Group might not be able to open doors at the highest level, but would at least be able to explain what is actually going on, and provide introductions to movers and shakers in the Republican party, this person said.
When asked if the EU delegation hired DCI Group preemptively to deal with a second Trump presidency, the bloc’s diplomatic service did not respond.
It’s unclear how long DCI Group will have the contract with the EU delegation and how much the diplomatic service has paid the lobbying firm for their work.
When those questions were put to the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic service, they said: “The EU Delegation in the U.S. engages different resources to advance public outreach across the United States. DCI is currently advising the Delegation on public communication with an emphasis on promoting EU trade and investment in the United States.”
When asked, the EEAS declined to to say if it had worked with DCI Group previously.
Client list
DCI Group is well known in Washington. In the middle of his 2016 campaign, Trump hired its former president, Jim Murphy, as his national political director.
Since it was founded in 1996, DCI Group has also worked on behalf of the military junta in Myanmar, Azerbaijan’s interests in the US, and industries ranging from tobacco, telecoms, hedge funds and energy firms.
The Department of Justice is currently investigating a sprawling criminal case related to the hacking of climate advocates, which occurred allegedly at the behest of DCI Group for Exxon Mobil, one of the firm’s biggest clients at the time of the alleged hacks.
Neither company has been accused of wrongdoing by US authorities, and both denied any awareness of or involvement with the hacking. “The firm has not been accused of any wrongdoing,” said Craig Stevens, a partner at DCI Group, in a written statement. “We direct all our employees and consultants to comply with the law.”
According to the DCI’s latest filings to the US Senate’s lobbying disclosure, the firm works for EN+ group, an aluminum producer that appeared on a list of 38 Russian entities sanctioned by the US in response to Russian interference in its elections, violence in Ukraine, cybercrimes, and for supplying Syria with weapons. The sanctions against EN+group were lifted in 2019.
Among DCI Group’s other clients was SCM Consulting Limited, an entity owned by Ukraine’s wealthiest man, Rinat Akhmetov. The oligarch was accused by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of staging a coup in Ukraine, which Akhmetov called “an absolute lie.”
DCI Group did not disclose the amount for the contract in the public document. Asked to comment on the duration, scope and precedent for such a contract, DCI Group declined to comment.
Asked how the firm would manage potential conflicts of interest with its mission to represent the EU’s interests, DCI Group again declined to comment.