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Laura's avatar

Hear hear. Thank you for this nice summary---I hope someone in DC reads it too. We need more, not fewer, diplomats, and the proposal to remove all diplomatic presence in Africa is the stupidest idea yet.

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H. Cavallera's avatar

In 1963, my first IR professor was concerned about the government’s failure to support/expand the diplomatic corps and said the failure to do so would be detrimental to the country. The current administration is undercutting the State Department and allied agencies to facilitate the personal actions of the President.

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Ollie B.'s avatar

You touched on a key point in your last paragraph, Professor:

“Xi Jinping is expanding Chinese funding for diplomacy.”

If you’re going to play the game, you have to play from all the angles, not just one or two.

China understands this, especially Xi.

Hopefully Trump and his administration someday will.

Hopefully so will the rest of the Beltway Establishment.

Aloha 🇺🇸🙏🏼🤙🏼

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Julia's avatar

Wow, perhaps you're the next-generation diplomat after John Fairbank and Kissinger—your writing is so vivid and prolific, with such swift precision. Congratulations!

We do hope this proposal will receive prompt adoption.🥰

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Linda Berg's avatar

Our current president doesn’t do ‘diplomacy’; he only does business deals.

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Eugene Abramovsky's avatar

There is a problem here, how many real deals have been concluded in the last 100 days?

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