Opinion
Earlier this month, amid a slew of other news and on the same day as a botched release of comically almost-redacted files from the Epstein case, Donald Trump fired about 30 ambassadors who had been appointed under Joe Biden.
These are career diplomats, people whose work spanned multiple presidencies, including Trump’s first term. Their mission is to represent the interests and people of the United States in difficult and contentious environments around the world, often unstable nations in Africa and Asia. They serve for a couple of years before being reassigned in short terms designed to ensure that diplomats continue to see themselves as servants of the American people rather than long-term residents of their host nations.
They are distinct from politically appointed ambassadors, who the president chooses. Each president nominates about 40 countries to which they send politically appointed ambassadors, who are usually friends of or donors to the president. They are usually sent to nations that are key US allies, such as major European nations and countries such as Australia, where former president Biden appointed Caroline Kennedy, daughter of president John F. Kennedy, to serve as ambassador in Canberra. There are also the caricatured examples of holiday destinations, such as sending former NFL star Herschel Walker to be the ambassador to the Bahamas.
Trump may replace the 30 career ambassadors he sacked with politically appointed ambassadors, who generally don’t have the experience to navigate the delicate path of diplomacy in complex environments. Or he won’t replace them at all.
This is because, in Trump’s view, the geopolitical network of the 21st century is fundamentally and irreparably broken. The bloody conflicts and decades-long entanglements of the modern American empire are, in his version, the result of an overcomplicated system. Trump’s actions suggest he sees the possibility only of individual relationships in the ruins of postwar institutions that have collapsed under their own weight in a world where leaders can speak to each other directly. We’ve seen this in his flashy summits with Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and the hosting of plenty of other leaders at Mar-a-Lago.
These ambassadorial firings are a year-end emblem of his foreign policy. In the past year, we have seen a wholesale change in how American power works. Under previous presidents, power was projected via this diplomatic apparatus. Careful negotiations were carried out by the thousands of diplomats whose posts spanned the globe, and programs that began in one administration would continue in some form in the next. Now, there are no sitting ambassadors in Australia, Ukraine, Russia, Saudi Arabia or Germany, places where the US would benefit from having strategic direction in the relationship, rather than relying on Riyadh’s ability to interpret Trump’s latest social media post.
Australia has not had a credentialled US ambassador for about 13 months, though gaps like this have become increasingly common this century. This lapse in particular says much about the lack of focus on the Asia-Pacific region, where Trump sees his phone calls with Xi as the only conversations that matter for power in the region, even as Xi sends his military to surround Taiwan for military drills this week.
Many of the agencies doing this hard diplomatic work were bled dry or cut entirely in the first tumultuous months of the second Trump administration. Now, rather than diplomats advocating for the US as a global superpower and cultivating the kind of long-term relationships that could ultimately counter China’s rise, the focus has shifted to Trump’s personal brand – when his attention span allows for it.
The job of an ambassador is to build the alliance between two countries. They must be fluent enough in the culture of the place to further relationships with local leaders, to set up investments on both sides, and draw the two countries closer together. This is how China has swooped into nearly every developing nation, with cash and human capacity, to build relationships in the retrenchment of Western alliances.
The soon-to-be-former US ambassador to Laos is a career diplomat who has navigated long-term relationships across South-East Asia. I served alongside her on several visits in the Biden administration. Much of ambassador Heather Variava’s job in any given month in Laos is attending the funerals of people who are killed today because of munitions dropped in Henry Kissinger’s war in Vietnam, and using her decades of experience to try to eke out space for the US in that tough environment as China’s influence looms. This is not something that any Fox News personality is qualified to do.
That work takes training, patience and a commitment that lasts well beyond any government of the day. Yet, in a couple of weeks, Variava will be recalled to Washington and exchanged for a Trump lackey.
When American diplomatic attention is focused back on itself rather than building relationships with the powers and people there, China will fill the void. I was once staffing a White House trip to a Pacific Islands nation that had not had a US ambassador in almost two years, during which time the Chinese had sent several high-level delegations and brought billions of infrastructure investment through their Belt and Road Initiative. We were there trying to play catch-up, but a photo op cannot compete with a new hospital.
Australia has seen the consequences of this in the Asia-Pacific region, where gaps never stay open for long. When diplomatic relationships are left untended, the Chinese and regional powers are more than happy to step in. A new highway or harbour can appear in the time it will take for these new Trump loyalists to arrive, to say nothing of any military incursions or threats.
As Trump continues this project of using the platform of a superpower for his own glorification, countries like Australia will have to question their ties on either side of the Pacific. Over time, the United States will become an increasingly unreliable security guarantor for Australia.
Australia needs to prepare for this reality.
Cory Alpert is a PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne looking at the impact of AI on democracy. He previously served the Biden-Harris Administration for three years.
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Cory Alpert is a PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne looking at the impact of AI on democracy. He previously served the Biden-Harris Administration for three years.
