West Palm Beach, Florida (AP) President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that he has appointed longstanding foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell as an envoy for special missions, tasked with assisting the next administration in addressing some of the most difficult foreign policy concerns. Grenell was Ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term, Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations, and Acting Director of National Intelligence. He was also a candidate for secretary of state, but Trump chose to select Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

“Ric will work in some of the hottest spots around the world, including Venezuela and North Korea,” Trump said in an announcement on his social media platform, Truth Social. During Trump’s first term, Grenell earned a reputation for taking a sometimes combative approach to diplomacy that irritated allies and the foreign policy establishment in Washington. However, the president-elect valued his forthright approach to dealing with allies. Grenell remained close to Trump after leaving government in 2021, occasionally functioning as a crucial foreign policy adviser. He was present when Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in September. Grenell has called for a peace solution that would protect Ukraine’s territory.He has also urged against extending NATO to include Ukraine, arguing, as Trump has, that the alliance should not expand until current members satisfy the union’s defence budget requirements. Members of the transatlantic alliance have pledged for years to spend 2% of their GDP on defence, but numerous nations continue to fall short of this goal. He was an early backer of Trump’s 2024 campaign, hosting a number of events for the Republican contender on economics and national security.

Grenell spoke at the Republican National Convention, echoing Trump’s mantra that “it’s time to put America first” on the global arena, and arguing that China and Russia viewed President Joe Biden’s government as weak. During the 2024 campaign, Trump sparked worries among some allies by stating that he would not support NATO nations that failed to reach defence budget requirements and warning that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to alliance countries he deemed “delinquent.” Grenell has minimized Trump’s critiques of NATO, saying that the only talk of abandoning the alliance entirely “was really from the media.” “What we’re saying is, don’t come to the wedding without a gift,” Grenell informed the crowd.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump sparked worries among some allies by stating that he would not support NATO nations that failed to reach defence budget requirements and warning that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to alliance countries he deemed “delinquent.” Grenell has minimized Trump’s critiques of NATO, saying that the only talk of abandoning the alliance entirely “was really from the media.” “What we’re saying is, don’t come to the wedding without a gift,” Grenell informed the crowd. Grenell was part of the Trump campaign’s outreach to Arab American voters in Michigan, where the president-elect gained support from a normally Democratic group despite his history of restricting immigration from many majority-Muslim nations.

Trump also announced on Saturday that he is nominating Devin Nunes, CEO of the president-elect’s Truth Social platform, to lead a presidential advisory council that would monitor the US intelligence community. Nunes will continue to manage Trump Media & Technology Group. Trump is the company’s biggest stakeholder. The former California lawmaker chaired the House Intelligence Committee and was one of Trump’s closest congressional friends during the president-elect’s first term.