The Cable
The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

Chief economist to leave State Department

A major vestige of Hillary Clinton‘s reign at the State Department is heading for the exits, The Cable has learned. Heidi Crebo-Rediker, the chief economist at the State Department will be leaving her position by the end of July, according to a State Department source. The job, an assistant secretary-level position, was created by Clinton ...

By , a staff writer and reporter at Foreign Policy from 2013-2017.
609182_130604_creborediker_250_12.jpg
609182_130604_creborediker_250_12.jpg

A major vestige of Hillary Clinton's reign at the State Department is heading for the exits, The Cable has learned.

A major vestige of Hillary Clinton‘s reign at the State Department is heading for the exits, The Cable has learned.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker, the chief economist at the State Department will be leaving her position by the end of July, according to a State Department source.

The job, an assistant secretary-level position, was created by Clinton as a centerpiece of her “economic statecraft” strategy, an initiative immortalized by Clinton’s countless overseas trips aimed at winning business contracts for U.S. companies.

Part of the brick-and-mortar aspect of this initiative manifested itself in Crebo-Rediker’s Office of the Chief Economist, a first of its kind shop filled with experts in microeconomic, macroeconomic, and financial experience.”We operate in both the economic and foreign-policy realms, connecting the dots when economic issues influence our diplomacy and vice versa,” said Crebo-Rediker, describing her office in the pages of Foreign Policy last October. “We also provide a strategic view of long-term economic drivers of political change and frame recommendations to the secretary through that prism.”

The Clinton initiative resulted in the State Department often taking on a similar role to the Department of Commerce in promoting U.S. business interests. (As an incentive, the once lowly duty of acting as a liaison to business interests for State became grounds for a promotion for embassy economic officers in the Clinton era.)

In practice, for Crebo-Rediker, that meant she worked on various training programs inside and outside of the State Department that had the capacity of bolstering commercial diplomacy (examples include the Foreign Service Institute and divisions in the Treasury Department). She also worked on issues ranging from economic development in the Middle East and North Africa to efforts to promote the role of women as a tool for economic growth to establishing the office as a permanent fixture in the U.S. policy apparatus.

A source at the State Department says Crebo-Rediker remains mum on where she’ll go next. The former investment banker worked on international economics at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for then-Sen. John Kerry immediately prior to her almost year and a half run at the State Department.

The future of the Office of the Chief Economist will rely heavily on Kerry’s enthusiasm for it.

“If the secretary is not personally committed to this, the things that State can do at the mid-levels of the bureaucracy are very few,” Edward Alden, a trade specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations told BusinessWeek in January.

John Hudson was a staff writer and reporter at Foreign Policy from 2013-2017.

More from Foreign Policy

The USS Nimitz and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and South Korean Navy warships sail in formation during a joint naval exercise off the South Korean coast.
The USS Nimitz and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and South Korean Navy warships sail in formation during a joint naval exercise off the South Korean coast.

America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose

Global war is neither a theoretical contingency nor the fever dream of hawks and militarists.

A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, during a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. People sit and walk on the grass lawn in front of the protester and barricades.
A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, during a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. People sit and walk on the grass lawn in front of the protester and barricades.

The West’s Incoherent Critique of Israel’s Gaza Strategy

The reality of fighting Hamas in Gaza makes this war terrible one way or another.

Biden dressed in a dark blue suit walks with his head down past a row of alternating U.S. and Israeli flags.
Biden dressed in a dark blue suit walks with his head down past a row of alternating U.S. and Israeli flags.

Biden Owns the Israel-Palestine Conflict Now

In tying Washington to Israel’s war in Gaza, the U.S. president now shares responsibility for the broader conflict’s fate.

U.S. President Joe Biden is seen in profile as he greets Chinese President Xi Jinping with a handshake. Xi, a 70-year-old man in a dark blue suit, smiles as he takes the hand of Biden, an 80-year-old man who also wears a dark blue suit.
U.S. President Joe Biden is seen in profile as he greets Chinese President Xi Jinping with a handshake. Xi, a 70-year-old man in a dark blue suit, smiles as he takes the hand of Biden, an 80-year-old man who also wears a dark blue suit.

Taiwan’s Room to Maneuver Shrinks as Biden and Xi Meet

As the latest crisis in the straits wraps up, Taipei is on the back foot.