CIA Director and former member of the United States House of Representatives from Kansas, Mike Pompeo was selected by Donald Trump as the next Secretary of State on March 13th. Pompeo holds little knowledge on foreign policy, but he holds plenty of positions on it as well as extremist, racist and homophobic social positions, all in line with the Republican position. Pompeo would turn the State Department into a partisan entity of the federal government, following only the Republican party’s directions. Pompeo would finalize the fall of the State Department from an apolitical, experienced diplomatic corps to an organization of political hacks and will continue the Department’s degradation. 

Diplomacy is meant to be apolitical, we have seen what happened to other nations who have gone down this route of highly politicized foreign policy that Pompeo would bring America down, such as Israel, whose Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appointed himself as Foreign Minister for his country. As Foreign Minister, he has chosen to conduct diplomacy through political parties he agrees with, rather than through governments. When he came to the United States in 2015, he launched a scathing attack on President Obama and his Democratic Party and established closer relations with the Republican Party. His ignorance of America’s diplomatic leadership caused his isolation at the Iran Nuclear negotiations and resulted in virtually none of his policies to be approved. This is the reason that foreign policy must be based on national necessity, rather than political pandering. Pompeo’s extremism would do the same to America’s standing and goals that Netanyahu’s style has done to his nation’s international standing, causing more and more distrust between America and her allies. 

If Donald trump truly cares about America’s foreign policy and international standing, he would an independent and experienced diplomat, someone respected by Democrats and Republicans alike, someone serious about handling the various international challenges and above all else, someone who actually knows about foreign policy, unlike Pompeo and someone whose social positions aren’t cartoonishly conservative. Trump had an incredibly long list of options that match each of these requirements and would cost less political capital to nominate, like former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, former Secretary of State Condi Rice, former UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad or even his current UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley all would have been better and less partisan choices for Secretary of State, but the President’s paranoia has led him to choose only those he sees as “loyal” to be in his cabinet. Should Pompeo’s nomination be approved, America will be at risk from her foes and will begin to support more and more authoritarian and socially conservative nations. He must be stopped.