Is my guy on?
Um, yes it is.
Okay.
And are you ready? Thanks for watching!
Okay, we are rolling.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, welcome
back to Wisconsin.
Thank you, I'm really happy to be
back, and the weather is beautiful.
So I say welcome back, of course,
because you did, some decades
ago, live here and you were a grad
student in 1975
at
UW Madison.
And since then, you've worked in a
number of federal government
positions overseas in
Switzerland, Pakistan, Nigeria,
to name a few, before eventually
you became the United States
ambassador to United Nations during
the Joe Biden presidency.
Thinking back to your time here, is
there something about Wisconsin that
helped you or motivated you to
work in foreign affairs and on the
international stage.
You know, I think when I look
back, it was the international
community here.
There were people from every
country around the world.
And you started to
get curious about what was
happening in countries.
I was studying Africa,
but I also
was curious about other places
and meeting people from other
places. I had a friend from
Thailand and I'd never even thought
of going.
to Thailand.
There were students here from China.
I had a colleague who studied
Chinese politics.
So a lot of that experience
and that exposure I think
helped move me in the direction
of diplomacy.
You're here in Wisconsin to give a
talk through UW's
Lafauet School of Public Affairs on
quote the art of negotiation.
What is the art negotiation and why
is it an art?
You know, I think it's an art, and I
love the fact that they refer to it
as an art because people do
it in different ways.
Artists don't all
paint the same picture.
They don't focus on the same
subject.
And diplomacy is an art.
Because it's how an individual
carries out that
process of negotiation.
My art,
my process, I
call gumbo diplomacy.
And what that means is
that I like to get to
know the people I'm negotiating
with. I like get to get
them up close and
personal over
a bowl of gumbo or whatever,
cheese curds, since we're in
Madison.
But really taking a
little bit of time at the beginning
of any discussion to know
who I'm talking to and where they
come from and what's important
to them.
And so the art of
diplomacy, the art of negotiations
can be different for
different people and in different
places.
How should people approach a
situation where they think
negotiation is needed?
I think they need to be open minded.
They need to know what they want
to achieve before they
go into negotiations.
And they need a sense of what the
other side wants as well.
And you need to what your
outer limits are.
So you may go in with a hard
position, but that
position might be movable.
It might be a little bit flexible.
And you to know that before you
go. uh...
into into the room that you
have some flexibility
uh... and that you're looking for
some flexibility so you're not going
to get everything you want and
the person you're negotiating with
won't get everything they want
you're gonna come out somewhere
in the middle now my goal
is not to get to the
middle my goal was to stay as close
to my position as
possible, but I know I have to move.
And I'm sure the other side
is trying to stay as close to their
position as possible.
But if you come out of the room with
a settlement, then you're in a good
place.
Negotiation is a very serious word,
but I bet people negotiate more
in everyday life than they think.
Where might people find that
they're negotiating?
You negotiate with your children.
I remember many
situations with my adult children
when they were younger negotiating
how late they
would stay out or what
friends they would have over.
And now I'm negotiating with a five
and six-year-old.
I have three grandchildren,
three, five, and six.
And to negotiate
with a 5-year old is
tough.
Do you win?
Sometimes, sometimes, but they win
most of the time.
That said, how do you
gage your rate or
accomplish a successful negotiation?
What does that look like?
I think when you walk away
from the negotiation, both sides
are happy.
So as I said, you're not gonna get
everything you want, but you're
gonna get some of the things you
want. And if you
walk out the door knowing you have
accomplished some of things you
wanted, then you're happy and you
want the other side to be happy as
well. Because if they are not happy,
then they may not adhere
to the
terms of the negotiation.
and you start all over again from
scratch. And I've seen that happen.
We've seen countries
at war,
for example,
Democratic Republic of Congo.
I remember negotiating
when I was Assistant Secretary,
the relationship between Rwanda
and DRC as it related to
M23, which is a
group that has been fighting inside
of DRC.
I thought we resolved that in 2013,
and I said that to the president
of Rwanda when I saw him just
a couple of years ago.
It wasn't resolved because
when we walked out of the
door, one side
was not happy with what they
came out with.
So is negotiation a lot of this
based in trust that people will do
what they say they're going to do
when they leave the negotiating
table?
It's based on trust,
it's based on commitment,
and it's based on common goals.
So if you're negotiating about
war and peace, the common goal
should be peace.
And if both sides walk into
the room with the goal of achieving
peace, then once
peace is achieved, both
sides should be happy.
But that is not always the case.
We spoke about this a little bit,
but you're from Louisiana.
Yes. State known for its gumbo.
Professionally, you're known for
diplomacy. So you've created this
thing called gumbo diplomacy.
Gumbo can have many different
ingredients.
What does your gumbo, diplomacy
include?
Thanks for watching!
You know, it includes having
everybody participate in
the preparation.
So you're sitting around a
big kitchen table or a
counter, and you're chopping onions
and celery and green pepper,
the holy trinity of
gumbo, and you are talking.
And you're not really focused
on what you're talking about.
You're trying to ensure that you
don't cut your fingertips off.
and sometimes you
get to a place.
where you're in agreement.
Now, I don't have,
you know, heads of state coming
to my house to chop onions
and make gumbo, but I
do have them come to the
house to sit down and
eat gumbo.
And it's a great conversation
piece. It lays
out a very comfortable
environment to start with.
And then you get to the tough stuff.
And the tough is easier.
you've enjoyed Vologambo
on the way there.
What is the best hot sauce?
So my family in Louisiana
will disagree with me.
I like Tabasco.
Tabascos you can find anywhere
in the world.
If I open my purse up right now, I
have a little bottle of Tabascon
in my purse.
Cause sometimes you'll go and
they'll bring something else and try
to convince you that it's as good
as Tabasca.
People in Louisiana also
like Louisiana hot sauce
or Crystal or Texas
Pete.
I am a
strict Tabasco person.
I'm a Texas Pete guy, so I guess
this interview's over.
Let me give you a bottle of
Tabasco and you'll change your mind.
Okay.
Excuse me speaking of food,
Wisconsin farmers like those
in neighboring Midwestern states
play a pivotal role in
Global food assistance programs
dating back to food for peace in
the 1950s more recently
Wisconsin farmers have sold their
agricultural products to programs
that are part of the US Agency
for International development the
Trump administration is in the
middle of trying to dismantle the
USA ID program.
I'm trying Yeah,
truly have
It's still caught up in the courts a
bit, but two questions here.
How will that affect Wisconsin
farmers and, and also
how will dismantling the USAID
program hurt American
diplomacy and the rest of
the world?
You know, I was here in
Wisconsin last year
for the big
farm.
for a minute. What is that?
State Fair? State fair.
So I was here in Wisconsin
for the State Fair last year and
had an opportunity to engage
with farmers and to
learn what a
significant role, I always knew
they played a role but I didn't
really realize how
significant they are
to our food
assistance programs,
and they really...
an important part of those programs.
The other side is that those
programs provide food
security for people all
over the world.
And so this current policy
of dismantling USAID
and defunding the programs
that USAID fund
around the world will impact farmers
in Wisconsin and all
over The United States who are
providing their products for
USAID.
And it's going to have a
horrible impact on the
people who depend on this food aid,
people who might now
go to bed hungry because they're
not getting the food assistance that
they relied
on from USAID.
So I'm really extraordinarily
sad about what I see happening.
I'm sad for American farmers,
for Wisconsin farmers, and
I'm said for the recipients of
their products.
Take a little water break.
Take one, two.
International conflicts like the
war between Russia and Ukraine and
the war between Israel and Hamas and
Gaza, they can feel very, very far
away from Wisconsin.
Why should people here care about
these international conflicts that
are literally thousands of miles
away from their everyday lives?
You know, that is a very
important question.
And I used to answer that
question with a simple response.
It's because Americans care.
We care about people.
We care bout suffering around
the world. And I still believe
that Americans care about people
who are suffering around
the world, but in
a broader context.
wars around the world do
impact us.
They impact our economies,
they impact the people.
We have people from all over the
world who are hyphenated Americans,
who are Palestinian Americans,
Israeli Americans,
Ukrainian Americans, huge population
in the United States.
And those people have,
they really have
a vested interest in
seeing that these wars end.
uh... and that families are
no longer suffering and
i think that is important to to
americans is important too many
of our policy makers uh...
it's important to people around the
world to see america's
being a leader is being
uh... the country that they depend
on to find solution
The war in Gaza can be very
confusing to folks.
What should people understand about
that war, particularly?
Well, first and foremost,
the war was started by Hamas.
When Hamas attacked Israel on
October 7th and took
over 200 hostages and killed
over 1,200 people.
But that war has expanded and
it has impacted tens
of thousands of people in
Gaza.
More than 50,000 people are
estimated have been killed,
more than 2
million forced from
their homes.
So the impact of that war
has had a devastating
impact on people
across the
globe.
And there are strong views
on what our
policies should be,
and there are lots
of debate on
what we should be doing or
what we shouldn't be doing,
but ultimately we
need to work
to find a diplomatic solution.
to what is an extraordinarily
difficult problem.
What I learned over the course of
the past four years and I probably
knew even before, diplomacy
is hard.
And it's not a
magic wand that you bring into
the room and you find a solution.
You have to negotiate and
you have to negotiation and you
to use diplomatic means and
eventually you come to a solution
and it's not a solution
that will satisfy
everyone.
and it's not a solution that comes
quick enough for most people.
What role should the United States
play in wars like
those between Russia and Ukraine
or in Gaza?
Well, I mean, just look at Russia
and Ukraine.
Russia attacked its neighbor.
It broke every rule
in the international book.
It broke the UN Charter by invading
Ukraine and
attacking the people of Ukraine and
taking children in
Ukraine.
So we made a decision during the
Biden administration that we
would support Ukraine and
we would encourage others
to support.
Ukraine in this really
unprovoked war that
Russia started.
And I think that is a
position that most people in the
world still continue to have.
The United States and Wisconsin and
universities and industries here
in the state are home to
many international residents.
Some of them are looking to become
permanent residents of
the United States, but deportations
are now happening.
How do these deportations look and
feel to those outside of America?
I think they're afraid.
They're afraid and they're also
surprised because they don't expect
to see these kinds
of deportations happen in
the United States. We've always had
a deportation program
for illegal aliens.
It's not a new program, but
how it is being implemented now
has put the fear of God in
so many people,
students around the
country. I just heard on the news
since I arrived.
that a student at the University
of Minnesota has
been arrested, and no one
knows where the student is.
We know that a students in
Georgetown had a similarly-assured
student at Tuft.
And so I think students
are afraid, particularly foreign
students.
Their families are afraid for
them.
And they're all kind
of walking on eggshells
now.
Here in Wisconsin, like elsewhere,
political division on a number of
issues has really fractured our
state.
There are things like abortion or
school choice in the voucher system
or vaccines that seem
to have really only two
sides, either for or against.
Where does negotiation fit into
these kind of two-sided debates or
discussions?
You know, when I first
started in politics, it was so
bipartisan.
So you would always
find a path to
a solution with Republicans and
Democrats working together
to find a solution.
And I think that's what the American
people want.
They want their politicians to
find solutions.
They don't want the divisions that
they're seeing.
And I know that many of them will
not always get what they
expect.
But what they don't expect
is to see gridlock.
They don't to expect to see their
politicians
disrespecting each other,
screaming in profanity
at each other.
Screaming insults at each.
This is a new kind of politics
in America that I think
the American people broadly don't
want to see.
We all have our different views
about immigration, about
abortions.
about gender
and LGBT, but
to fight about those issues
in the halls of
our Congress and the
halls in our state legislatures
really don't provide solutions
for ordinary
citizens who want to see
our government work.
They want to the government work for
them, and what they're seeing now
is that the is not working
for them.
What I would say to them is they
have to raise their voices to
make sure that the
politicians that they voted for
represent their
views, but also represent
the interests of the country.
Is there room for negotiation in
these kind of two-sided debates,
whether it's abortion or vaccines,
where it seems you're either one
side for or one side against?
Is there negotiation room?
There has to be room for
negotiation.
Otherwise, we will stay in
this gridlock forever.
And again, when you negotiate,
you're not going to get everything
you want.
But you will get some of the things
you want, and what we
most want is to see our government
function.
Here in Wisconsin, like everywhere
that there's internet access,
citizens are having to sift through
a lot of misinformation and
disinformation to get to
the truth of the matter.
And we find it in politics and
discussion about society's problems.
It seems that no matter where you
turn, there's some misleading
individuals who are looking for
attention.
How does the ever-growing
impact of misinformation and
disinformation.
affect the ability to navigate and
negotiate on issues
that need solutions.
how people start to fight
for things that may not
be factual.
And so we have to find a
way to ensure that people
get the actual facts,
that they know what they're hearing
is really based
on truth.
And sometimes I think about the good
old days of Walter Conkright, where
we're all in front of our
TVs at 7 o'clock at night
on CBS.
listening to contact,
give us the facts and
give us
the truth.
And now we see
politicians and
reporters really
fight each
other with disinformation.
And it's not serving
the American people, it's not
serving American voters.
People don't know what they're
voting for.
They don't know where
the truth lies.
And I don't what the solution is
to that because we're
in a world now where it's instant
information and someone puts
out something on Twitter
and suddenly it's the
truth when maybe it's
not the truth.
I looked on the news and I
heard it was snowing today in
Wisconsin and I'm here today and
the sun is bright and
it's beautiful.
You have to find
a way to get to
the truth, and I think so
many people now don't
know how to do that because
we're being fed information
from so many different
sources, whether it's or
it's Instagram or...
podcasts, you're just getting news
from too many different
sources.
Wisconsin is a very politically
purple state.
It's divided in terms of power.
Our governor is a Democrat.
The state legislature is controlled
by Republicans.
We have one Democratic US Senator,
one Republican one.
And we flip and flop between
presidents when we're voting every
four years.
But many citizens say that our
elected officials aren't working
much together at all, and
they're sick of that.
What can Wisconsin residents do to
encourage their elected officials to
come back to the negotiating table
and actually compromise
more?
That's the...
million dollar question.
I think part of it is to ensure
that they vote.
We have very low turnout
in elections all over
all over the United States and
particularly in in
statewide elections, local
elections, and
even in some of the
congressional elections.
If it's not a presidential election
year, people don't turn
out to vote.
That's the first thing, people need
to vote with
commitment,
regardless of what the election
is. And then they need to hold their
elected officials accountable
for what they
promise to do and what
they are doing if
they're not ensuring that
they're making the government work
for them.
And, you know, I think there's
also a sense that...
When a representative is
elected, he only represents the
people who voted for him.
When, in fact, he represents the
entire state, he
represents people in his district
who may not have voted for
them, or she represents the the
people in her district who may
have not voted.
And I think we've lost that sense
of, we're here
to support the good
of all. Thanks for watching!
You're retired now,
you're chasing grandkids around,
kind of, except for these kind of
things.
What do you miss about your work?
I miss the people.
When you go to work every day,
you're dealing with people every
single day.
I'm dealing with young people who
are ambitious and who
want to succeed
in diplomacy.
I'm deal with my colleagues
and listening to
their ideas.
So I do miss that
part of being engaged
in foreign policy
every single Thanks for watching!
but I don't miss the...
the, I don't know how to describe
it, the
turmoil that we go
through every single day.
I was the US
representative to the United Nations
and I'd go into the Security
Council and have to negotiate
and fight with 14 other
people to come out
of the room with something that was
meaningful to us, but also
to the rest of the world.
I don' miss that part of it.
These seem to be very uncertain and
even scary times for some.
Yes.
Where do you find hope?
You know, in young people, this is
why I'm at the university.
I want to hear from young people but
I also want to encourage them.
When we look at, if I just
use Africa as an example,
the median age is 19.
So half of that population is
under the age of 19.
Fast forward 20 years,
those young people are going to be
in leadership positions.
and so we have
to... ensure that they are
invested in the futures of their
country, that young people here in
the United States are invested into
the future, and want to
see our country work, and they're
committed to seeing the country
work. So that gives me so much hope,
because when I talk to them,
they still have hope.
And we have to ensure that they
continue to work
in a positive way and help
us make this world a better place.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, thank you
so much.
And did I forget anything?
Is there anything else
that I didn't ask that's important?
We covered a lot of ground.
We covered a lot of ground, there's
still a lot more out there.
I think that's it.
Do we want a room tone?
We're going to sit here awkwardly
quietly so we can capture the
room noise.
That's so we can listen
to that quiet because there's always