The new U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman, centre, stands next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, after presenting diplomatic credentials Tuesday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stands with them. (Pavel Golovkin/Reuters)
Amie Ferris-Rotman, Emily Tamkin, Robbie Gramer, Foreign Policy: Trump’s Man in Moscow
Most of Washington is scared to meet with Russians. Jon Huntsman wants to meet as many as possible.
When Jon Huntsman was serving as the U.S. ambassador in Beijing during President Barack Obama’s first term, he observed his counterpart in Washington with envy. Cui Tiankai got meetings with the American political elite, from Hillary Clinton to Henry Kissinger, even before the Chinese emissary assumed his official post.
Huntsman, by contrast, found mostly closed doors. The Chinese, he recalled in a recent interview with Foreign Policy, typically assigned American ambassadors to a specific level in government, and breaking out of that was all but impossible.
Fast forward to 2017. Huntsman surprised many — from Never-Trumpers to Russia analysts — by becoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s man in Moscow. And one of his first moves was to demand that whatever level of meetings Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov gets in Washington, he should get the same in Moscow.
“I didn’t want to replay that” experience in China, Huntsman said, “so I made it clear when I started this job, that I wanted to make sure that wherever the Russian ambassador [had access], then I had similar access, and where I get access, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov should get access.”
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WNU Editor: U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman's explanation on what is his role in Russia .... and how his experiences in China are helping him now .... are spot on. If this Foreign Policy article is correct .... he is definitely the right man in the right place at the right time.