Biden taps ex-Chicago mayor as ambassador to Japan
CHICAGO — President Joe Biden will nominate Rahm Emanuel as his ambassador to Japan, capping off months of speculation that the former Chicago mayor would be tapped for the prominent foreign post, the White House announced Friday.
The move will give Mr. Biden a deeply experienced government tactician and political veteran in his ranks of top diplomats, but the choice will also receive continued criticism from some in the Democratic Party’s progressive wing who have been critical of Mr. Emanuel’s eight-year tenure as mayor.
“For nearly 30 years I have worked with President Biden on behalf of the American people, and I am honored that he has nominated me to serve as Ambassador to Japan,” Mr. Emanuel said in a statement released by the White House. “The alliance between the United States and Japan is the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific, and I would proudly represent our nation with one of our most critical global allies in one of the most critical geopolitical regions.”
Mr. Biden’s selection of Mr. Emanuel as ambassador had been expected since the spring. The president also on Friday named Nicholas Burns as ambassador to China, an assignment for which Mr. Emanuel also had been in the running. Mr. Burns, a former ambassador and senior State Department official who is a Harvard professor, helped advise Mr. Biden’s campaign on foreign policy.
“This region of the world and these two relationships are among the most important for the United States, for different reasons. So the president has nominated two people with a tremendous amount of experience,” said a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the selections.
“One, Rahm Emanuel, who has had a distinguished career in public service — mayor of the third-largest city in the U.S., chief of staff to President Obama, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Sr. Adviser to President Clinton,” the official said. “The other — a professional diplomat who has served presidents of both political parties and has four decades of experience in diplomacy all around the world.”
The former mayor now faces confirmation by the U.S. Senate before he can take up the post in Tokyo. The Biden administration has faced criticism for the slow pace of its ambassador appointments, with its first nominees gaining confirmation from the Senate just earlier this month.
The earliest Mr. Emanuel could expect confirmation would be this fall. Given the number of outstanding confirmations, it’s likely Mr. Emanuel’s nomination will be considered along with several other ambassador choices, which would lessen the likelihood he would face individual scrutiny from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Mr. Emanuel has faced criticism on the left for his handling while mayor of the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald and from Republicans for Chicago’s status as a sanctuary city and its history of struggling to tamp down violent crime. However, he has deep relationships in Washington and Congress with an established track record as a top official in two White Houses.
As Mr. Biden fills out his slate of ambassadors, he has looked to reduce the number of political appointees to embassies around the world in favor of career diplomats — a move that is aimed at reinvigorating confidence in the State Department and longtime Foreign Service officials. Political appointees typically fall into one of two categories: experienced and connected officeholders such as Mr. Emanuel and those who bundled major campaign contributions for the president.
In Japan, the nation’s leaders have come to expect a high-profile name as the top U.S. envoy. Mr. Emanuel fits that bill as a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, a member of the U.S. House leadership and first chief of staff to President Barack Obama prior to his tenure running City Hall in the nation’s third-largest city.
Mr. Emanuel would enter the job with the most political and government experience since Howard H. Baker Jr., the former Republican Senate majority leader who served as former President Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff and as ambassador to Japan under former President George W. Bush.