Advice for New Political Ambassadors from a Foreign Service Veteran
Career diplomats want all ambassadors to succeed, because we view their success as our own.
By GORDON DUGUID | DECEMBER 29, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump has announced more picks for new U.S. ambassadors before taking office than any of his predecessors, including envoys to Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Croatia, Ireland, Japan, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, Panama, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Luxembourg, China, Israel, Canada, the United Nations and NATO. Except for three who served as ambassadors during Trump’s first term, none of the prospective nominees has diplomatic or foreign policy experience or expertise.
Republican and Democratic presidents have handed about a third of ambassadorial, or chief of mission, positions to non-career appointees for decades — Trump brought that number up to 43 percent in his first administration. Regardless of the party in power, those nominees are usually chosen either as a result of political or personal connections, or because they provided financial or other support to the president’s election.
It would be demoralizing for any organization to tell its professional employees that a third or more of the highest positions to which they can aspire are off limits to them by default. However, the U.S. Foreign Service, where I spent 31 years, has accepted that reality. We want all our ambassadors to succeed, because we view their success as our own. Even as a retiree, I want Trump’s nominees to have a smooth onboarding and transition. So I offer some well-intentioned thoughts.
If you are coming from the business world, you are accustomed to varying levels of efficiency and profit, and the State Department, your soon-to-be employer, can use your expertise. But the embassy you are about to lead isn’t intended to make a profit. That doesn’t mean it can’t be run more efficiently, and you can help with that. Efficiency in an embassy, however, means serving the public good by advancing U.S. interests, not maximizing revenue.
If you are coming from the world of political campaigns, slow down. Your hair is no longer on fire, and not every situation is a crisis. You will now rarely dominate the news cycle in the United States — don’t sweat that. If you end up dominating the news cycle in your host-country, that’s unlikely to be a good thing. You probably had a flexible and agile approach to work in the private sector. Teach that to your staff, but ask them to explain the so-called clearance process in Washington early on. No one likes it, but it can’t be avoided.
You may be the president’s “personal representative,” but you won’t be talking to the White House regularly. The host-government will know if and when the president calls you. Your daily point of contact won’t be the secretary of state or even the assistant secretary responsible for your geographic region. It will be the deputy assistant secretary for your subregion, better known in the bureaucracy as DAS — your lifeline, which you will be wise to nurture. Your DAS will remind you often that embassies don’t make policy, as there are legions in Washington who do that. You and your staff will implement policy and report results — with recommendations — back to the State Department. Focus on effective team engagement on priority issues. There are more policy initiatives than you have people to staff them, so concentrate on just a few.
Some political ambassadors are quick to remove their deputy chief of mission, or DCM. Like all Foreign Service officers, DCMs rotate every three years or less. You would do yourself a favor by retaining the DCM you inherit. They provide invaluable local knowledge and bureaucratic savvy. In the private sector, a new CEO often replaces the COO. However, you are likely to benefit from having an experienced person in place to point out the landmines you are about to step on. A new DCM may not know where those are buried. What the replacement will know is that you only want “yes” men and women without contrarian opinions, landmines or not. That’s not a good place to be.
Your career staff is your best resource. They know local politics, economics and culture, and they speak the local language. You need their cooperation; they need clear direction. Meet with each section head individually once a week, and have the DCM in as a notetaker, so that all tasks are clear and documented. Visit individual sections once a month. Locally engaged staff, or LES, are just as critical to your operation as American officers — they are really good at riding out ambassadors, so don’t overlook them. Meet with a committee of senior LES once every two weeks, without their supervisors. Be ready to hear what’s really going on in the embassy.
Host-government ministers know U.S. policy, history and economics inside and out. They can explain the Electoral College, for example. They have contacts in Congress and diaspora groups in the United States that lobby Congress. They have business contacts across the United States, and their children attend American universities. They are also keenly aware of every slight, act of bad faith or poor judgement inflicted by your predecessors of the last 50 years. They won’t hesitate to use these against you. The goodwill of your staff will come in handy when this happens.
The role of the embassy’s public affairs, or public diplomacy, section is to explain U.S. policy to the people of the host-country. It’s not your personal PR team. Every time you promote an unpopular U.S. policy, you will be criticized, and sometimes lambasted, in the local media, and people might make fun of your pets. Get used to that and let your public diplomacy counselor get on with the job that’s not about you. And if you find your embassy’s website ugly or boring, keep in mind that it’s centrally branded that way in Washington.
Resources will be a constant irritant or cause of frustration during your tenure. You will not have enough to do all of the things you are tasked with doing. Don’t lobby the State Department for more — it doesn’t have any to spare. Lobby members of Congress instead. They control your budget; the department just allocates it. Brace yourself for Capitol Hill’s special attention to how you spend every nickel of taxpayer money. The experience will make you yearn for the simplicity of the IRS 1040 form.
Congress hasn’t passed a full-year budget in nearly three decades — instead, perpetual “continuing resolutions” fund modern administrations. You will receive 75 percent of the previous year’s budget for the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, but those will be piecemeal allocations that will arrive late and drag on until Labor Day. Within a week after that, Congress will release all remaining funds appropriated through continuing resolutions and expect you to dispose of them responsibly by the end of the month (the fiscal year ends on September 30). The responsible thing to do would be to return any unspent funds to the Treasury. When you do that, however, your budget will be cut for the next year, because apparently you don’t need that much money. Your management counselor is bound to have valuable advice on all that.
Don’t use government resources to create a legacy project to commemorate your tenure, no matter how noble the cause. Few will remember you when you leave, regardless of the grandiosity of your project or the success of your tenure. There are enough existing projects — work to be remembered for one of those. If you truly feel the need to make a personal gesture, the State Department allows you $2,500 to do that. Your family can be a great resource in cultivating close relations with key local players. But your spouse’s personal interests are not the embassy’s interests, and you cannot use government resources to indulge them.
Your position as the president’s representative doesn’t grant you unlimited power. If you bring negotiation skills from the private sector, leverage them to improve embassy operations and build relationships. Your staff is good at adapting to different leadership styles. They are resolute professionals with an exemplary work ethic. They have inculcated a spirit of cooperation and dedication to advancing U.S. interests.
Make sure you actually live in your host-country full time, rather than running back to the United States every two months. Travel inside the host-country will attract positive attention, but too many trips outside the country will be viewed negatively. You will live in a nice, even if government-owned, mansion. If you find it puny, remember that there is hardly a worse cliché in diplomatic life than an ambassador bent on renovating his or her official residence. You are surely better than that.
Gordon Duguid was a Foreign Service officer until 2020. During his 31-year career, he was deputy chief of mission in Serbia, chargé d’affaires in Montenegro, and also served in India, Burundi, Zambia, Zaire and at the U.S. Mission to NATO.
The views and characterizations in this article belong to the author and don’t necessarily represent those of the U.S. government or the Diplomatic Diary.