The Trump administration has just confirmed what some had suspected for several years now — that the posting to Athens as U.S. Ambassador has become little more than a sinecure to be utilized by the President as a prize or even a reward for services rendered to the victor. While the general process of nominating presidential confidantes and major donors to the more sought-after ambassadorial slots is a longstanding element of U.S. politics, it is relatively recent that Greece fell into that category, having long been considered a tough and even dangerous assignment requiring the skills possessed by an experienced career diplomat in almost all cases.
Reacting to media leaks, President-elect Donald Trump announced on December 10 that he plans to nominate campaign fundraiser and former Fox News announcer Kimberly Guilfoyle as the next U.S. Ambassador to Greece. The key element here is not her foreign policy expertise, which in this case is next to nothing, but her relationship with the Trump family, namely son Donald “Don” Jr, with whom a long engagement period including co-habitation and joint real estate purchases has just collapsed and become public knowledge.
In other words, the timing of the assignment looks to be a taxpayer-funded consolation prize or “severance package” at the very least. There is even speculation that the ambassadorial posting is a legal form of “hush money” since Guilfoyle, with experience as a San Francisco prosecutor (in the very same office as Kamala Harris) and journalist will have learned enough secrets about the Trump family businesses to fill several books/movies. This is not Stormy Daniels V2.0 or V2.5 clearly, but with her accumulated knowledge, her financial future is obviously secure.
Of course, none of this is really matters, since for now she is a hard-core Trump loyalist, which is the kind of ambassador Trump increasingly loves to appoint, as opposed to the career types. A corollary to that, some insightful Greeks have already predicted, should be increased White House interest in bilateral ties with Greece and quite possibly an official visit during Trump’s second term (Air Force One has stopped briefly for refueling at the NATO base in Souda Bay during the first Trump presidency without any bilateral meetings).
There are just a few details to sort out. One is of course the confirmation process, but with a Republican controlled Senate, the only problem will come if either the U.S. Government bureaucracy or the Greek American community generate major resistance. That is unlikely but not impossible, as there could be a well-camouflaged minotaur lurking somewhere.
We should not forget that the current U.S. Ambassador, George Tsunis, a Biden political appointee, had a problematic history when it comes to confirmation hearings, and essentially failed to advance when nominated for the ambassadorial slot in Norway under President Obama (as a key Democratic fundraiser) due to his incomplete answers in the Senate hearing. He later withdrew.
A different alignment of political forces allowed Tsunis to sail almost effortlessly through the 2021 Senate hearings for the Greece job, for which he obviously had strong country knowledge. Nevertheless, the State Department posted a skilled Deputy Chief of Mission to handle the day-to-day Embassy operations, with the end result being fairly positive although the U.S. Embassy was largely closed to the world except for the Ambassador himself.
It remains to be seen how the State Department will manage/support Guilfoyle, essentially a fish out of water in all things diplomatic except for her media skills, which in the Greek media galaxy need to be handled very cautiously. Working in Greece she will encounter a very polite but left-leaning media establishment that will labor steadily to undermine her and her boss President Trump, except for the few media outlets controlled by Trump-friendly oligarchs open to “equitable transactions” with the new Ambassador.
Simply put, Guilfoyle will not have an easy time; this will be no island-studded vacation. Some see her assignment by Trump as an insult to Greece, to the diplomatic profession, as well as proof of a major downgrading of the bilateral relationship. But the same thing could be said about any other ambassadorial posting she would receive, based on her unorthodox career path. Guilfoyle is already on record as calling Greeks “freeloaders” during the economic crisis but if she focuses on the structural reforms emerging from the crisis and strong economic management by the current Greek government, she may be able to walk this searing insult back. But maybe not.
Check the full comment, there is certainly a large amount that she will have to carefully walk back: “You guys are retiring too early… And that’s part of the problem. You have, like, politicians making out-of-control promises, buying votes with entitlements that they can’t support,” she said, adding, “It doesn’t matter if you made great yogurt. I don’t care.”
Since some of the NE Global team is based in Greece, we have a good sense of the Greek public’s reaction to the unexpected nomination. Most were hoping a knowledgeable career diplomat would be dispatched, as under the first Trump presidency that gentleman — Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt (actually posted by Obama’s team) — scored significant achievements such as the well-known Prespes Agreement and raised Greece’s status in Washington noticeably. In truth, much of the progress was due to the hard work of a reform-minded center-right government in Athens elected in 2019 after the bumbling socialists who signed the Prespes deal — and anything else Washington asked for — were angrily run out of power.
It took barely 24 hours for the Greek media to siphon up and recirculate all the negative reporting on Guilfoyle that was available online and they will be even faster dispatching reports to the U.S. media of her every activity/remark here. Greeks were quick to comment on the lurid details regarding her rushed departure from Fox News, her apparent love of plastic surgery (something the Greeks know very well as major consumers of that service), rich male companions and expensive Florida real estate. Her deep involvement in the events of January 6, 2021, has also been unearthed and is not going to earn her many friends in Athens.
But this will pass. However, most Greeks are obsessed with analyzing the reaction of the Greek American community, which works hard to present itself to the Greeks as the ultimate kingmakers in U.S. politics, but which is itself deeply divided and provided substantial political and financial support to both parties.
Will the Greek Americans protest the Guilfoyle nomination in any way, or just accept that for now Trump and MAGA are calling all the shots?
And if the ambassadorial assignment isn’t enough for you, President-elect Trump has just announced that the infamous former Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell will be now be named as “Presidential Envoy for Special Missions.” Let’s not forget what he did not achieve in the U.S.-German relationship or in the Balkans during Trump’s first term, or his recent work in prospecting for real estate deals across the Balkans along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, cashing in big time on the White House connection (past and future).
