Who Is Jon Huntsman?

Daniel R. DePetris

Politics, Americas

What’s good for Huntsman might not necessarily be good for Trump.

Deputy secretary of state, the second most powerful official in the foreign-service bureaucracy, is turning out to be one of the most difficult positions for the Trump administration to fill. Elliott Abrams, a former Reagan and Bush administration official, was called in for an interview last month, but was scuttled at the last minute once Trump was alerted to Abrams’s vociferous criticism during the GOP primary. Then there was John Bolton, the unilateralist uber-hawk who is still tight with the Trump camp but was passed up for reasons that haven’t been fully disclosed (although one can surmise that his advocacy for the invasion of Iraq didn’t help).

Now, former Utah governor, ambassador and 2012 Republican presidential aspirant Jon Huntsman is apparently in the mix. According to the Wall Street Journal, the former U.S. ambassador to China under the Obama administration is on the short list for the State Department’s number two, as well as another ambassadorship. Given his ambition and his diplomatic experience, it’s difficult to see how Huntsman turns down a senior job in the administration if in fact he’s offered one. But what’s good for Huntsman might not necessarily be good for Trump.

For a variety of reasons, Huntsman is a questionable fit. Indeed, a former senior Republican foreign-policy official with whom I spoke recently raised a number of cogent doubts about Huntsman. He lauded Huntsman’s diplomatic work, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, which is fast becoming (if it isn’t already) the most geostrategically important area of the world for U.S. foreign policy. This official told me that Huntsman “knows China” like the back of his hand and has proven himself to be a “polished guy” who will work well with foreign governments. None of this should come as a surprise; after all, he speaks Mandarin, has studied the region for decades, and represented the interests of the United States in China for two years (and in Singapore for two years in the early 1990s).