Failing at Top Speed

The top State Department envoy responsible for overseeing U.S. policy at the United Nations and other international organizations stepped down from her post Friday, continuing an exodus that is thinning the ranks of America’s most experienced career diplomats, according to a U.S. official.

[...]

[Tracey Ann] Jacobson’s announcement came on the same day that William Rivington Brownfield, who has been serving as U.S. Assistance Secretary of State of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs since January 10, 2011, told his department that he would also step down by the end of September. It comes about four months after his wife, Kristie Kenney, on of the most senior foreign service officers in the State Department, announced her resignation.

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Early last week, FP reported that the State Department’s top official for European affairs, John Heffern, was driven from his job.

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Foreign Policy reported earlier this month that Tillerson was considering making Brownfield the administration’s top envoy for Latin America. Brownfield — a recipient of the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award and the Presidential Performance Award three times — did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[...]

Plans to have the president participate in a high-level meeting on famine hosted by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres have already been shelved. Instead, an official representing the U.S. Agency for International Development will attend.

  Foreign Policy

That's interesting. But then there's this...

[H]e is likely to preside over a side meeting on reform of the international organization.

[...]

The move reinforces the impression among foreign delegations that the Trump administration sees little value in the U.N. or the virtue of a robust American diplomatic corps.

The White House has been seeking to impose cuts of as much as 37 percent to the State Department budget. The administration is targeting even higher cuts for the U.N. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has boasted that she has secured more than $600 million in cuts to peacekeeping missions.

What a thing to brag about.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.