Mr Feeley, the US Ambassador to Panama is the first career foreign service diplomat to resign under Trump. The American ambassador said he cannot serve under the current president.
The United States ambassador, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, has informed the White House, the Department of State, and the Government of Panama of his decision. In an official paper, Feeley wants to leave Panama post for personal reasons. And according to the official statement of the State Department, the leadership of American diplomatic mission in Panama will assume Ms Roxanne Cabral, the Deputy Chief of Mission, who takes the diplomatic mission until a new envoy arrives.
According to the official source, Ambassador Feeley will leave his post on 9 March 2018.
The first media, which has reported about the US diplomat resignation, was a local Panama newspaper. In his resignation letter, Mr Feeley wrote that he cannot serve under the current US President whose apolitical manner he might not agree with. Feeley is not the only one diplomat who disagree with the state line of the foreign policy.
“As a junior foreign service officer, I signed an oath to serve faithfully the President and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies,”
the US envoy said in his letter reported by various media outlets. Explaining the reason for his unexpected leaving the diplomatic mission, his instructors made clear that if a person believes he or she could not do that, it would be honour bound to resign.
‘That time has come,’
John Feeley, the US Ambassador to Panama, said. It is worth to note that he is not the first diplomat who preferred not to work under Donald Trump. ms Elizabeth Shackelford, who worked in Nairobi for the US mission to Somalia, resigned in December and explained this act to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. According to her resignation letter, she was quitting because the US had abandoned human rights as a priority, according to Foreign Policy.
