Trump might be hurting U.S. businesses by leaving so many ambassador posts empty
By Geoffrey Gertz May 10 at 7:00 AM
Wednesday, on his first day on the job, new U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell sparked a minor controversy after warning on Twitter that “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.” German businesses did not appreciate this threat. The episode further strained already rocky U.S.-German commercial relations.
German businesses and commentators have noted that it’s “undiplomatic” for an ambassador to use such a tone or issue threats to the business community in their host country. Yet as my research shows, Grenell’s intervention was also undiplomatic for another reason. Typically, U.S. ambassadors don’t spend their time quarreling with foreign companies, but rather advocating for American businesses. And though Grenell’s first days since taking up the vacant ambassador posting in Berlin have raised commercial tensions, in general, ambassadors help resolve commercial conflicts, not create them.
This research has important implications for understanding the vacancies issue at the State Department. There are 55 empty ambassador positions — including 39 posts for which no one has even been nominated. (This excludes six countries with which the United States does not exchange ambassadors: Belarus, Bolivia, Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela.)
Filling these ambassador vacancies is important for helping American businesses get ahead — exactly the kind of foreign-policy goal President Trump says is a top priority.
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