State Department officials are increasingly fearful that President-elect Donald Trump’s adult children will assume the role of freelance ambassadors, further blurring the line between their business affairs and America's foreign affairs.
The warning signs are already there, current and former diplomats say. Trump's daughter Ivanka sat in on his meeting with the Japanese prime minister. One of Trump's sons is reported to have discussed how to resolve the Syrian war with pro-Russia figures. And the incoming president even suggested that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, could mediate between Israel and the Palestinians.
Diplomats are nervous that if Trump uses his children and other relatives as informal ambassadors, they could, intentionally or not, upend the carefully structured efforts of the foreign service. They worry other nations could take advantage of Trump relatives to circumvent trained U.S. diplomats. They also suspect that even if Trump steps away from his business, his children's extensive corporate dealings could still confuse U.S. foreign policy abroad.
Perhaps more than anything at this early stage, State Department employees are seriously annoyed by the optics.
“It makes us look like we’re some sort of banana republic," one official told POLITICO. "This is not the way that grown-up nations do things."
The concerns are just part of bigger frustrations at Foggy Bottom, where some are starting to wonder if Trump even realizes the U.S. has a thousands-strong, paid diplomatic corps.
Trump is not known to have taken any briefings from the State Department yet, despite having conversations with several foreign leaders, according to a source at State. Trump has made moves that run directly counter to U.S. foreign policy, such as speaking with Taiwan's president — a talk that upset China and suggested to U.S. diplomats that he doesn't care what they think. Trump also has yet to select a secretary of state, a delay that could be due to his awareness of the importance of that role but which is nonetheless deepening anxiety within the foreign service.
"Nobody knows what’s going on. There’s been very little contact with the Trump people," said Gerald Feierstein, a former top Middle East official who recently retired from State. "People at the department are being asked to prepare for Nikki Haley" — Trump's choice for United Nations ambassador — "but the potential secretary of state? Not so much."
It's not unprecedented for presidents to use family members, friends or even business partners as informal envoys to other countries, or to seek those people's opinions on foreign affairs.
In the early days of the republic, first lady Abigail Adams unsuccessfully pushed then-President John Adams to declare war on France. More recently, first lady Hillary Clinton — the Democrat whom Trump vanquished in this year's White House race — made a ground-breaking speech in 1995 about women's rights in China, while current first lady Michelle Obama has been a leading voice in efforts to recover hundreds of Nigerian girls kidnapped by militants.
Both Republican and Democratic presidents also frequently hand out ambassadorships as rewards to campaign donors and other acquaintances, a trend that some in the foreign service fear Trump will take to the extreme. (Already, one of Trump's ex-wives, Ivana, has volunteered to serve as the U.S. ambassador to her native Czech Republic.)
Presidents' children, too, have figured prominently at certain points in U.S. foreign policy. When John Adams appointed his son, John Quincy Adams, as U.S. minister to Prussia in 1797, he was widely accused of nepotism. But the younger Adams proved his diplomatic mettle, and years later he became president. Teddy Roosevelt decided to send his daughter Alice, the object of much public fascination due to her quirky behavior, on a goodwill tour of Asia in the early 1900s. Her success is believed to have paved the way for the U.S. to help broker an end to the Russo-Japanese war, and for her father to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Though not entirely analogous, a number of sources pointed to the more recent example of then-Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz, who was given a top job in the State Department's Middle East division in the 2000s. Much of her work focused on promoting the upsides of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
But in most such cases — even when not in a paid position — friends and relatives of a president who undertake a foreign-affairs-related mission do so with the guidance of career diplomats. The diplomats write talking points, briefing papers and sometimes sit in on the relevant sessions. It's a structured approach designed to prevent misunderstandings about the American stance on a particular subject. The paid diplomat along for the trip can step in at any moment to clarify what the president's friend or relative has said. Meetings such as the one Donald Trump Jr. had with pro-Russian figures — which took place before the Nov. 8 election — may not happen in the future if State Department can weigh in.
"If Trump is going to have his children operating basically outside of any structure, where there is no reporting mechanism, where they’re not saying what they’re doing, where they’re not advancing what is the policy of the United States, then that’s going to be a problem," Feierstein said.
The worries about how Trump's family will impact foreign policy arise are unusually acute because the incoming president relies so heavily on his adult children to help him in his business dealings, especially in promoting the licensing of the Trump brand. Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump all hold the title of executive vice president within the Trump Organization, and they are frequently the face of the company overseas, whether at its hotels or golf courses. Kushner, Ivanka's husband and himself a real estate investor, has also emerged as a power-broker in Trump world, though its not clear how well his skills will translate into brokering and ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Historically speaking, the business dealings of a president's relatives have not always dovetailed well with U.S. foreign policy. One famous example is that of President Jimmy Carter's brother Billy, who was investigated over his dealings with Libya. Billy Carter said he'd received $220,000 in loans from Libya, according to reports at the time, and there were questions about whether he'd properly registered as a representative of the North African country. A Senate committee decided in the end that Billy Carter hadn't influenced U.S. policy, but it described Jimmy Carter as negligent for not distancing himself from his brother's activities.
Trump transition team officials did not respond to a request for comment. The president-elect has promised to hold a news conference on Dec. 15 to explain how he will untangle his business interests from his role as the head of the U.S. government. A representative for the Trump children, meanwhile, did not address questions about the children's diplomatic role, but pointed to a past statement by the Trump Organization that said it was looking at ways to transfer control of its various sections from Donald Trump to Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr.
Even if the Trump children go abroad for purely business reasons, representatives of other countries may find it difficult to view them as anything other than the U.S. president's emissaries, and some may try to take advantage of the fact that they have their Trump's ear. That's especially true in countries where the state has a heavy hand in the economy, and where such conflicts of interests are not taken as seriously as they traditionally have been taken in the United States.
(The New York Times reported over the weekend that Ivanka Trump, who sat in on the meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is close to reaching a licensing deal with Sanei International, a Japanese apparel company. The Development Bank of Japan, which is owned by the Japanese government, is the largest shareholder of Sanei’s parent company, according to the Times.)
Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House, said if Trump's children act as informal, unpaid advisers, financial conflict-of-interest rules and anti-nepotism laws probably won't apply to them. Their business dealings, however, could prove a stumbling block — and not just for the Trump children, he said.
"There are a lot of business people who go around purporting to be speaking on behalf of the U.S. government or friends in government and it is hard to prevent that. The problem is that when they are the president's kids, this can be taken seriously," Painter wrote in an email. "There is a big risk that anyone discussing Trump business and U.S. government business in the same conversation or with the same people could be accused of offering or soliciting a bribe — e.g. 'I want you to do this for the Trump organization — and I can get the US government to do this for you.' That could be a criminal offense.
"This is one reason the president should sell the business holdings," Painter added. 'It is critical that anyone working for these companies not engage in the types of conversations I describe above."
U.S. diplomats interviewed said whoever Trump chooses as his secretary of state should consider trying to get a clear understanding of the role Trump's children and other relatives will play overseas. At this stage, many are still holding out hope that the president-elect will select a secretary who can draw appropriate lines around who is responsible for what, easing some of the anxieties in a department with roughly 75,000 employees across the world.
The situation with the Trump family "would be something you would need to focus on and manage," one U.S. diplomat said. He added, however, that when it comes to countries where Trump has business holdings, "If I was an ambassador in that situation I would be getting very specific guidance from the State Department ethics office."