Do you know that Trump has still not appointed an ambassador to Australia?

[canetoad]

9. Yeah, read an article the other day

That empty seat at the US embassy ...

Should Australia be worried if the Trump administration has not appointed its ambassador to Canberra?

The former deputy prime minister, Tim Fischer, thinks so. Fischer argues that by not appointing a successor to President Obama's man, John Berry, who left the post in September 2016, Washington is in effect insulting one of its closest allies.

The issue matters, because as most people can see, the current occupant of the White House bears little resemblance in the way he conducts himself to previous holders of the position. He is best understood as someone for whom the intricacies of international diplomacy are only comprehensible as personal transactions. If this is an insult, it may therefore matter more than normal.

The relationship is already supposed to be tense. Malcolm Turnbull's famous phone call to the newly installed President Donald Trump last January, on this view, got the relationship off to a bad start. By seeking a commitment from the new president to stand by the agreement Australia had struck with his predecessor, Turnbull was apparently taking risks with the relationship.

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/that-empty-seat-at-the-us-embassy--20180105-h0dzwz.html