To unveil Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris Agreement on climate change, his Administration held an upbeat ceremony featuring a jazz quartet in the White House Rose Garden. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh—not Paris,” he proclaimed.
The White House ceremony, on June 1st, took place in the middle of the night for Beijing, where David H. Rank, the most senior American diplomat in China, would have the responsibility of delivering the news to the Chinese government. Rank, who was running the U.S. Embassy until the arrival of Trump’s Ambassador—the former governor of Iowa Terry Branstad—is fifty-two, and has spent more than half his life in the Foreign Service.
Growing up in Park Forest South, Illinois, a working-class suburb of Chicago, Rank gave no thought to diplomacy or politics; in a landlocked town, he fantasized about being a marine biologist. At the University of Illinois, he met his wife, Mary, who had grown up showing hogs and steers in 4-H competitions. Rank entered the Foreign Service following a student-exchange program in Taiwan, and he and Mary began their life abroad.
A diplomat’s job consists of living in places where most Americans would rather not live, and studying esoterica that most Americans would rather not study. Rank served, in addition to Beijing, in Shanghai, Taiwan, Greece, and Mauritius. In 2011, he deployed to Afghanistan, and spent six months living in a converted shipping container, eating canned kale, and trying to persuade a reluctant President Hamid Karzai to continue supporting counterinsurgency operations led by American soldiers.
When Trump announced the withdrawal from Paris, Rank had a problem. Over the years, he had, at times, executed orders that he considered unwise. This one, however, was “morally wrong,” he said last week. “I’m not a great theologian, but, just in my gut, I thought, We’re stewards of creation and the world. As a parent, I’ve spent my life trying to make my children’s lives O.K. And, finally, in terms of national interests, it’s just dumb.”
Rank sent a message to State Department headquarters: I can’t do it. He offered to resign and was told to return to Washington immediately. Rank gathered the Embassy staff. He spoke ardently of public service, but said he could not back the Administration on the Paris decision. He urged younger colleagues to stay and reshape policy from inside the government. “If you’ve got twenty years left, then you’ve got twenty years to do honorable work as the person who argues, ‘There are downsides to what we’re doing.’ ”
On a warm afternoon a couple of weeks later, Rank, still reacquainting himself with Washington, took a walk near the White House. He moved slowly; he was recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon. (“Playing volleyball with the marines at the Embassy.”) Lean and boyish, with graying brown hair, he wore brown leather lace-ups, brown slacks, and a blue shirt. Because he and Mary had returned so abruptly to the U.S., they were sharing their house with a renter, the musical director of their church.
When his resignation became public, Breitbart News denigrated Rank as “a political agent conducting a political stunt.” As he walked, Rank said, “It just feels weird to be part of ‘the swamp,’ to hear a narrative of coddled people. I went to public school.” He was still trying to understand how public servants—diplomats, F.B.I. agents, intelligence officers—had become political targets in America. “Friends of mine have been blown up while serving abroad. I looked through my window as they tried to burn down our Embassy in Beijing.” He’d always assumed the sacrifices were worthwhile. “My parents died when I was overseas. My oldest child was born when I was away.”
On K Street, Rank ran into a former colleague. “I agree with you,” the man said of Rank’s decision, and asked him for a business card. Rank didn’t have one yet. The man volunteered his own, and Rank walked on.
Rank doesn’t know what he’ll do next, but, before he takes another job, he and Mary plan to travel to unfamiliar parts of America. “I worry about the unchallenged narrative of faceless bureaucrats, because that just hasn’t been my experience,” he said. “People joined out of patriotism and dedication to service. It’s startling how quickly that has dissipated.”
He suspects the resentment is, in part, “a reaction to complexity.” He said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were simpler answers to hard questions? Certainly Donald Trump offers simpler answers, and I think that was some of the appeal of Bernie Sanders. But a bureaucrat’s job is to be the one who says, ‘Hey, it’s not that easy.’ ” ♦
