Susan Ashton Thornton is a former
American diplomat. She served as acting
during the
first Trump administration
Donald Trump's first tenure as the president of the United States began on January 20, 2017, when Trump First inauguration of Donald Trump, was inaugurated as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president, and ended on January ...
.
Biography
Prior to joining the
State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...
, Thornton worked at the
Foreign Policy Institute
The Foreign Policy Institute ( or ''DPE'') is a Turkish think tank on foreign policy and international relations. It was founded in 1974. The Foreign Policy Institute is the first ever think tank formed in Turkey. The founder and the first pre ...
where she studied and wrote about
Soviet politics and contemporary
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. She speaks
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
and
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
. Thornton is a
career diplomat
A diplomat (from ; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state, intergovernmental, or nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or international organizations.
The main functions of diplomats a ...
who has worked at the State Department since 1991. She has previously served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the
Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
The Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP), formerly the Office of Chinese Affairs, is part of the United States Department of State and is charged with advising the secretary of state and under secretary of state for political affairs ...
(EAP) since February 2016 and before that, she worked as the
Deputy Chief of Mission
A deputy chief of mission (DCM, in Europe the term deputy head of mission – DHoM or DHM is used instead) is the number-two diplomat assigned to an embassy or other diplomatic mission. The deputy chief of mission is usually considered the second ...
to the United States Embassy in
Ashgabat
Ashgabat (Turkmen language, Turkmen: ''Aşgabat'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Turkmenistan. It lies between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet Dag, Kopetdag mountain range in Central Asia, approximately 50 km (30 ...
,
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...
, Deputy Director of the EAP Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, Economic Unit Chief in the EAP Office of Korean Affairs.
Before that she served as First Secretary at the
Embassy in Beijing, China,
Political/Economic Section Chief at the
Consulate General in Chengdu, China, along with other overseas assignment at the
Embassy in Yerevan, Armenia and Consulate General in
Almaty
Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains ...
,
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
.
She was appointed as acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs on March 9, 2017, and on December 24, she was nominated as the Assistant Secretary of State by President Trump.
Susan Thornton retired in August 2018 after then-Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson
Rex Tillerson is an American energy executive who served as the 69th United States secretary of state from 2017 to 2018 in the first administration of Donald Trump. From 2006 to 2016, he was chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Exxon ...
stepped down. She was never confirmed by the U.S. Senate due to being considered "too soft on China." In particular, US Senator
Marco Rubio
Marco Antonio Rubio (; born May 28, 1971) is an American politician, lawyer, and diplomat serving since 2025 as the 72nd United States Secretary of State, United States secretary of state. A member of the Republican Party (United States) , Rep ...
(R-FL) stated that he would do all he can to prevent Susan Thornton from being confirmed.
She is a board member of the
National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Publications
Articles
* On Hong Kong, the United States Must Find Its Voice, ''
Lawfare
Lawfare is the use of legal systems and institutions to affect foreign or domestic affairs, as a more peaceful and rational alternative, or as a less benign adjunct, to warfare.
Detractors have alternately begun to define the phrase as, "An att ...
'', August 2, 2019 (co-authored with
Ryan Hass)
References
External links
Susan Thornton State Department Biography
American women ambassadors
United States assistant secretaries of state
Living people
United States Foreign Service personnel
Bowdoin College alumni
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American women
American women diplomats
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