Singapore has a new US ambassador. Dr Anjani Sinha who was from India and doesn’t even speak with an American accent, was nominated by President Donald Trump in March 2025. Accent aside, he doesn’t know the first thing about Singapore. On July 9, 2025, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a confirmation hearing for Sinha. During the hearing, he was criticized by Senator Tammy Duckworth as “unqualified” for his responses to questions about Singapore, its relationship with the United States, and its role within ASEAN.
Many people have mocked and derided him. Some saw it as a sign that the US is sinking deeper and deeper in the abyss. Do you think that Trump is unaware of all this? Well, I see it differently. Sending a clueless ambassador does say something positive about the relationship between our two countries. Let’s take a look at China. Who’s the US ambassador there?
The PRC
Relationships between the two countries are defined by intense strategic competition tempered by ongoing, but fragile, diplomatic and economic engagements. Under the second Trump administration, an escalating trade war and a greater focus on domestic issues have led to both increased tensions and pragmatic negotiations. Who did they send as ambassador? Definitely nobody like Anjani Sinha.
https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/:
Ambassador David Perdue was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Ambassador to China on April 29, 2025. He previously served as U.S. Senator for Georgia from 2015 to 2021. When elected, he was the only former Fortune 500 CEO in Congress. During his tenure, he served on the Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Banking, Budget, and Agriculture Committees. He chaired the Subcommittees on Sea Power and State Department Oversight and traveled extensively to strengthen U.S. partnerships across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
Prior to public service, Ambassador Perdue spent over four decades as an American business leader. During his career he lived in France, Singapore, and the United States, as well as Hong Kong where he led Asia operations for Sara Lee Corporation. Later, he served as President of the Reebok athletic brand and Chairman and CEO of Dollar General stores. He has served on the boards of multiple public and private companies, as well as on philanthropic boards including the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents. He was also Chairman of the National Commission on Adult Literacy and Workforce Development.
A native of Warner Robins, Georgia, Ambassador Perdue grew up on his family’s farm and worked his way through college. One of his first jobs was with a Head Start program helping children learn to read. He holds a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering and a Master of Science in Operations Research from Georgia Tech. He and his wife met in the first grade and have been married for over 50 years. They have two sons and three grandsons.
Taiwan (ROC)
The US has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. They do have the equivalent of an ambassador in the form of the director of the American Institute, Raymond Greene.
American Institute in Taiwan:
Raymond F. Greene assumed duties as the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on July 8, 2024. Prior to this assignment, he served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. Mr. Greene is a member of the State Department’s Senior Foreign Service with the personal rank of Minister-Counselor and has spent his entire 28-year career advancing U.S. diplomatic, economic, and security engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. In Washington, Mr. Greene was Director for Japan and East Asian Economic Affairs at National Security Council and Director of the Office of Economic Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In the latter capacity, Mr. Greene was elected as Chair of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum’s Economic Committee.
Overseas, Mr. Greene served as U.S. Consul General in Chengdu, China, Okinawa, Japan and as the Deputy Director at AIT. Earlier assignments included Chief of the Political-Military Affairs Unit at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Deputy Chief of the Political Section at AIT Taipei, and as a political officer in Tokyo and Manila. Mr. Greene was the first Baker-Kato Diplomatic Exchange Fellow at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo. He also was assigned as a State Department Faculty Advisor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Greene holds a B.A. (Government/Japanese) and M.P.M. (International Security and Economic Policy) from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the recipient of the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the Ryozo Kato Award for Advancing the U.S.-Japan Alliance, the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy (Taiwan), and several State Department Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Greene was a researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC and spent a year in Yokohama on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program. Mr. Greene also known as Mr 谷立言 is married to Taiwanese 柯雅文 and speaks both Japanese and Mandarin fluently.
UAE
The US has a major defence partnership with the UAE. The UAE also hosts U.S. military personnel and naval vessels at its facilities.
US Embassy UAE:
Eric Gaudiosi is a Senior Foreign Service Officer who assumed his duties at the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi in August 2023. He assumed responsibility as Chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in August 2025.
Mr. Gaudiosi served most recently as Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt (2020-2023). He served before as the Director for Levant Affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (2018-2019) and as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for UN Political Affairs and for Peacekeeping Operations in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs (2017-2018).
Mr. Gaudiosi is a Political Officer and has served as Political Counselor in both Cairo and Budapest. He has also served overseas in Libya, Bosnia, Italy, and Jordan, as well as in Policy Planning, EUR/RPM, EUR/SCE, and NEA/ARP in the Department.
Mr. Gaudiosi is a native of Philadelphia and a graduate of Emory University. He attended the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas before joining the Foreign Service and speaks Italian, Bosnian, Hungarian, Arabic, and German. He is accompanied in Abu Dhabi by his wife, Dr. Rebecca Gaudiosi, and their seven-year-old daughter, Eleanor.
Saudi Arabia
Wikipedia:
Michael Ratney is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Minister-Counselor. He joined the service in 1990. Prior to his appointment as Ambassador, he served as the Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute. His most recent assignment before this was chargé d’affaires a.i. at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Ratney served as the dean of the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute. He was previously on the National Defense University faculty. He served as the State Department’s acting deputy assistant secretary for the Levant and Israel and Palestinian Affairs, and was the U.S. special envoy for Syria. Earlier, Ratney was the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem. He was the deputy assistant secretary for international media in the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs. Prior to this, he served as a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Other assignments include serving as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Doha, Qatar, as well as tours in Mexico City, Baghdad, Beirut, Casablanca, Bridgetown, and Washington, D.C.
Indonesia
Indonesia, the largest country in ASEAN. Its population is well over 280 million and its GDP is close to 1.4 trillion. Decisions made by Indonesia will have a significant impact on ASEAN.
Peter Haymond is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, joining the Foreign Service in 1991. Previous posts include being Director of the State Department’s Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, Consul General at the United States Consulate in Chengdu, China, and Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Vientiane, Laos. He also served as Division Chief in the Office of Energy and Commodities in the Bureau of Economic and Energy Affairs at the Department of State, and as Arabian Peninsula Officer in the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator. He recently served as Chargé d’Affaires at the United States Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. He speaks Lao, Thai, Mandarin, and French.
Israel:
Now for Israel, the US’s only democratic ally in the Middle East. Since the October 7, 2023, attacks, U.S. military support has been extensive. This includes billions in military aid, expedited weapons shipments, and the deployment of U.S. military assets to the region.
Wikipedia:
Michael Dale Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is an American politician, diplomat, and Baptist minister serving as the 29th United States ambassador to Israel since 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, and ran for his party’s presidential nomination in both 2008 and 2016.
Huckabee was the host of the talk show Huckabee, which ran on the Fox News Channel from 2008 to 2015, and on TBN from October 2017 to January 2025. From April 2012 through December 2013, he also hosted a daily radio program, The Mike Huckabee Show, on weekday afternoons for Cumulus Media Networks. Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor noted for his Evangelical views, a musician, and a public speaker. He has written several books, and was previously a political commentator on The Huckabee Report.
Hukabee is a Baptist minister and a TV talk show host. Can you see the similarities and the differences now? Singapore got a sports medicine specialist and Israel got an entertainer. The sort of ambassador that the US sends to Israel and to Singapore is a clear indication that they don’t expect any problems from us. Instead of expressing shock and despair, we should heave a sigh of relief.