Richard Grenell speaks throughout a ceremony in Belgrade, Serbia, in October 2023. President-elect Donald Trump has introduced he is picked the longtime overseas coverage adviser to function an envoy for particular missions
Darko Vojinovic/AP/AP
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Darko Vojinovic/AP/AP
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump introduced Saturday that he is picked longtime overseas coverage adviser Richard Grenell to function an envoy for particular missions, tasking him with serving to the incoming administration take care of a few of the hardest overseas coverage challenges.
Grenell served as ambassador to Germany throughout Trump’s first administration, particular presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, and did a stint as appearing director of nationwide intelligence.
He was additionally a contender to function secretary of state, however Trump opted to appoint Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
“Ric will work in a few of the hottest spots across the World, together with Venezuela and North Korea,” Trump stated in a posting on his social media platform, Reality Social, asserting the appointment.
Grenell throughout Trump’s first time period developed a status for using a typically contentious strategy to diplomacy that rankled allies and the overseas coverage institution in Washington. However his fashion was appreciated by the president-elect who sees worth in blunt discuss with allies.
Grenell remained near Trump after he left workplace in 2021, serving at instances as a key adviser on overseas coverage.
He was within the room when Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in September. Grenell has advocated for a peace deal that might protect Ukraine’s territory whereas nonetheless permitting for “autonomous areas” the place Russia may stay in management.
He is additionally suggested in opposition to increasing NATO to incorporate Ukraine, saying — as Trump has — that the alliance should not develop till present members meet the alliance’s protection spending targets. Members of the transatlantic alliance have dedicated for years to spending 2% of their GDP on protection, however a number of nations nonetheless fall in need of the goal.
He was an early supporter of Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign and held a number of occasions for the Republican nominee targeted on economics and nationwide safety.
Talking on the Republican Nationwide Conference, Grenell echoed Trump’s mantra that “it is time to put America first” on the worldwide stage and argued that China and Russia noticed President Joe Biden’s administration as weak.
Trump raised considerations amongst some allies throughout the 2024 marketing campaign when he stated he wouldn’t defend NATO members that failed to fulfill protection spending targets, and warned he would “encourage” Russia “to do regardless of the hell they need” to alliance nations that he thought of “delinquent.”
Grenell has downplayed Trump’s criticisms of NATO and stated the one discuss of leaving the alliance altogether “was actually from the media.”
“What we’re saying is, do not come to the marriage with no present,” Grenell stated.
Grenell was a part of the Trump marketing campaign’s outreach to Arab American voters in Michigan, the place the president-elect made positive factors with a historically Democratic constituency regardless of his historical past of banning immigration from a number of majority-Muslim nations. Grenell orchestrated pro-Trump occasions with Arab American voters, together with a Might assembly held in Troy, Michigan.
A U.S. spokesman on the United Nations throughout the George W. Bush administration, Grenell, like many different Republicans, has his personal historical past of criticizing Trump earlier than embracing him.
As soon as an adviser to GOP moderates like 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney and a supporter of homosexual marriage, Grenell, who’s brazenly homosexual, deleted social media posts blasting Trump as “reckless” and “harmful” as soon as the previous actuality TV star grew to become the Republican nominee in 2016.
Trump additionally introduced Saturday that he is appointing Devin Nunes, the chief government officer of the president-elect’s Reality Social platform, to go a presidential advisory board that may maintain tabs on the U.S. intelligence neighborhood.
Nunes will proceed main Trump Media & Know-how Group. Trump is the corporate’s largest shareholder.
The previous California lawmaker chaired the Home Intelligence Committee and was one in every of Trump’s closest allies in Congress throughout the president-elect’s first time period.
