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Trump Failing to Appoint Ambassadors

Remember how Donald Trump fired all of our ambassadors the moment he took office? Four and a half months later, he has appointed replacements to 11 of those 187 slots. According to the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents over 32,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees, Trump has appointed ambassadors to the Bahamas, China, Congo, Ethiopia, the Vatican, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and Samoa, and Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. He has also appointed our United Nations ambassador and one of nine other U.N. positions.

Maybe Donald could appoint Peyton Manning ambassador to somewhere... [photo from Twitter 2017.06.04]
Maybe Donald could appoint Peyton Manning ambassador to somewhere… [photo from Twitter 2017.06.04]
Conspicuously absent from the list are American representatives to our closest allies, like Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Australia. Trump has also failed to appoint ambassadors to nuclear powers Pakistan, India, and Russia… although he and Jared probably have enough channels with their Russian friends to make an ambassador to Moscow unnecessary.

Trump has announced appointments to Russia and the U.K. but has not formally submitted them to the Senate.

Our Führer is fussing that Democrats are holding up his nominations, but the Senate can’t confirm nominations he doesn’t submit. In a Presidency that can be summed up in four words—tweet, tweet, tweet, golf—Donald Trump isn’t doing the real work of the White House.

38 Comments

  1. jerry 2017-06-06 08:04

    Through his actions with the Paris Climate accord, the trump appointed Chinese Ambassador resigned. trumps lies and his complete disregard for not only the people of the world, but for American citizens, was just to much. The ambassador resigned, for anyone else, that would be a disaster, for trump, it is Monday. The ambassador in the UK had to rebuke trump as well, due to this hateful rhetoric towards the Mayor of London. Sadam had more friends around the world than where we are today, we are toxic. We now have a convenient crisis in Qatar that is home to trump holdings and is also making oil prices rise. Anyone check to see where your local pump price is? No one wants the political jobs he is offering. The blame falls squarely on the president for his failure’s and incompetence.

  2. Curt 2017-06-06 08:51

    This just in … Dems cannot block any appointment – they control neither the Senate calendar nor any of its committees.

  3. Jenny 2017-06-06 08:59

    Trump is an embarrassment, he needs to get off the damn twitter and start doing his job. Needs to shut his hot tempered mouth and have people much smarter than him around him at all times. This guy is so obviously mentally ill.

  4. Porter Lansing 2017-06-06 09:13

    President Trump reminds me of Troy Jones. Who’s do business with this guy? They’d both would put one in your back the first time they needed someone to blame for something.

  5. Porter Lansing 2017-06-06 09:14

    ooops … Who’d do business with Trump or Jones?

  6. Jenny 2017-06-06 09:33

    Why do you bring Troy into this? I think even Troy would agree that Trump needs to get off Twitter.

  7. Don Coyote 2017-06-06 09:51

    @jerry: “We now have a convenient crisis in Qatar that is home to trump holdings and is also making oil prices rise. Anyone check to see where your local pump price is?”

    That’s just not true. Crude is trading lower ($47.66@barrel) than it was a year ago ($49.01@barrel)

    http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart

    The main reasons the price of gas at the pump is rising is 1) Refineries are just coming back on line after scheduled maintenance and getting ready for the 2) reformulation of gas to meet summer standards mandated by the EPA”s Reformulated Gas Program.

  8. Porter Lansing 2017-06-06 10:01

    Also, since USA left the Paris Accord (to help coal miners), coal stocks have shown no increase in value. The only viable coal market is China and I doubt China feels safe doing coal business with the Trump Administration being so unstable. Leaving the climate agreement wasn’t about climate at all. It was just a childish response to not getting funding for a wall and needing to show some nationalism to a voting block with limited understanding of world commerce.

  9. Don Coyote 2017-06-06 10:43

    @cah:”Remember how Donald Trump fired all of our ambassadors the moment he took office? Four and a half months later, he has appointed replacements to 11 of those 187 slots.”

    The Washington Post says otherwise. What happened is all the “political” ambassadors lost their appointments while “career” ambassadors stayed.

    “Breaking with a decades-old tradition, Trump ordered that, as soon as he took office, all of Obama’s political-appointee ambassadors had to depart immediately. The career ambassadors were left in place, but the departure of the political ones has left 54 of 189 ambassadorships vacant.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/22/trumps-nominations-for-u-s-ambassador-are-hardly-draining-the-swamp/?utm_term=.191d361c9e17

    Here’s another list from AFSA showing Trump’s appointments but most importantly delineating between the political ambassador nominations, vacancies and the remaining career ambassadors.

    http://afsa.org/list-ambassadorial-appointments

  10. Porter Lansing 2017-06-06 11:36

    Most Presidents appoint their friends to these cush jobs. Problem arises when our President is “friend deficient”.

  11. jerry 2017-06-06 13:11

    The Ambassador to China was appointed by trump, correct Coyote?

  12. jerry 2017-06-06 13:20

    That 110 billion dollar deal to Saudi Arabia, yeah, it was fake. Just like that signing thingy yesterday, fake but with another fake called Ted Cruz. “So, once again, America’s greatest dealmaker went overseas, touched a weird looking globe, and came back with virtually nothing. Except a bling bling necklace for himself.”

  13. Roger Cornelius 2017-06-06 14:00

    Regardless of how coyote attempts to spin Trump’s failure to nominate ambassadors it remains a fact that Democrats can’t obstruct a nomination that hasn’t been presented to them.
    If there is any obstructionism in the Trump administration is because of Trump himself and his republican leadership in the house and senate.
    I’d submit that Trump can’t find anyone with any qualifications to work for him.
    The four top law firms in the country have all refused to represent Trump in the ongoing and upcoming investigations in the house and senate.
    The law firms say they fear Trump won’t pay them or that he won’t listen to them and take their advice. They also don’t want their reputations tarnished by representing a despicable president.
    Several of the law firms are already representing clients that are being litigated for money laundering in Trump related cases.
    Trump should be finding qualified representation soon since Comey is prepared to testify in public on Thursday June 8.

  14. Don Coyote 2017-06-06 14:09

    @jerry: Oil is trading today at $48.12 which is still cheaper than a year ago. Will it, can it go up? No doubt but you are claiming that today’s “higher oil prices” are responsible for higher prices at the pump. They are not. Pump prices went up because of maintenance, because of the numerous summer blends the refiners have to make to meet EPA regulations and because of the start of summer driving season.

  15. Don Coyote 2017-06-06 14:16

    @Roger Cornelius: “Regardless of how coyote attempts to spin Trump’s failure to nominate ambassadors…”

    How is my pointing out that Cory’s false claim that Trump has only appointed 11 of 187 (WaPo says it’s 189 but they probably have more toes and fingers than Cory does) ambassadors when WaPo says only 54 slots were available spin?

  16. Porter Lansing 2017-06-06 14:20

    Right, Roger. And … Trump spokespeople have confirmed that he will be live tweeting during the testimony. Which reminds us, “A defendant who represents himself has a fool for a client.”

  17. jerry 2017-06-06 14:29

    So what about that Ambassador to China, did trump appoint him or not Coyote?

  18. jerry 2017-06-06 14:31

    Who are the blocked ambassadors Coyote?

  19. leslie 2017-06-06 20:18

    misposted. will get back to it

  20. Don Coyote 2017-06-06 20:26

    @jerry:”Terry Bransted was approved by congress and he better hurry on up as the current ambassador resigned.”

    Stay calm jerry, no need to break into a flop sweat. David Rank has already been replaced by Jonathan Fritz. Rank was a short timer anyways since he had already announced he was quitting the State Dept at the end of 2017. Sounds like he was staying on in China to polish his resume since he was gunning for his own ambassadorship. If he wants to go through this charade of resigning over principle, so be it. I’m sure with his skills and connections he’ll land on his feet somewhere as a consultant. Maybe he can go work for the Chinese.

    Meanwhile on the oil markets, crude dropped a tad settling at $47.99. Gasoline dropped 1.72% settling at $1.5278.

  21. Don Coyote 2017-06-06 20:31

    @mia: Obama left the Chinese ambassadorship vacant for almost 7 months in 2009.

  22. Roger Cornelius 2017-06-06 21:59

    Oh Oh!
    Big news coming out of the Trump administration late this afternoon is there is a good chance Jeff Sessions is willing to resign.
    Trump is unwilling to state whether or not he has any confidence in Sessions after Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation thereby giving FBI Director free reign to pursue Trump.

  23. mike from iowa 2017-06-07 07:19

    Huntsman was named Chinese Amb May 29, 2009-somewhat short of 7 months don’t you think?

  24. jerry 2017-06-07 08:27

    Gas settling at $1.5278 at the pump? You must be high. About $.80 higher is more like it. The problem with cult tribal republican is that you folks like to round up or round off your numbers. Case in point was the smoke and mirrors ol Mick tried to pull with a 2 TRILLION dollar error. In the meantime, Meatloaf is available for one of the ambassador jobs and so is Gary Busey.

  25. Don Coyote 2017-06-07 09:13

    @mia: “Huntsman was named Chinese Amb May 29, 2009-somewhat short of 7 months don’t you think?”

    The Democrat controlled Senate couldn’t get Huntsman confirmed until mid August of 2009. As I said 7 months.

    FWIW, Trump offered Branstad the ambassador post in December 2016.

  26. Don Coyote 2017-06-07 09:23

    @jerry:”Gas settling at $1.5278 at the pump? You must be high. About $.80 higher is more like it.”

    LOL. That price is the refiner to wholesaler price. And the lower price there will affect the wholesaler rack price charged the retailer.

    80¢ higher? I don’t know where you live but in Sioux Falls I can get 10% ethanol at Costco for $2.07. All the other stations seem to be around $2.24. Hardly an 80¢ difference.

  27. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-06-07 10:54

    Porter, Trump does not remind me of Troy Jones. Troy offers some useful political observations. I’d consider doing business with Troy.

    Jerry and Coyote, GasBuddy lists the average retail price of a gallon of gasoline at $2.327. I’m not sure what point we’re making about Trump’s failure to do his job with one economic indicator that depends on far more than his say-so, but Trump’s approval of KXL to send more of the oil we buy now to China will increase that price.

    Roger’s note about the possibility of driving out Sessions, plus Trump’s undercutting of Tillerson on Qatar, further shows the dangerous incompetence of Trump at basic management. In an organization this big, a CEO should at least be able to make sure he’s on the same page publicly with his closest assistant managers. By publicly knocking the legs out from under his Justice and State departments, Trump signals that he does not know and does not care what anyone else in his Administration thinks and will hang them out to dry on a whim. That deters people from wanting to serve in his Administration (explaining far more of the unfilled positions than any Democratic obstructionism). That also signals to the rest of the world that they can’t really take any U.S. officials at their word, which dangerously weakens the ability of any ambassadors we do have in place to effectively represent and make deals to promote U.S. interests.

  28. leslie 2017-06-07 15:33

    woof: “Obama left the Chinese ambassadorship vacant ”

    dithering coyote. why? republican trolls stir it up-worthlessly to the detriment of the 99%

  29. jerry 2017-06-07 16:27

    True that Cory, gas prices only have to do with a gas bag that lies about being hindered with the appointments of ambassadors. trump lies and Coyote flies off into changing the subject.

    BTW, Bransted’s kid even gets a plum job in trump world, while Bransted was being overwhelmingly approved as ambassador. trump lies and Coyote flies. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/kathie-obradovich/2017/01/07/obradovich-branstads-tenure-iowa-governor-coming-full-circle/96255814/

  30. mike from iowa 2017-06-07 17:38

    Eric Braindead should have been in prison many years ago as a repeat juvenile offender. Ma and Pa protected little brat and eventually sent him to a military school in Missouri which precipitated a new border war between the two states.

    Braindead is/was and will always be a joke of a politician in iowa. May he rot in wingnut hell with the rest of the phony kristaliban.

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