President Obama Names GOP Utah Governor Jon Huntsman as Ambassador to China
Utah Governor Jon Huntsman (C) speaks next to his wife Mary Kaye and U.S. President Barack Obama (L) after accepting a nomination to be the new United States Ambassador to China, at the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington May 16, 2009
It gets Huntsman out of the way as a possible Obama rival for 2012 and Huntsman gets out of the way of fellow Mormon Mitt Romney.
Needless to say Huntsman is extremely qualified for this position and this only adds to his foreign policy bona fides should he decide to run in 2012 for the Presidency.
Huntsman, 49, served a Mormon mission in Taiwan. The governor and his wife, Mary Kaye, adopted a daughter, Gracie Mei, from China in 1999. In 2006, he led a trade mission to China “because of their prominence on the world stage and the way in which they are growing so rapidly,” he told the Deseret Morning News of Salt Lake City.
He served as a deputy assistant secretary of the Commerce Department’s Trade Development Bureau under former President George H.W. Bush, who appointed him as Singapore ambassador
in June 1992. Huntsman was identified in news reports at the time as a political donor, bundling contributions from different people for Bush’s reelection.Huntsman also took a role in President George W. Bush’s administration, serving as Deputy U.S. Trade Ambassador from 2001 to 2003.
A triple win: Obama, Huntsman and the United States.
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