Tigray crisis: Senator Coons’ mission signals Biden’s Africa challenges
When Chris Coons met with Ethiopia’s senior leaders in Addis Ababa over the weekend at the behest of the Biden administration, the Delaware senator wasn’t there just because he’s a close friend of the president’s. In Africa discussing complex issues – from democratic governance and minority rights to regional powder kegs – Senator Coons was in his element.
His assignment in Ethiopia: to convey the administration’s deepening concerns about what it describes as “ethnic cleansing” in the Horn of Africa country’s Tigray region.
As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former occupant of then President-elect Joe Biden’s A-list of secretary of state candidates, Senator Coons already had enough going for him right there to be tapped for the Ethiopia mission.
Those qualifications
Long interest in AfricaSignals at hearingGround to make upA bipartisan Africa policy
