During the Trump administration, the usual ways of conducting diplomacy have been upended. Many positions in the State Department have never been filled, and meetings with foreign leaders such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin have been undertaken with little advance planning. What effect are these changes having now, and how will they affect ongoing relationships between the United States and its allies and adversaries? Ambassador Nick Burns and Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield team up to address these questions.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns is the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy & International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is the founder and Faculty Chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Faculty Chair of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship. As a career Foreign Service Officer, he was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008. He was U.S. Ambassador to NATO (2001-2005), Ambassador to Greece (1997-2001) and State Department Spokesman (1995-1997).
**Linda Thomas-Greenfield** is an American diplomat who is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President Joe Biden. A member of the Democratic Party[citation needed], she served as the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2013 to 2017. Thomas-Greenfield then served in the private sector as a senior vice president at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington, D.C. President Biden nominated her to be the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and she was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 23, 2021. She took office after presenting her credentials on February 25, 2021.