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 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 LaFaulet School of Public Affairs
on quote the art of negotiation.
What is the art of 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 all 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 to get to know 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 to have a sense of what the other
side wants as well.
And you need to know 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 need to know that before you go into the room,
that you have some flexibility, 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 going to come out somewhere in the middle.
Now my goal is not to get to the middle.
My goal is 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 day to day?
You negotiate with your children.
My-- 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 five year old is tough.
- Do you win, Ever?
- Sometimes.
- Okay.
- Sometimes, but they win most of the time.
That said, how do you gauge 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 the things you want, 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, as negotiation, a lot of is based on 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 warranties, 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.
You're from Louisiana, 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?
You know, it includes having everybody participate
in the preparation.
So you're sitting around a big kitchen table or counter
and you're chopping onions and celery and green pepper,
the holy trinity of gumbo, and you're 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 stuff is easier if you've enjoyed
Wollogombo on the way there.
- What is the best hot sauce?
So my family in Louisiana will disagree with me.
I like Tabasco.
Tabasco, you can find anywhere in the world.
If I open my purse up right now, I have a little bottle
of Tabasco in my purse.
But sometimes you'll go and they'll bring something else
and try to convince you that it's as good as Tabasco.
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 is over.
Let me give you a bottle of Tabasco and
you'll change your mind.
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 USAID program.
- Actual.
- Yeah, true they have.
It's still caught up in the courts
a bit, but two questions here.
How will that affect Wisconsin farmers and also how will
dismantling the USAID program heard American diplomacy
in the rest of the world.
- 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 foreign food
assistance programs.
And they really are 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
and defunding the programs at 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 sad for the recipients of their products.
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 about 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.
The impact are 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 and that families are
no longer suffering.
And I think that is important to Americans.
It's important to many of our policymakers.
It's important to people around the world who see America
as being a leader, as being the country that they
depend on to find solutions.
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, not over seventh,
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 to have been killed.
more than 2 million 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 policy should be.
And there are lots of debate on what we should be doing,
or what we should not 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 one that you bring into the room
and you find a solution.
You have to negotiate and you have to negotiate and you
have 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 in between Russia and Ukraine or in Gaza?
Well, I mean just look at Russia in Ukraine.
Russia attacked this neighbor.
It broke every We 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 immigrants.
It's not a new program, but how it is being implemented
now has put the fear of God and so many people, students
around the country.
I just heard on the news since I arrived that a student at
the University of Minnesota So, the Minnesota has been
arrested and no one knows where the student is.
We know that the student in Georgetown had assembly
issues, 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 itchells now.
Here in Wisconsin, like elsewhere, political division,
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 four 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 expect to see their politicians
decisions disrespecting each other, screaming profanity at
each other, screaming insults at each other.
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 the LGBT,
but to fight about those issues in the halls of our Congress,
and the halls of our state legislatures,
really don't provide solutions for ordinary citizens
who want to see our government work.
They want to see the government work for them.
And what they're seeing now is that the government is not
working for them.
And 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 interest of the country.
Is there room for negotiation in these kind
of two-sided debates, whether it's
abortion or vaccines, where it seems to
either one side, four or one side against,
is there a negotiation?
- There has to be room for negotiation.
Otherwise, we will stay in this gridlock forever.
And again, when you negotiate, you're not gonna 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?
You know, 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 their hearing is
really based on truth.
And sometimes I think about the good old days of Walter
Concrite, where we're all in 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 the American voter.
People don't know what they're voting for.
They don't know where the truth lies.
And I don't know 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.
You know, 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 X or it's Instagram
or just, you know, 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 U.S.
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
the United States, and particularly 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.
So 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
the people in this district who may not have voted
for him or she represents the people in her district
who may not have voted.
And I think we've lost that sense of we're here to
support the good of all.
You're retired now.
You're chasing.
For grandkids around kind of, except for these kind of things.
What do you miss about your work?
Yeah, 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 dealing with my colleagues and listening to their ideas.
So I do miss that part of being engaged in foreign
policy every single day.
But I don't miss the -- I don't know how to describe it --
the turmoil that we go through every single day.
You know, I was the US representative to the
United Nations and I'd go into the Security
Council and often 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't miss that part of it.
You seem to be very uncertain and even scary
times for some folks.
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 medium 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 in 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.