THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2026 25 was the U.S. leadership in this area. I was committed to our programs and to the bipartisan promise that the U.S. made to refugees. So what is happening today is extraordinarily disappointing, and it’s almost alarming to me that we’ve gone from the country that was the most committed to refugees, with numbers up to 120,000 per year, to the country least committed to refugees, with plans to bring in only 7,500 in Fiscal Year 2026, prioritizing white Afrikaners from South Africa. These numbers show the lack of caring and the real lack of commitment to supporting the people who are the most vulnerable, the most needy, in the world. That sends a message to the world that the United States is no longer there, that we no longer care about refugee issues. FSJ: You arrived back in Liberia in 2008 at a critical time in its postwar recovery. What are you proud of from that period, and what lessons did it offer for U.S. diplomacy in fragile states? LTG: Well, let me just start by saying being ambassador to Liberia was a big deal for me. Most people don’t know that I lived and studied in Liberia in the 1970s. I met my husband in Liberia. He was already in the Foreign Service and was working at the embassy in Monrovia. And so going to Liberia as the ambassador 30 years after I had been there as a student doing research was the ultimate gift. I can’t even give you the words to describe my feelings when I received that appointment, and it came at a time when Liberia was still coming out of the ashes of a horrific civil war and people were still traumatized. But Liberia had done something that no other country in Africa had ever done: They elected a woman as president, and I happened to know her, so I was really welcomed to Liberia with open arms. I went with a mandate from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and that was to help the president and the people of Liberia succeed. With that mandate in my hand, I felt that I had to commit to doing a great job, and I tried my best to get to know all the people. During my first year there, one of the local newspapers dubbed me “The People’s Ambassador.” It was a title I carried very proudly. “She doesn’t just sit in offices talking to government leaders,” they said. “She goes to the marketplace to meet with the market women, she goes to tea shops and talks to unemployed teachers. She goes to schools and talks to students. She’s the people’s ambassador.” So if there were any accomplishments, and there were many, I think for me, the most important was to be recognized as someone who cared about the people of Liberia. To have a job that allowed me to work with the extraordinary “Iron Lady,” President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and help her to help Liberia succeed, was the accomplishment of a lifetime. Addressing a Crisis of Confidence FSJ: Shifting now from your time in Liberia to your tenure as the 31st United States ambassador to the United Nations and as a member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet [2021-2025]. What, in your view, should the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations be focused on? Above: U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield in talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky during her visit to Ukraine in November 2022. At right: Ambassador ThomasGreenfield greets President Zelensky. U.S. EMBASSY KYIV U.S. EMBASSY KYIV
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