Former U.S ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was removed from the job after Trump ordered it, said that the State Department is in trouble.
She was speaking at Georgetown University on Wednesday as she said:
“Senior leaders lack policy vision, moral clarity, and leadership skills. Foreign service officers are wondering if it is safe to express concerns about policy, even behind closed doors.’’
This was the first public appearance of the ex-ambassador after her retirement from the State Department and she received a standing ovation from the students and other former diplomats during her introduction at the university.
Before recalling her, Trump called Yovanovich ‘’bad news’’ and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said that she was talking bad about him. Trump also told the president of Ukraine that Yovanovitch is going through some things.
According to NPR, Yovanovitch was at Georgetown to receive the Trainor Award for excellence in diplomacy, given by the university’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. She told the gathering that under the Trump administration, “The policy process has been replaced by decisions emanating from the top, with little discussion.’’
‘’To be blunt, an amoral, keep-’em-guessing foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear, and confusion for trust can not work over the long haul,’’ said Yovanovitch during her speech.
Yovanovitch is a daughter of refugees who fled left Europe after World War 2, and is a refugee herself who started her career during the Cold War.
“The world that we knew then was shaped by World War 2, the rise of Soviet communism and the framework that we put in place to manage all those challenges,’’ said Yovanovich.
“The creaking sound we can all hear? That’s the sound of institutions of the international order straining under the tremendous pressure they’ve been put under,’’ added Yovanovich, saying that the old certainties no longer hold in this era.
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