Congressional leaders have repeatedly criticized the Biden administration, for example, for appointing special envoys for Sudan and the Horn of Africa, while empowering neither with interagency-approved strategies that spell out U.S. interests and intentions. Rather than being pressured by Congress to produce these strategies, envoys should help lead the process of developing these strategies so that they too understand them and are committed to their success.
Increasingly, the challenges we face across Africa and the opportunities the United States wants to pursue are not defined by national boundaries. Terrorism, climate change, economic development, and supply chain security today cut across countries and regions in ways that the Westphalian model of nineteenth-century diplomatic missions is increasingly ill-equipped to manage. Instead, the Trump administration has the opportunity to purpose-build a diplomatic approach to a diverse continent that identifies and advances U.S. core interests and makes clear to U.S. partners and adversaries what matters most to Washington.
As the Trump administration considers a broader set of reforms to how our government works, which could include scaling back the size and remit of the United States’ career diplomatic corps, it has an opportunity to operationalize the dictum that “personnel is policy” with a series of intentional appointments that allow them to focus less on process and more on the outcomes they have defined as strategic priorities.
Cameron Hudson is a senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
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