Trump’s ‘stunningly unqualified’ diplomatic team shapes up at breakneck speed | Trump administration

They seem an unlikely, almost motley, crew of emissaries.

For the Bahamas, there is Herschel Walker, a former NFL star whose fledgling Senate campaign was undone by a string of personal embarrassments but who now is named to be the next US ambassador to the small island nation.

To the plum diplomatic posting of Paris goes Charles Kushner, father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and a man the president-elect once pardoned for a felony conviction that the former Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie, an ex-federal prosecutor, called “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he ever prosecuted.

And to Greece, once a preserve of seasoned career diplomats, goes Kimberly Guilfoyle, until recently the romantic partner of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, and a woman known more for her rumbustious media profile than her diplomatic acumen.

The trio are among a flurry of ambassadorial nominees rolled out by Trump in recent weeks as he rushes to fill his administration at breakneck speed with envoys who will project his “America First” ideology abroad.

Their lack of credentials has prompted one experienced foreign policy analyst to label them a “diplomatic clown car” – and a deliberate affront to the countries hosting them.

Since last month’s election triumph, the president-elect has nominated ambassadors at a rate not recalled in recent memory – including five in a single day this week.

Some appear conspicuously unschooled in the diplomatic arts; others have business links which experts say risk conflicts of interest.

Unlike most countries, which fill ambassadors’ roles from the ranks of professional diplomats, it is customary for US presidents to reward allies and financial backers with ambassadorial jobs – with prize postings like London and Paris almost always going to friends of the man in the oval office.

But Trump has broken new ground with the sheer volume of ambassadorial nominations – and his lack of consideration of their professional suitability.

“It’s not unusual to see a lot of political appointee ambassadors named early in a presidency,” said Dennis Jett, an international relations professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of a book on the history of US ambassadors.

“But I don’t recall any president-elect announcing bunches of ambassadorships like like this guy’s doing. They don’t usually dip down into the ambassadorial ranks until they actually are sitting in the White House.

“The other remarkable thing is how stunningly unqualified everyone is. I don’t see anyone there who I think, ‘Now there’s a highly qualified person.’”

Trump is hardly the first US president to introduce miscast nominees. Barack Obama’s chosen envoy to Norway, George Tsunis, withdrew his nomination in 2014 when a Senate confirmation revealed embarrassing ignorance about the country and its political system. Tsunis was subsequently nominated as ambassador to Greece – where he currently serves – by Joe Biden.

But few presidents have sought to do so in a manner that seems to cock a snook at the polite salons of international diplomacy.

Walker, Kushner and Guilfoyle are not the only apparently unsuited prospective envoys.

As ambassador to Nato – the military alliance which he has repeatedly disdained in public – Trump has nominated Matt Whitaker, an acting attorney general during his first presidency, whose background is in law enforcement.

For Turkey – a key Nato ally and a country playing a strategic role in the political fallout in Syria after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad – he has tapped his friend, Tom Barrack, a billionaire property magnate who chaired his 2017 inaugural committee. Barrack was acquitted in 2022 of charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates during the first Trump administration and lying to the FBI.

Thomas Countryman, a former assistant secretary of state during Barack Obama’s presidency, said the nominations raised fears about the quality of US foreign policy in vital areas, as well as conflicts of interest.

“An unqualified person like Herschel Walker can only do so much damage in the Bahamas,” he said.

“But at a place like the permanent mission to Nato, having a person with zero diplomatic experience and almost no managerial experience negotiating some of the most difficult issues that Europe and the United States must face together is a recipe not just for misunderstanding, but for failure to reach the kind of consensus and compromise that obviously requires.”

On Barrack, he added: “I think that disentangling the private profit interests of Mr Trump and Mr Barrack from the professional work that Barrack would need to do in Ankara will be difficult, not least because of its non-transparency.”

Even before taking office, Trump has caused disruption by threatening to impose tariffs on the country’s closest neighbours, Mexico and Canada, where his rhetoric has provoked shockwaves. The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, has faced calls to resign after being accused of failing to take a tough enough line, as Trump has taunted him by calling the country “a state” and Trudeau its “governor”.

Strikingly, Trump has chosen relatively experienced figures as ambassadors to both countries. Pete Hoekstra, who served as ambassador to the Netherlands in his first presidency – and a former chair of the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee – has been tapped as ambassador to Ottawa. For Mexico, the president-elect has nominated Ron Johnson, a former CIA officer who was previously ambassador to El Salvador.

Indeed, not every Trump ambassadorial nominee stands out as a potential embarrassment.

George Glass, an investment banker who was formerly ambassador to Portugal and known for his anti-China stance, has been nominated as ambassador to Japan.

For China, the president-elect has chosen David Perdue, a former Republican senator for Georgia.

Yet, the overall quality is the worst ever, according to Jett – who singled out Mike Huckabee, the nominee for ambassador to Israel as the poorest pick. Huckabee, an avowed Christian Zionist, has denied that the West Bank is under military occupation – a status broadly recognised by the international community – and seems an unlikely interlocutor for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“These outrageously bad appointments are a feature of every president,” said Jett, a former ambassador to Mozambique and Peru. “But what’s amazing about Trump is that it’s almost like, ‘OK, who are the worst people we can come up with?’ We seem to be going out of our way to prove we are not a serious country.”

Compounding the problem, he said, is the US practice of, in effect, selling the most prestigious ambassadorships in return for campaign contributions – a custom that appears open to flagrant abuse given Trump’s transactional nature.

Under a long-running but often flouted convention – supposedly enshrined under a 1980 act of Congress – 70% of US ambassadorial posts should go to career diplomats, with no more than 30% reserved for “political” appointees from outside the diplomatic corps.

The percentage of “political” ambassadors in Trump’s first administration soared to 46% – a figure Jett predicted would be surpassed in his forthcoming term.

Laura Kennedy, a former career ambassador who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, said the onus is on the Senate to scrutinise nominees and reject those who are obviously unfit.

“What’s really crucial and has always been part of this business, is the Senate gives advice and consent,” she said. “My one real ask is that the Senate take its responsibility seriously, evaluate each candidate on its merits, and not be shy about withholding consent.”

Yet the Senate has not formally rejected an ambassadorial candidate since the 19th century, although senators commonly deploy informal delaying tactics to thwart nominees – as has happened with several of Biden’s choices.

But Joe Cirincione, a veteran Washington foreign policy analyst, dismissed the chances of a Senate pushback and instead condemned the Democrats – and particularly Biden – for failing to raise the alarm.

“We have a diplomatic clown car that’s about to be rolling up at the Capitol with all these idiots waiting to be confirmed – but where’s the outrage?” he said.

“Democrats have just rolled on their belly for the alpha dog – and Biden has disappeared. He should be issuing a warning. Every single one of these should be met with a firm critique that this is not acceptable.

“Both Republicans and Democrats are abandoning their traditional oversight role. They’re consenting in advance without any rigorous review of Trump’s nominees.”