Withdrawing from Afghanistan. Combating climate change. Working to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Those major actions of the U.S. have shaped the country’s reputation across the globe.
For Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau, those are all ongoing events that concern U.S. policymakers.
But the biggest area the U.S. is working to improve: its humility, Trudeau said.
“When we sit across the table, and we talk to our foreign counterparts on things like racial equity and human rights and free and fair elections, we need to acknowledge that the United States is not perfect,” she said.
“Americans believe in many cases that we have the right solution to every problem,” Trudeau said, but the U.S. has “profound” issues that need to be addressed, such as racism, homelessness and the opioid crisis.
“Because only then, can you have that conversation with other countries as equal,” Trudeau said during an interview with the Review-Journal while she was visiting Las Vegas.
Seeking help
It is important that the U.S. work with other countries in strengthening their relationships, so that when the U.S. faces a crisis, it can seek help from other countries.
Trudeau mentioned that after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis by a police officer, she was in Belfast in Northern Ireland, a place with divided societies and active terrorist threats. The police constable for the province who successfully reformed the police service told her he could help the U.S. with its issues.
She took him up on it: He is working with colleagues in the U.S., Trudeau said.
Every country has its own politics, its own cultures and different types of government work, she said. It’s impossible to say one style of government is wrong and one is right.
“Democracy is messy. It’s messy. But you know what? It works. We’re proud of it. We’re still refining it. We don’t have all the answers. We are a very young country. And I think people forget that. But democracy works,” Trudeau said.
Keep talking
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said you don’t gain anything by not talking to people even if you don’t agree with them, Trudeau said.
“That’s not what diplomacy is. That’s not how America builds relationships. If you shun, you isolate, you refuse to engage. There’s no winners,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau sat down with the Review-Journal while she was in town to recruit students to work in foreign service and discuss the role of the U.S. in the global climate. Her goal is for the U.S. to have accountability, to make sure Americans know what the country is doing in its foreign affairs while also teaching Americans that “the world doesn’t stop at America’s borders.”
What happens with food security in Africa or what happens in Ukraine, for instance, impacts Americans, she said.
“But you’ve got to talk to people. You have to find that commonality, and then use that built relationship to advance maybe other people’s views on the world, their own thinking,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau hit on many recent global events that concern the U.S., from its withdrawal from Afghanistan to the incarceration of basketball player Brittney Griner in Russia.
Afghanistan
President Joe Biden faced criticisms over the way he withdrew troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war — a withdrawal that resulted in the death of 13 Americans.
“We airlifted 124,000 people out of Kabul. Movement still continues,” Trudeau said. “Obviously, the situation in Afghanistan is tragic right now with the Taliban in charge and the erosion of rights for women, girls, minorities (and) the crumbling of the economy. And what you’re really seeing now is food insecurity, fuel scarcity.”
America will continue to work with allies and partners to put the Afghan people first and prioritize their well-being, Trudeau said.
“That’s what we need to do,” she said, through helping…
Read More: State Department official discusses Ukraine, humility, Brittney Griner