How Ivanka Trumps Painfully Awkward Global Posturing Harms U.S. Diplomacy

July 3, 2019, 12:33 PM EDT
By Daniel B. Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel

Imagine being Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Or national security adviser John Bolton. Here are two of President Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants. They have taken no small number of slings and arrows from bipartisan critics in the U.S. foreign policy community on his behalf. As befits their positions, they have a reasonable expectation they will be the president’s key advisers on foreign policy and seen to be such by American and international observers.

How, then, do they explain their relative place in the Trump hierarchy after Ivanka Trump’s prominent participation in the president’s trip to Asia last week?

Ivanka, who holds the title of adviser to the president, was seemingly everywhere. Here she is offering a video readout, tweeted by the White House, of the president’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Here she is standing in a photo line of world leaders. Here she is inserting herself — painfully, awkwardly — into a conversation among French President Emanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May and International Monetary Fund Chairwoman Christine Lagarde.

She was publicly thanked by Trump as Pompeo’s equal on a stage before U.S. forces in South Korea. And, most shockingly, she accompanied Trump to the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas before his sit-down with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ivanka-trump-s-asia-trip-wasn-t-just-awkward-it-ncna1026231

Just the fact that "Daniel B. Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel" is whining here causes me to believe Ivankas presence is a good thing.

Poor neocons Bolton/Pompeo where sidelined...