Feeley, John D., 1961-

<p> John Feeley, a career member of the Foreign Service, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 9, 2015, as the U.S. ambassador to Panama. He resigned from the post, and the Foreign Service, effective March 9, 2018.</p>

<p>Feeley, an Eagle Scout, attended Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is a 2004 distinguished graduate of the National War College. Before joining the State Department, Feeley was a Marine Corps helicopter pilot, reaching the rank of captain, from 1983 to 1990.</p>

<p>Feeley’s diplomatic career was focused on the Western Hemisphere. His early assignments included Colombia and the Dominican Republic, as well as stints in Washington at the State Department operations center. In 1998, Feeley was appointed Policy Planning Officer in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and in 1999 he was made executive assistant in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. The following year he became deputy director in the Office of Caribbean Affairs.</p>

<p>Feeley was sent to Mexico City in 2001 as a deputy political counselor at the embassy there. He returned to Washington in 2004 as deputy executive secretary in the office of the Secretary of State. There, he worked for secretaries Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, arranging travel and coordinating their schedules. In 2006, he became director of the Office of Central American affairs. Two years later, he was moved to the Office of Recruitment as an assessor.</p>

<p>Feeley returned to Mexico City in 2009 as the deputy chief of mission. Beginning in 2011, he served as chargé d’affaires upon the departure of Ambassador Carlos Pascual after some embarrassing cables were released as part of Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning’s WikiLeaks dump. Feeley later testified in secret at Manning’s trial concerning the release’s impact on relations with Mexico and Ecuador.</p>

<p>Feeley served as the coordinator for the Summit of the Americas, for which he oversaw preparation for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s work at the event held in Cartagena, Colombia.</p>

<p>Beginning in 2012, Feeley was principal deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Part of that work was preparation for the resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba. It also involved ongoing management of regional policy implementation and the supervision of 50 diplomatic posts in the Americas.</p>

<p>As ambassador in November 2017, Feeley saved the day for Los Angeles’ Pacific Standard Time music festival when he helped nearly two dozen Cuban musicians obtain visas to come to the United States.</p>

<p>Feeley informed the State Department on December 27, 2017, that he would be leaving the Foreign Service because he no longer believed he could work for President Donald Trump. His resignation letter read, in part: “As a junior foreign service officer, I signed an oath to serve faithfully the president and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies.</p>

<p>“My instructors made clear that if I believed I could not do that, I would be honor bound to resign. That time has come.”</p>

<p>Feeley’s resignation was made public on January 12, 2018, the day after Trump remarked at a White House meeting with members of Congress working on immigration issues: “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”</p>

<p>Feeley and his wife Cherie, a former Foreign Service officer, have two sons. Feeley speaks Spanish.</p>

<p>John D. Feeley (born 1961) is an American diplomat. He was the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Panama from 2015 until his resignation took effect on March 9, 2018.</p>

<p>Feeley's mother was a professor of English. He is an Eagle Scout. He graduated from Regis High School in 1979, and earned B.S. at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1983. Feeley served in the United States Marine Corps from 1983 to 1990. He flew amphibious assault helicopters in and over Lebanon in the mid-1980s following the 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut. He also flew them from Navy ships in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. He earned his M.A. from the National War College in 2004. Feeley is married to Cherie Feeley, who is also a U.S. diplomat, and they have two children. He speaks fluent Spanish.</p>

<p>Feeley joined the U.S. Department of State in 1990. He is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. His career includes extensive experience in Latin American affairs, either at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., and on assignments overseas. From 2004 to 2006, he was a Deputy Executive Secretary in the Office of the Secretary of State, where he managed information flow for Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in Mexico from 2009 to 2012. He has also held the positions of Director for Central American Affairs and Deputy Director for Caribbean Affairs. He served as the Summit of the Americas Coordinator, overseeing preparation for U.S. participation in the 2012 Cartagena Summit. Then as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs he had responsibility for the daily management of policy implementation and the supervision of 53 diplomatic posts. Other overseas postings have included the Dominican Republic and Colombia.</p>

<p>In September 2014, he assessed the development of LGBT rights in Latin America saying "It is the cultural heritage of machismo, which is a bad thing in many ways ... not just in the manifestation of anti-LGBT attitudes". He added: "We have seen in some places — Argentina, Uruguay — some very progressive, advanced thinking". He expressed support for Wally Brewster, whose nomination to be Ambassador to the Dominican Republic was encountering opposition because he was in a same-sex marriage.</p>

<p>President Obama nominated him to be Ambassador to Panama on July 28, 2015, and the United States Senate approved the nomination on December 9, 2015. He presented his credentials to Juan Carlos Varela, President of Panama, and Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on February 16, 2016.</p>

<p>Feeley resigned on December 27, 2017, effective March 9, 2018, due to policy differences with the Trump administration.</p>

<p>John Feeley is a former U.S. ambassador who runs Gotham Lights LLC, a Miami and Washington, DC-based consultancy that promotes greater mutual understanding between the United States and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is a political consultant for the Spanish-language media, Univision, providing on-air analysis and publishing a regular opinion column.</p>

<p>A skilled negotiator, organizational leader and cross-cultural communicator, Ambassador Feeley collaborates with private sector, media, and not-for-profit partners who seek to understand and solve problems found at the intersection of government, business and culture. His military and diplomatic experience affords clients clear insight into U.S government security and rule of law policy implementation, the resolution of commercial disputes, and human rights and democracy issues.</p>

<p>During a 28-year State Department career, he served as Ambassador to Panama, Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires in Mexico City, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. As a Deputy Executive Secretary he worked on the staffs of Secretaries Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, in addition to serving in other Latin American and Caribbean assignments both in Washington and at embassies throughout the region.</p>

<p>He has appeared on <i>CNN</i>, <i>BBC</i>, <i>CBC</i>, <i>NPR</i>, <i>PBS</i>, <i>MSNBC</i>, and in <i>The Washington Post</i>, <i>The New York Times</i>, and <i>The New Yorker</i>, among other Spanish and English-language media, as a forceful advocate for a respectful, alliance-based approach to U.S. relationships with Latin American governments and societies.</p>

<p>Ambassador Feeley is a Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Latin American Studies, and a board member of the Immigration Partnership and Coalition Fund (IMPAC), a Miami-based, non-profit organization that supports immigration reform that makes business sense and is consonant with American values. He also serves on the advisory board of the Latin American Program at the Wilson Center and the Norwegian Refugee Council USA, both based in Washington.</p>

<p>Prior to his Foreign Service career, he served as a United States Marine officer and helicopter pilot and is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a distinguished graduate of the National War College.</p>