Foreign diplomats and international relations experts are watching Donald Trump’s slow roll-out of his proposed cabinet with a mixture of cautious relief and utter horror, according to a report from Politico.
According to the report, the choice of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as secretary of state was greeted with faint praise because he has a proven history as the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
On the other hand, Trump’s selection of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is causing no small amount of alarm due to her past cozying up to authoritarian strongmen both while she was serving in Congress and after.
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According to Politico’s Nicholas Vinocur and Clea Caulcutt, diplomatic observers were lulled into a sense of relief by the president-elect’s early picks until he announced Gabbard at which point alarm bells went off.
“Gabbard, a former congresswoman who is known for amplifying conspiracy theories, meeting with Syrian leader Bashar Assad and embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin, was viewed as a particularly stunning choice,” the report stated with Nathalie Loiseau, former French Europe minister under President Emmanuel Macron, commenting, “This is really terrifying.”
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who heads the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence, issued a bleak warning, “The time of European restraint and the hope that the USA would protect us is over.”
Viewing Trump’s overall picks, one European diplomat offered, “I’m not sure whether it’s really possible to make any sensible predictions about the direction of this administration based on the staff picks.”
Politico is reporting there is “little optimism” over Gabbard handling sensitive intel while heading DNI.
François Heisbourg, senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote, “This is seriously big and bad. I hope the Senate will block her confirmation — but I don’t expect that to happen.”
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