Quanto custa cada grande embaixada dos EUA: o circuito milionário dos doadores - Robbie Gramer (Foreign Policy)

 So You Want to Buy an Ambassadorship

The United States is the only Western government that routinely rewards mega-donors with top diplomatic posts.

Robbie Gramer

Foreign Policy, January 24, 2023, 2:23 PM

So you want to be a U.S. ambassador? Broadly speaking, there are two ways to do that.

The first is to make a career in policy or diplomacy and gain lots and lots of experience related to foreign affairs. The second is to have money. Lots and lots of money.

Running for president is really expensive, and presidential candidates in both parties require massive fundraising machines to bankroll campaigns that are becoming all the more so. A pattern has emerged under modern Republican and Democratic administrations alike where presidents will tap deep-pocket campaign donors or “bundlers” who directly donate or help raise hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for the winning presidential candidate for plum ambassador posts.

Successive administrations argue that these donor ambassadors have the requisite skills and experience—even if outside the realm of foreign policy—through their work in philanthropy, finance, business, politics, or other career paths.

Critics of the practice, including former senior career diplomats, say it’s a form of “thinly veiled” corruption.

U.S. President Joe Biden has continued the trend of tapping mega-political donors for ambassador posts, albeit to a lesser extent than former U.S. President Donald Trump did—despite a push by at least one Democratic presidential hopeful in the 2020 campaign cycle to ban the practice altogether.

Around 44 percent of Trump’s ambassadors were political appointees, many of whom were deep-pocketed campaign donors, compared to around 31 percent under former U.S. President Barack Obama and 32 percent under former U.S. President George W. Bush. Biden has said he will keep the number of political appointee ambassadors at around 30 percent of the total. The practice is often a source of friction and anger within the U.S. State Department, where career diplomats who spent decades working on foreign policy are passed over for important ambassador assignments to make way for a handbag entrepreneur, a soap opera producer, a car dealership owner, or a consultant who happens to be married to an ultra-wealthy campaign donor.

There’s no clear-cut answer on whether donor ambassadors or career ambassadors are better at their jobs, as even the most disgruntled career diplomat would tell you. Some political donor ambassadors end up being highly effective and are even sought after from foreign governments for their close ties to the White House and political connections that few career State Department ambassadors can offer. Some career diplomats, by comparison, flounder in ambassador posts despite their decades of experience building up to the most sought-after senior assignment.

But granting ambassador posts to mega-campaign donors is a practice that no other Western government has—and one that has come under increased scrutiny as the United States slips in its role as the undisputed global leader with the rise of China on the world stage. Donors typically get high-profile and plum ambassador assignments for countries in Western Europe, South America, and Caribbean nations, whereas career diplomats often get the less-than-plum assignments in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, or Central Asia.

Washington’s closest allies offer a stark foil to this story. London’s ambassador to Washington, one of its most important diplomatic postings, Karen Pierce, has spent over four decades in the United Kingdom’s diplomatic service and previously served as the U.K.’s ambassador to the United Nations and envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States’ ambassador post to the United Kingdom has been filled by investment bankers, oil company executives, former admirals, car dealership owners, presidential confidantes, billionaire heirs, and more. The United States has only ever had one career diplomat serve as a full-fledged ambassador to the United Kingdom: Raymond Seitz, who served in the post from 1991 to 1994.

Foreign Policy scoured public disclosure and campaign donation filings, many through the nonprofit transparency group OpenSecrets.org, to take a look at five countries where major donors to Biden were tapped to be ambassadors and totaled up the known available amount that they donated.

For the sake of simplicity, we focused only on the confirmed amount that each ambassador donated directly to Democrats or Biden’s campaign during the 2017 to 2020 election cycles. Where possible and where information was available, FP included information on funds bundled, sent through political action committees (PACs) or donated to broader Democratic causes and races over the past two decades to add additional context.

A caveat: In some cases, because of the convoluted nature of campaign donations in the U.S. political system, it’s difficult to assess how much an individual has given. Donors give directly to the candidate’s campaign as individuals (with a strict legal limit), to PACs that support the president’s campaign, to so-called super PACs that can engage in unlimited political spending, to the president’s party at local or national levels, or even to the president’s inauguration fund to bankroll swanky events coinciding with the president’s first day in office. Other times, these donations are all made in the ambassador’s spouse’s name or as individuals through an affiliated organization.

And even then, the Biden administration, like all administrations, insists that it does not “sell” ambassador posts but matches the right people for the right job overseas. “I’m going to appoint the best people possible,” Biden promised on the campaign trail. “Nobody, in fact, will be appointed by me based on anything they contributed.”

A White House spokesperson told Foreign Policy that Biden “takes selecting ambassadors who carry out our foreign-policy agenda across the globe very seriously” and characterized all of his ambassador picks—including those below—as “highly experienced individuals he has worked with and trusted for years.”

The spokesperson also cited examples of non-career diplomats who Biden tapped for ambassador posts, such as former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake to Turkey and Julianne Smith, an expert on trans-Atlantic security, to NATO.

Still, nearly two dozen other people Biden chose to be ambassadors happened to raise or donate a lot of money to the Democratic cause. If you want to start putting a price tag on an ambassador post in the Biden era, here’s what it would look like.

Switzerland: $419,200

Biden’s ambassador to Switzerland, Scott Miller, and his husband gave $365,000 to funds helping elect Biden in 2020, and Miller himself gave a total of $54,200 directly to Democrats and Biden’s campaign between 2017 and 2020, according to news reports and campaign donation data from OpenSecrets.org. In total, however, Miller and his husband have donated around $3.6 million to Democratic candidates and causes for the Democratic Party since 2010. Miller is a former vice president at UBS Wealth Management firm based in Denver. He and his husband, Tim Gill, are also major LGBTQ rights activists and philanthropists. In 2016, they gave around $1.1 million to aid the election of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Miller was confirmed as Biden’s ambassador in December 2021. The White House spokesperson cited Miller’s “career in LGBTQ advocacy and philanthropy” as a factor in his nomination to be ambassador.

United Kingdom: $656,980

Biden tapped a longtime Democratic donor and former U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. According to campaign donations data from OpenSecrets.org, Hartley donated $645,780 to Democrats during the 2017 to 2020 election cycles and $11,200 specifically to Biden during that same time period. But this number doesn’t fully encapsulate how much money Hartley has sent or bundled to Democrats overall. Between 2007 and 2012, she reportedly raised around $2.2 million for Obama’s campaigns, when Biden served as vice president. Hartley is one of the few political appointee ambassadors in the Biden administration who has previous experience in a senior diplomatic post, which the White House spokesperson cited in defending Biden’s decision to nominate her for the post in London. Hartley—who worked for the Democratic Party, corporate broadcasting companies, and consulting firms over the course of her career—served as Obama’s ambassador to France and Monaco from 2014 to 2017.

Canada: $514,378

David Cohen, a former top Comcast executive and lobbyist, was a longtime fixture of Philadelphia’s political and philanthropic scenes. In the 2017 to 2020 election cycles, he donated $514,378 to Democrats and Biden, according to the data from OpenSecrets.org.

That number is the floor, not the ceiling, however, as Cohen was listed as one of 800 top “bundlers” for Biden’s 2020 campaign, a list of individuals who helped raise at least $100,000 for the presidential campaign, but it’s not clear just how much additional money he bundled for Biden.

Kenya: $917,599

Meg Whitman—a former top business executive who was once named one of Forbes Magazine’s 100 most powerful women in the world—currently serves as Biden’s ambassador to Kenya, considered one of Africa’s most economically powerful and diplomatically important countries. Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and Hewlett-Packard, used to be a Republican donor and ran as the Republican candidate for governor in California in 2010 but switched to backing Democrats after disavowing Trump and his rise to the top of the Republican Party. Whitman in 2020 gave $500,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee, and separately donated $417,599 to Democrats and Biden directly during the 2017-2020 election cycle.

The White House spokesperson said for both Cohen in Canada and Whitman in Kenya, their “distinguished careers in business and their ability to advance U.S. economic interests abroad significantly informed their selection to their current posts.”

Argentina: $148,630

Biden picked Marc Stanley, a prominent Dallas lawyer, to be his ambassador to Buenos Aires. Stanley and his wife, Wendy, have donated at least $1.5 million to Democratic causes in the past two decades, according to the Dallas Morning News, and served as major bundlers for Biden and other Democratic candidates through fundraisers and bundling campaign donations. Stanley also led an arm of Biden’s 2020 campaign called Lawyers for Biden that helped organize lawyers to donate legal services to the president’s campaign run. During the 2017 to 2020 cycle, Stanley directly donated $148,630 to the Democratic Party. The White House spokesperson defended Stanley as Biden’s ambassador pick for Argentina for his “career as a leading lawyer and Jewish advocate [that] has spanned four decades.”

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/24/campaign-donor-ambassadors-biden-diplomacy/

O afundamento do Department of State por Trump - Robbie Gramer (Foreign Policy)

Existem várias maneiras de destruir um serviço diplomático de qualidade: a designação de representantes sem qualificações, com base unicamente nas contribuições feitas para a campanha presidencial é uma delas, e a mais estarrecedora, para uma grande potência, que precisa dispor de informações fiáveis, que só diplomatas experimentados podem prover.

At Embassies Abroad, Trump Envoys Are Quietly Pushing Out Career Diplomats

“There’s zero support or pushback from the department for the career people,” said one former U.S. official.

Robbie Gramer

Foreign Policy, February 5, 2020, 3:19 PM

Foreign Policy illustration/Getty Images

Lana Marks is a successful fashion designer and member of U.S. President Donald Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Though she has no prior diplomatic experience, Marks is also Trump’s ambassador to South Africa, and last month she forced out her second in command, the veteran career foreign service officer David Young.

Multiple current and former officials familiar say issues at the embassy arose over disputed accounts of the ambassador pushing for her son to take on an elevated role with the embassy. A senior embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, vehemently denies these claims, calling them “totally inaccurate” and saying Young’s departure was a separate issue.

To some current officials, Young’s case illustrated a growing trend in the Trump administration. Already, several of Trump’s political allies-turned-ambassadors—he has appointed a higher percentage than most previous presidents—have sacked their deputies amid a culture of mistrust between politically appointed and career State Department officials.

Marks has also faced other criticism within the State Department over how she manages the embassy in Pretoria, although management problems at the embassy predate her arrival.

Several officials say concerns were raised over the conflicting accounts of whether her son would have a role at the embassy. The senior embassy official said the ambassador did not try to get her son a senior embassy job, but rather wanted to make him “chief of staff” of her household, under her personal employ. The idea, the official said, initially came at the suggestion of another senior State Department official, but then later the State Department reversed that suggestion.

Marks deleted a tweet on Nov. 8, 2019, referring to her son, Martin Marks, as her “chief of staff” on Twitter. She did so at the State Department’s request, the embassy official said.

The official stressed that the ambassador is committed to complying with all State Department rules and regulations.

Other U.S. Embassy staff have been pushed out or left their post early, including officials who worked on foreign aid and health programs in a country that is a major recipient of U.S. funds to tackle HIV and AIDS, according to several State Department officials familiar with the matter. Some officials attribute this to the ambassador, but the senior embassy official said the ambassador is working to fix them and that she “inherited” problems at the embassy that were “long-standing and had been brushed under the rug.”

An internal State Department watchdog report released last month on the U.S. diplomatic mission in South Africa detailed allegations of employees experiencing bullying and mismanagement, months before Marks assumed her role as ambassador.

Last month, the State Department dispatched several senior officials to South Africa to help manage tensions at the embassy, two officials said, including Deputy Undersecretary of Management William Todd and Geeta Pasi, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. 

It’s not the first time the State Department has had to respond to allegations of mismanagement at embassies abroad, nor is it unique to the current administration. But Trump’s politically appointed ambassadors are sacking their deputy chiefs of mission—an embassy’s second-in-command post held by foreign service officers—in unusually high numbers, officials say. 

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With the ambassador’s headline-making testimony, the Ukraine impeachment inquiry shed unprecedented light on the difference between political appointees and career diplomats.

Plugging the Donor-to-Ambassador Pipeline

Trump gives more ambassadorships to donors and fat cats than most presidents. A House bill seeks to stop that practice for all presidents going forward.

This story draws on interviews from over a dozen current and former U.S. officials and other people familiar with the matters in question. The State Department did not respond to five requests for comment for this story. The U.S. Embassy official who spoke to Foreign Policy said the State Department did not properly notify Marks in advance of the multiple requests for comment.

After publication, Marks issued the following statement to Foreign Policy: “David Young, my former DCM, is a wonderful man and a tremendously capable diplomat. I was and am personally very fond of him. Our management styles were quite different, and with his experience and ambition, I felt it far more appropriate for him to be in a chargé [d’affaires] position, which I arranged for him and was told was imminent. I only wish him the very best in the future.”

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on Young’s next posting.

Along with South Africa, Trump’s envoys in Canada, France, Iceland, Romania, and the United Kingdom have all removed their deputy chiefs of mission, some ambassadors doing so just shortly before or after arriving at their new posts.

Ambassadors have full authority to remove their deputy chief of mission, even without cause, given how important the relationship between an ambassador and his or her deputy is to ensuring the smooth management of an embassy. But the high rate at which it’s happening now reflects how wide the gulf can be between politically appointed ambassadors and the diplomatic corps—an issue laid bare by Trump’s impeachment trial that dragged the State Department into Congressional impeachment investigations. Behind the scenes, some officials fear it is hampering embassies’ abilities to carry out their missions.

“We are deeply concerned by the number of removals of deputy chiefs of mission overseas, which are happening at way above the normal pace,” said Eric Rubin, a senior foreign service officer currently serving as president of the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats. “It’s generally very rare for a DCM to be removed by the ambassador. It does happen. Sometimes it happens for a good cause. But it’s rare. And it is now becoming an epidemic.”

“It’s created a lot of turmoil in a lot of embassies even … if it’s hard to quantify,” said another senior U.S. diplomat.

In several cases where deputy chiefs of mission were forced out early, including the U.S. Embassy in France led by Ambassador Jamie McCourt, Trump’s ambassadors have cycled through two or three deputy chiefs during their tenure. The embassies where deputy chiefs are being sacked are all led by deep-pocketed Republican political donors whom Trump tapped to be ambassadors, despite some having no prior diplomatic or government experience.

The senior U.S. Embassy official in South Africa said Marks is “currently working with a very capable and excellent team of foreign service officers and a great DCM.” 

Marks, who was born in South Africa, founded a highly successful luxury handbag company bearing her name. She has served on Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Women’s Leadership Board and as a lecturer at Georgetown University’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, according to her official biography on the U.S. Embassy in South Africa’s website. She is also one of at least eight members of Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to be offered senior administration positions, according to a 2019 investigation by USA Today. She has been in South Africa for several months, after the ambassador post sat empty for three years.

Marks said she “hit the ground running” after arriving in Pretoria in an interview last month with the Daily Maverick, regularly working 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. to make up for lost time, with a goal of boosting trade ties between the two countries and trying to help South Africa become one of the United States’ top 20 trade partners globally. “I have the right people on board. … It’s a lot of work to make this happen. It’s tripling trade. But I have the support of the people I need,” she said in the interview.

She saw her lack of government experience as an asset. “I come from the private sector. I’m not a civil servant by background. That’s why President Trump put me in this position, because I’m a person who wants results,” she said in the interview.

U.S. embassies traditionally employ some diplomats’ family members, primarily in administrative posts and particularly in smaller embassies in developing countries that are short-staffed. But it is against State Department regulations for a diplomat to be in a role that would manage or oversee a family member, officials said. Consequently, U.S. ambassadors’ family members can’t take jobs at the embassy, since the ambassador oversees all personnel. 

One official who spoke to Foreign Policy conceded that the clear State Department guidelines barring nepotism aren’t reflected elsewhere in the administration: The president’s own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka Trump have senior roles at the White House. (The Department of Justice ruled in 2017 that Kushner having a role in his father-in-law’s administration does not violate federal anti-nepotism laws.)

Marks’s son, Martin, is a writer with degrees from Johns Hopkins University and New York University who has written in the past for outlets including New Yorker and Vanity Fair. The senior embassy official who spoke to Foreign Policysaid he “helped behind the scenes with all aspects of communications” during her vetting process before she was confirmed by the Senate. He “conducted training sessions on domestic and foreign policy” for Marks “and assisted with hearing preparation, and helped draft her opening statement, all with the full knowledge of the State Department.”

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have carried out the practice of tapping campaign donors for ambassador posts, which has sometimes—though not always—sowed mismanagement and morale issues at U.S. embassies abroad. (Indeed, several Obama administration donors-turned-ambassadors were quietly sacked over allegations of mismanagement.) The United States is one of the only countries in the world with a practice of giving ambassador posts to high-end political donors. Some of those ambassadors receive high marks and plaudits from foreign service officers, and some foreign countries prefer such U.S. ambassadors, in instances where they have closer ties to the White House or president’s inner circles. 

Ambassadors require a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. Traditionally, two-thirds of ambassador posts are held by career diplomats, while one-third are held by political appointees. Under Trump, the ratio of ambassador posts held by political appointees has increased—42 percent of Trump’s ambassador appointees are political, and 58 percent are career, according to data from the American Foreign Service Association—though that number constantly shifts as ambassadors cycle in and out of posts. 

In past administrations, career officials including deputy chiefs of mission felt they had the support of the State Department if their ambassador was causing issues. That’s not the case now, said Lewis Lukens, a former longtime career diplomat. “There’s zero support or pushback from the department for the career people,” he said.

Lukens told GQ that he was forced out of his job as deputy chief in London in 2018 by Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Woody Johnson, after mentioning former President Barack Obama in speeches he gave to British students.

“When I was being told I had to leave seven months early, the answer from the department was, ‘Look, the ambassador is a friend of the president’s, he’s a friend of Trump’s, and there’s nothing we can do,’” Lukens told Foreign Policy. “I imagine that some of these other people are facing that same situation.”

Several other current State Department officials who spoke to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity concurred. “The level of mistrust of the career service by incoming political appointees is extraordinarily high on average,” said one. 

“There is this implicit assumption that the career people can’t be trusted, which is both very corrosive to our institution, but also very unfair and inaccurate. The signal that sends to the career staff is really, really harmful,” said another. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came to Foggy Bottom in 2018 vowing to restore the State Department’s “swagger” following the rocky tenure of Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. He took steps to improve morale, lifting an unpopular hiring freeze instituted under Tillerson and taking time to meet with U.S. Embassy staff and their families during his trips abroad. In department-wide emails he sends from his travels abroad, dubbed “Miles with Mike,” Pompeo regularly praises the hard work and dedication of his employees. 

But Democratic lawmakers and former senior diplomats have criticized Pompeo over his handling of events surrounding Trump’s impeachment. The impeachment hearing thrust career State Department officials into the spotlight through public hearings on the president’s purported efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival. (Trump was acquitted of all charges on mostly partisan lines on Wednesday.) Notably, Pompeo has not offered public support for former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer forced out of her job following a smear campaign by associates of the president. 

Pompeo has dismissed those criticisms. “I’ve defended every single person on this team. I’ve done what’s right for every single person on this team,” he said when pressed on Yovanovitch during an interview with NPR last month that ended in an angry confrontation with the interviewer.

U.S. embassies abroad aren’t immune to the tensions in Washington involving Trump. The president decried “deep state bureaucrats” during the Democratic-led impeachment investigation when State Department officials were subpoenaed to testify before Congress as fact witnesses.

Deputy chiefs of mission serve an important role overseeing the day-to-day management of an embassy, handling almost nonstop contact with foreign counterparts in the host country and, depending on the size of the embassy, overseeing dozens or even hundreds of personnel. They take on an elevated importance during transitions between administrations, when new ambassadors might not arrive for months, or even years, as the confirmation process for them stalls back in Washington amid behind-the-scenes political negotiations between Congress and the White House.

“The DCM essentially bridges the gap between the old ambassador and the new one,” explained one State Department official. “The DCM is responsible for preparing the embassy for the new ambassador and providing continuity and leadership and helping ensure the ambassador is successful at launch.”

An unusually high number of ambassador posts have sat empty under Trump, leaving deputy chiefs to lead the embassy for years on end. Since Pompeo came into office, that trend has declined as more ambassador nominations move through the White House and Republican-controlled Senate. 

The ambassadors’ relationships with their deputy chiefs of mission is key, but it can be difficult to manage with a high-powered political donor-turned-ambassador stepping into an embassy for the first time, said Lukens. “What you want ideally is for the ambassador and DCM to complement one another’s skills,” he said. 

“It’s a bit more complicated when the ambassador is a political appointee who doesn’t really bring any [diplomatic] skills or background to the job. In those cases the DCM is really responsible for running and managing the embassy.”

Update, Feb. 6, 2020: This story was updated to include additional comments, including a statement from Ambassador Lana Marks. It was also updated to include information from a State Department inspector general’s report on the embassy. 

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. 

Twitter: @RobbieGramer

2019: annus horribilis to Department of State under Trump - Robbie Gramer (Foreign Policy)

A Rocky Year for U.S. Diplomacy

Whether it was confrontations with Iran and China or the never-ending Ukraine imbroglio, 2019 was a tumultuous year for American foreign policy.

Robbie Gramer

Foreign Policy, December 25, 2019, 8:00 AM

President Donald Trump speaks alongside U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the White House in Washington on June 21, 2018.  Win McNamee/Getty Images

As the State Department grapples with top foreign-policy priorities abroad, it’s weathering a political firestorm at home. U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior diplomats are trying to revive stalled nuclear negotiations with North Korea and peace talks in Afghanistan, a protracted crisis in Venezuela, and winding down the deadly conflict in Syria. 

But in Washington, the department is reeling as it finds itself at the center of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry into Trump. Career diplomats, including former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, acting Ambassador William Taylor, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, and others were thrust into the national spotlight as they were compelled to testify before the bitterly divided congressional panel investigating Trump. The president and his allies have castigated the career diplomats, plunging the diplomatic corps’ morale to new lows and sharpening the divide between career and politically appointed officials in Foggy Bottom. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo first came into office in 2018 vowing to restore the State Department’s “swagger.” But the secretary of state—eyeing his political future with a possible Senate run in Kansas—has avoided defending the career diplomats drawn into the political storm. 

Here are five reads on the rocky year America’s diplomatic corps has had—and the impacts on U.S. foreign policy abroad, from Ukraine to China to Iran.

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1. U.S. Diplomacy’s ‘Gordon Problem’ Goes Way Beyond Gordon Sondland

by Robbie Gramer, Nov. 21

The high-profile impeachment saga has had the side effect of bringing national attention to presidents tapping political donors with no diplomatic experience as ambassadors. Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, is wealthy former hotel magnate and campaign donor who muscled his way into Ukraine policy and found himself at the center of fiery House hearings investigating Trump for impeachable offenses. This piece analyzes the trend among Democratic and Republican administrations to gift deep-pocketed donors ambassadorships and outlines how some former career diplomats see Sondland as a warning for future U.S. foreign-policy missteps if the trend continues—something Washington may regret as China beefs up its own diplomatic presence in all corners of the world. Thus far, only one Democratic candidate in the 2020 election race—progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren—has pledged to stop the practice of handing off ambassador posts to wealthy novices. 

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2. Fear and Loathing at Pompeo’s State Department

by Robbie Gramer, Colum Lynch, and Elias Groll, with Amy Mackinnon, Nov. 1

Some career diplomats feel betrayed by Pompeo’s refusal to offer any public support for the officials dragged into the impeachment investigation, even as the president and his allies continue to criticize them and cast doubt on their loyalties. But if Pompeo’s exact role in the events that led up to the impeachment inquiry isn’t yet completely clear, one thing is: He has a bright political future in the Republican Party. The department’s waning faith in their boss doesn’t seem to have a negative impact on his rising stardom in Trump’s Republican Party. As Pompeo inches closer to running for Senate in Kansas to shore up a hotly contested Senate map in 2020, Trump’s base and other factions of the Republican party have high hopes for him.

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3. The United States Can’t Cede the U.N. to China

by Michael McCaul, Sept. 24

Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, raised the alarm bells in September of China’s growing clout at the United Nations, an issue the Trump administration has tried to respond to even as it castigates the international body and pares back U.S. commitments to it. McCaul expresses concern that China will use its growing power to “bend the U.N. system in support of its own authoritarian agenda.” Other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle share his concern, reflecting a broader and growing battle between the United States and China on the diplomatic front.

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U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Knight Craft delivers a statement at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Oct. 23, 2017.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP

4. A Republican Rainmaker Comes to Turtle Bay

by Colum Lynch, with Robbie Gramer, June 4

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley quickly emerged in the chaotic first year of Trump’s tenure as one of the strongest voices in the administration. Her successor, Kelly Knight Craft, hasn’t garnered nearly as much clout or headlines, but her appointment says a lot about how the Trump administration views the U.N. Craft is the first ever U.S. ambassador to the international institution who comes from a class of political donors with next to no government or foreign-policy experience before the administration started. Craft, the wife of a wealthy coal magnate, previously served as Trump’s ambassador to Canada, and her appointment reflected the administration’s interest in elevating political donors to senior government roles. This profile explains more.

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5. Echoes of Iraq in Trump’s Confrontation With Iran

by Michael Hirsh and Lara Seligman, May 8

An analysis of the Trump administration’s confrontational approach to Iran suggests disturbing similarities to the run-up to war with Iraq. Not least was the dominant role of then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, who as a senior official in the administration of President George W. Bush was a fierce advocate of war who was accused of manipulating intelligence to justify an invasion. 

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

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