President Joe Biden will soon announce nominations for high profile ambassadorships, and many of the nominees will be long-time friends, donors and past aides, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Biden has taken longer than most recent presidents to fill out U.S. embassies abroad, with the ambassadorships to the U.K., Canada, Germany, China, and dozens of others going unfilled. He is expected to announce the nominations as early as this week, according to the Post.
Biden will reportedly nominate Cindy McCain, the widow of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain as ambassador to the World Food Program based in Rome; former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to be the ambassador to Japan; Comcast executive David Cohen as ambassador to Canada, and former Obama official Ken Salazar as ambassador to Mexico.
More expected nominations:
-Rahm Emanuel: Japan
-Mark Gitenstein: European Union
-Julie Smith: NATO
-Cindy McCain: UN Food Programme
-Ken Salazar: Mexico
-Chris Dodd and Jeff Flake also expected to get postings during Biden tenure— Tyler Pager (@tylerpager) April 27, 2021
Presidents commonly hand out certain ambassadorships to prominent donors and other wealthy allies, and the White House has reportedly been debating how many ambassadorships to set aside for that purpose, according to USA Today.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 12: Cindy McCain speaks during the 10th Anniversary Women In The World Summit at David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on April 12, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
Other names include the likely nomination of Denise Bauer to be ambassador to France. Bauer formerly served as ambassador to Belgium under President Barack Obama and she worked to organize female support for Biden ahead of 2020.
There is no news on a potential nominee for Beijing, however. The empty post is striking as Biden has placed America’s ongoing “competition” with China at the center of his foreign policy. He has said the competition between the two nations will determine whether democracy or autocracy will rule the world going into the future. The White House has announced no updates on how far along it is in making a nomination. (RELATED: President Biden Launches Pentagon Task Force To Counter China)
