Reference News Network, December 25 report: According to Reuters, on December 24, Democratic senators urged President Trump to revoke his decision to recall nearly 30 career ambassadors, warning that the move would create a dangerous leadership vacuum, allowing adversaries such as Russia and China to expand their influence.
The report said that the Trump administration recently ordered career diplomats stationed in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America to return to Washington to ensure that U.S. embassies abroad reflect its "America First" priorities.
The U.S. State Department did not specify how or when the ambassadors would be replaced. A senior State Department official said on December 22 that the recall was a "standard procedure of the government."
However, 10 Democratic senators on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who wrote to Trump, said that this sudden large-scale recall was an "unprecedented action," and no other government had taken such an action since the establishment of the Bureau of Overseas Missions by Congress a century ago, and there is no plan to replace these ambassadors with qualified candidates.
In a letter seen by Reuters, these senators said that the recall would leave more than 100 ambassadorial positions vacant, accounting for about half of the total number of ambassadorial positions worldwide. They said that 80 ambassadorial positions were already vacant before this decision was made.
These Democrats wrote in the letter: "While over 100 U.S. embassies abroad are led by no one, waiting for new ambassadors, China, Russia, and other countries will maintain regular communication with foreign leaders we have effectively abandoned, which will allow our adversaries to expand their influence, limit even harm to American interests." (Translated by Wang Haifang)
Original: toutiao.com/article/7587720460897485354/
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