Biden’s choice at UN boosts morale of sidelined Trump diplomats

Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg

When Linda Thomas-Greenfield was held at gunpoint while on a diplomatic mission to Rwanda in 1994, she did her best to appear calm as she explained to a “glassy-eyed young man” that ‘she wasn’t the woman she had been told to kill.

“I was scared, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t panic,” later recalled Thomas-Greenfield, one of America’s most senior diplomats and President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for the United Nations Ambassador, later in a TED talk. The Tutsi woman who was the intended target was among the hundreds of thousands of people killed during the genocide that year.

Some 26 years after that heartbreaking experience, Thomas-Greenfield will soon prepare for his Senate confirmation hearing, drawing on his experience on four continents, including State Department assignments in Jamaica, Nigeria, Switzerland and in Pakistan, as well as in Washington as deputy secretary. State for African Affairs.

After four years of ‘America First’ messages from President Donald Trump and Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and Michael Pompeo, the appointment of Thomas-Greenfield is a clear signal of a return to traditional diplomacy and cooperation in the face. to the confrontation at the UN. It is also a vote of confidence in career diplomats whose influence has been diminished.

“America is back. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is back, ”Thomas-Greenfield said Tuesday as Biden introduced his foreign policy team.

A sign of how much this reflects a change in attitude, Pompeo responded on Fox News hours later that “multilateralism to hang out with your pals at a cool cocktail party is not in the best interest of the community. United States from America. “

Gumbo diplomacy

Raised in Louisiana, Thomas-Greenfield was the oldest of eight children and was bused to a separate school as a child. Her father dropped out of school in the third grade and her mother had an eighth grade education. She attended Louisiana State University, where she suffered harassment and discrimination from students and faculty, according to a person close to her.

Thomas-Greenfield, 67, who is said to be one of the most senior black officials in Biden’s administration, said on Tuesday that she is drawing on her Louisiana roots to conduct “okra diplomacy.”

“Everywhere I was posted in the world, I invited people from different backgrounds and beliefs to help me make a roux and chop onions for the Holy Trinity, and to make homemade okra,” says she. The cuisine of the Holy Trinity of Cajun is a base made of onions, peppers and celery. “It was my way of breaking down barriers, of connecting with people.”

Biden plans to give his UN envoy the Full Cabinet status that current Ambassador Kelly Craft lacks, but work at the global body will not be easy. Under Trump, the United States clashed with other members of the organization on issues ranging from reimposing sanctions on Iran to resigning from the World Health Organization, a move Biden pledged to cancel.

“His appointment will be seen at the UN as a sign that Washington will re-engage with the world and that the Biden administration will not be made up of individuals opposed to the organization,” said Charles Kupchan, senior researcher at the organization. Advice. on external relations

Thomas-Greenfield’s experience and contacts in Africa will come in handy at a time when African countries have become infuriated by the United States, which recently delayed the appointment of African diplomats to head the United Nations mission in Libya. in favor of a Bulgarian national.

Like its recent predecessors, it will have to face the rise of China at the UN, where it has gained influence by appealing to its nationals at the head of the main agencies.

“China has been much more willing to play the game than the United States,” said Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. “Anything that twists this and suggests that the United States is paying attention to Africa, where China has been a major benefactor, will benefit American diplomacy at the UN.

Convenient Envoy

African diplomats and leaders view Thomas-Greenfield as a field envoy determined to get to the ground whenever possible.

“She got to know Liberia, not only the capital, but also rural Liberia,” former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said by phone. “As Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, she was able to mobilize US support for Liberia during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s appointment will also send a message to career diplomats in the U.S. Foreign Service, who were largely sidelined from senior positions under the Trump administration.

Pompeo sought to rehire Thomas-Greenfield when he took over as Trump’s top diplomat in April 2018, but refused, according to a person familiar with his thinking at the time who asked not to be identified .

In a November article for The foreign affairs magazine she co-wrote with William Burns, Thomas-Greenfield, who served for a time as the Director General of the Foreign Service, lamented the “sinking” at the State Department and called for a commitment to invest in people at the department.

“His appointment sends an important message to the Foreign Service that one of their own, and a person of color, can become a member of Cabinet,” said Wendy Sherman, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs to President Barack Obama who worked closely together. with Thomas-Greenfield, including in his recent role at Albright Stonebridge Group LLC, an advisory group founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Thomas-Greenfield is “very capable of holding a press conference and releasing a public narrative, but doesn’t have to be the shining object in the room,” Sherman said.

– With the help of Eric Ombok, Katarina Hoije, Leanne de Bassompierre and Nick Wadhams

(Updates with Pompeo’s commentary in the sixth paragraph)