TO BE FAIR, THAT MAKES HER A GOOD FIT WITH PRESIDENT TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE: Biden’s Pick For Top Africa Job Twice Failed Foreign Service Officer Test, ‘Couldn’t Get Through the English Grammar Section.’
In a July 2021 interview with Ghana’s CitiTV, then-United States ambassador to Ghana Stephanie Sanders Sullivan recounted her “strange” first attempt to complete the Foreign Service Officer Test, a written exam required for most career diplomats.
“I couldn’t even get through the English grammar section, which was my forte,” said Sullivan, a native English speaker and Brown University graduate. The diplomat, who Biden nominated last November to serve as the chief envoy to the entire African continent, said she bombed the test because she “was on village time.” Though it’s not clear what “village time” means, Sullivan says she left a third of the questions blank, leading her to fail the exam. Nevertheless, she persisted.
“There’s a little bit of that ‘Little Engine That Could’: I think I can, I think I can,” Sullivan told the interviewer. “So, the next year I tried again, and I also didn’t pass.”
The ambassador to the African Union has grown increasingly important as Washington attempts to strengthen ties with the continent as a bulwark against Chinese influence. The CCP’s Belt and Road initiative entices developing countries with the promise of infrastructure projects and low-interest loans, which often leave the nations in debt to Beijing. Senior American officials have visited an African nation four times in 2023 alone in an effort to shore up alliances on the continent. Vice President Kamala Harris recently concluded a high-profile African tour.
Why would Biden care about the CCP getting a stake in African nations? GOP lawmakers say they’re ‘getting to the truth’ about Biden family payments from China: ‘Reeks of corruption.’