Loftis in CSM on State Department Dissent
Amb. Robert Loftis, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was recently interviewed on what an official protest among career diplomats at the State Department means for President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.
Loftis was interviewed for a January 31, 2017 article in The Christian Science Monitor entitled “State Department Dissent: What Does it Mean for Trump’s Travel Ban?”
From the text of the article:
“The likelihood of this administration taking the protest of career state department officials seriously is very low,” explains Robert Loftis, a longtime State Department diplomat who was formerly the ambassador to Lesotho, in a phone conversation with The Christian Science Monitor.
“The vast majority of people are willing to work with an incoming administration,” says Ambassador Loftis, who is now a professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies. “That’s your job.”
“You want to have all the interests of the United States considered before you take a major step like this,” Loftis explains. The travel ban, by contrast, was “put into place, as far as anyone can tell, without any consultation whatsoever.”
You can read the entire article here.
Robert G. Loftis served in the State Department and Foreign Service from 1980 to 2012, where he held a wide variety of assignments, including Acting Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (2010-2012), Special Representative for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2009), Senior Adviser for Security Negotiations and Agreements (2004-2007), Ambassador to Lesotho (2001-2004) and Deputy Chief of Mission in Mozambique (1999-2001). You can read more about him here.