While Trump Stews, Mike Pompeo Has Been Busy

It’s unclear what Donald Trump has been doing with his time now that he is off Twitter, Facebook, etc., but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been working hard.  Karen DeYoung has a list of what he has been doing.  It’s a lot – and it’s wrong.  Instead of working on a transition, Secretary Pompeo has been throwing up roadblocks for the Biden administration.

As Ms. DeYoung notes, what Secretary Pompeo can be reversed, but in most cases, it will take time.  Also, the process of reversing those decisions could hurt the very people and policies Secretary Pompeo is trying to protect. 

For example, on January 9, Secretary Pompeo said he was revoking all guidelines on contacts between the United States government and Taiwan.  Since the United States recognized Beijing in 1979, there have been “contact guidelines” on how the United States diplomats deal with the government on Taiwan.  Secretary Pompeo said he was lifting all of those rules.  While the news articles on Secretary Pompeo’s announcement did not include Beijing’s response, they can’t be happy.  President Xi Jinping’s government has been increasing the pressure on Taiwan the last few years.  It’s unclear to me how this announcement will make things easier or safer for Taiwan.  The best way to protect Taiwan is not to wave a red flag in Beijing’s face, but to make sure, quietly and behind the scenes, that Beijing knows we will support Taiwan and we will do what is necessary to protect their right to decide their own future.  Which is the opposite of what Secretary Pompeo is doing here.

It would be nice if the Biden administration could just issue an order reversing all of these decisions at once, but that can’t be done.  Still, I wonder if the Biden administration could announce that they are going to revoke all of these actions.  That it will take a while to get it all done.  That other countries should not read anything into these revocations other than the Biden administration is putting things back to the way they were before all of these last-minute changes.  And that our policy going forward will be determined by the Biden administration when and as appropriate.

But given that probably can’t be done, all we can hope is the adverse consequences of these last-minute actions by Secretary Pompeo are not too severe.