Fishermen at NAISAU, The Bahamas, lately captured images of two whales from a long-hunted types that is now under international protection and the Endangered Species Act in the United States. The North Atlantic right whale set incident, among an estimated 370 of the 50-foot underwater species remaining in the world, marked the first time any had been seen in the Bahamas.
A Senate-confirmed U.S. embassy might be spotted in the Bahamas over the next few months, which is almost as uncommon.
Since November 2011, the Caribbean island nation of 400,000 individuals has been without a senior American minister. Unavailable a U. S. adviser, there have been eight chargésd’affaires, people who hold a leading U. S. military post when no embassy is in area.
If Herschel Walker, President Donald Trump‘s choice for the position of U.S. embassy to the Bahamas, is confirmed as a candidate for confirmation in the Republican-majority Senate, political relief may eventually become available.
One of the strangest political legends in recent memory had come to an end with assurance for the election of Walker, who lost a 2022 Georgia Senate pay in one of that election’s most damaging strategies. It’s a relatively cherry ambassadorship that has been opened so much due in part to bare-knuckle social tactics by Democratic and Republican senators toward nominees put forth by presidents of the other party, and also by the senatorial post’s fairly low priority compared to vacancies in global hot spots such as Ukraine, after Russia’s February 2022 invasion, and Yemen, where terrorist acts by Houthi rebels are disrupting global shipping.
Not to say that the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, or any other country, is unimportant. The archipelago nation of more than 3, 000 islands is a popular U. S. tourist destination. The airport transfers from Miami or Fort Lauderdale to the capital of Nassau in 45 minutes, and ferry trips to those sunny South Florida locations take two hours.
The countries have traditionally had close economic and commercial ties, with a$ 7.3 billion annual trade relationship, according to the State Department. The countries have also long cooperated in reducing crime and addressing illegal migration because the Bahamas, which gained independence from Great Britain in 1973, has often been used as a gateway for drugs and illegal aliens bound for the U. S.
Ronald E. Neumann, a retired Foreign Service officer who is currently president of the Washington-based American Academy of Diplomacy, said those are the exact kinds of issues that can strain the countries ‘ relations without a U.S. ambassador.
In an interview, Neumann stated that” countries tend to view a real ambassador as being more deserving of talking to.” ” The ambassador is the president’s representative. When you don’t have one, it has quickly become a sign of disrespect.
According to Neumann, who served as the United States ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, Bahrain from 2001 to 2004, and Algeria from 1994 to 1997,” Chargés have more trouble getting in for meetings.”
A political ambassadorship long unfilled
Political players in both parties have long filled the U.S. ambassadorship in the Bahamas. President George H. W. Bush appointed and confirmed a former senator in 1989. Chic Hecht, a Nevada Republican who had just lost his reelection bid after a single six-year term.
Sidney Williams, a former NFL linebacker-turned-businessman, was Hecht’s replacement as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, who was chosen by former President Bill Clinton and is the husband of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA ).
Successive U.S. ambassadors were named by presidents of both political parties as a result of a combination of significant campaign contributions and politically connected kin of the elite, such as Nicole Avant, who served as ambassador from October 2009 to November 2011 during the first term of former president Barack Obama. Her late father, Clarence Avant, was a prominent music executive, at one point chairman of Motown Records, and film producer.
Avant’s departure from Nassau officially ended the long ambassadorial vacancy, which was still occupied with political issues.
Prior to now, the Obama administration relied on career diplomats to lead the US Embassy in Nassau in light of other urgent diplomatic issues. On Feb. 7, 2014, Obama nominated Cassandra Butts, his onetime Harvard Law School classmate and later a longtime senior adviser on Capitol Hill to Democratic lawmakers. In May 2014, a committee hearing on her nomination was held at the Senate, but nothing else was done the rest of the year. With the 113th Congress coming to an end, Butts ‘ nomination fell short. Republicans seized control of the Senate after winning rousing midterm elections in 2014 with a rousing victory.
On February 15, 2015, Obama nominated Butts again, but Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR ) rescinded his nomination. Soon after, though, Butts grew ill and died of leukemia on May 25, 2016.
Trump nominated wealthy San Diego businessman Doug Manchester as the new U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas after winning the presidency in 2016. However, that nomination fell apart amid a number of negative stories about Manchester, including claims that he had exchanged money for political favors.  , The first Trump administration withdrew the pick in November 2019.
After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, the Democratic president had his own ideas for the position. In May 2020, Trump nominated William A. Douglass, a Florida-based investor with investments in the Bahamas. On May 22, 2022, Biden nominated Calvin Smyre, the longest-serving member of the Peach State’s legislature and a state representative in Georgia. But the Smyre nomination never went anywhere, and Trump, as president-elect in 2024, announced his choice of Walker as ambassador.
Walker nomination in order, perhaps?
Walker fits the bill nicely because the Bahamas ambassadorship is typically held by political figures. He’s a legendary University of Georgia running back who then had a solid NFL career. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA ), who won a full Senate term that year after coming out on top in a 2020 special election, was the last person to see him on the national stage.
Walker and Trump fight head-to-head with the young NFL team, but the latter ultimately deposed the USFL in the middle of the 1980s. Trump recruited Walker to the team he owned, the New Jersey Generals.
So, decades later, Trump urged Walker to run for the Georgia Senate seat and successfully out-feamed the Republican primary field of first-tier rivals while operating in some sort of political exile between his two non-consecutive presidential campaigns. According to the 2024 Almanac of American Politics, that” set up a battle royale between two Black candidates in the Deep South.”
” But there were lingering concerns about the former Heisman Trophy winner, who had been living in Texas after playing for the Dallas Cowboys instead of his native Georgia for years”, the Almanac added. Additionally, Walker said that as a result of his diagnosis with Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, he had a history of domestic violence.
Walker struggled to find success on the campaign trail despite receiving numerous negative press releases. Warnock finished first in November 2022 with 49.4 % of the vote, to 48.4 % for Walker, just shy of a majority and forcing a runoff. In the election on December 6, 2022, Warnock defeated Walker 51.4 % to 48.6 %.
Walker largely vanished from the public until Trump, who became president-elect after his 2024 victory over his Democratic challenger Kamala Harris, announced he would soon nominate the former football star as the country’s ambassador to the Bahamas.
The next step for Walker is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a chamber where Republicans have a 53-47 majority. Walker has not been given a hearing, which raises the possibility that the Bahamas ambassadorship will remain unfilled for an even longer period.
When you don’t have an ambassador, you are in a state of limbo. The embassy team would work on short-term strategies, but in anticipation that an ambassador could arrive in the next few months, you would not make big decisions”, recalled former U. S. diplomat Brett Bruen, who is now president of the Global Situation Room, a consulting firm.
Bruen, whose U.S. embassy service included Madagascar, said in an interview, “You’re just trying to keep the lights on and relations on autopilot.” ” The absence of ambassadors can be really crippling.”
In the case of the Bahamas ambassadorship, Walker’s close ties to Trump would seem to put him on the fast track for confirmation. It might not be as straightforward, though, because Walker attracted so many negative press during his 2022 Senate campaign, including when he allegedly branded an honorary sheriff’s badge during a debate with Warnock. Walker was responding to Warnock’s claims that he had previously threatened to commit violent acts and had falsely represented himself as a law enforcement officer.
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Democrats are under pressure from a left-wing “resistance” base to oust Trump appointees, even though Republicans currently control a sizable majority in the Senate. A Democratic senator might at least delay the nomination’s passage for a while and put pressure on Republicans to pass it quietly on the Senate floor.
So, in the Bahamas, a rare, endangered set of whales may get another spotting or two before the next Senate-confirmed U. S. ambassador shows up.
