Month: November 2024

The Wall Street Journal reports that Brazil and China used the G-20 meeting in Rio de Janiero to move closer together. The article said: As Xi Jinping prepares for a thorny trade relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, he is cultivating a rapport with someone he calls a like-minded good friend, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio…

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary O’Grady says the G-20 meeting in Rio de Janiero illustrates Brazil’s problems. She says: Brazil has long yearned to replace the U.S. as the regional hegemon on the South American continent. But seizing that role requires moral authority and economic heft. Lula is squandering both.…

The Carneige Institute interviewed Brazilian President Lula’s long-time foreign policy adviser< Celso Amorim, who served as Lula’s foreign minister in his first term. When I was science officer at the American embassy in Brazil, Amorim was the foreign ministry’s adviser to the science ministry. Amorim was not a fan of…

Secretary of State Blinken has appointed Amb. Steve Mull to lead the transition activities preparing for the Trump administration, according to Reuters. Steve and I served together in Warsaw, Poland, where he was the political counselor and I was the Science Counselor.

John Limbert was one of the American diplomats held hostage by the Iranians during the Carter administration. The Associastion for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) has his interview about his experience. Amb. Limbert and I joined the Foreign Service at the same time and began our careers at the same…

According to the Washington Post, Trump plans to destroy much of the State Department’s organization and bureaucracy. Trump associates echo “Trump’s insistence on the need to ‘drain the swamp’ of national security officials who are not prepared to forcefully and enthusiastically implement whatever his priorities may be.” Under a Trump rewriting…