The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, bemoaned the lack of a successor under Donald Trump, saying it’s handing China “the world on a silver platter.’’
The career diplomat also said she recently visited the State Department and saw “fear and despair” on Foggy Bottom.
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“They saw what happened at USAID, they’re seeing what’s happening to the Department of Education. US AID employees overseas were given almost no notice to pack up and leave,’’ she told a WisPolitics-La Follette School of Public Affairs breakfast in Madison yesterday. ”So the State Department is sitting back like, ‘When is that going to happen to us?’ We have all of these people overseas, in our embassies who are carrying out the responsibilities that they’ve been assigned by the U.S. government, and so suddenly they don’t know. So there’s this sense of fear of what could happen.’’
She said her former colleagues were pleased when former U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, was named by Trump to be secretary of State. “But I think they are reassessing that,’’ she added.
Thomas-Greenfield said having New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador “was going to be extraordinarily important, and particularly as we see both Russia and China flexing their muscles at the UN. China is just having a tea party on our behalf right now, because we’ve handed the UN and the world on a civil platter to them.’’
She explained that China will claw back progress that had been made with small countries in Africa and around the world who had felt ignored by the United States and where China was “relentlessly making inroads.’’
Stefanik’s nomination was recently withdrawn because of Republican worries the tiny GOP majority in the House might not be able to hold up. Calling the UN “extraordinarily important” but “flawed,” Thomas-Greenfield said the United States can’t operate there alone. Allies and countries needing help from the United States “need to see a US ambassador who is engaged and who is working in the interest of peace and security for the world …because when the world is in turmoil, it impacts us everywhere.” She added: “So yes, we do need a UN ambassador.”
Appearing before sweeping tariffs were announced by Trump, Thomas-Greenfield commented: “We’re losing a lot of friends with this trade war. … I think it will backfire on us.”
One example she pointed to was Denmark, new to the UN Security Council in January.
“Denmark is very, very fearful about economic warfare because of Greenland,” she said. “And one of the things they said was, ‘We’re excited. We believe in everything you believe in. We want to work with you. You can depend on us when we’re in the Security Council.’
“I don’t know now whether they will be a dependable partner on the Security Council, because they don’t think we’re dependable.”
