Ambassador to Estonia Resigns in Disgust After Trump Anti-Europe Rants

The U.S. ambassador to Estonia, James D. Melville Jr., a career diplomat and member of the senior foreign service ranks, announced to friends Friday that he was resigning amid a string of controversial comments President Donald Trump made about U.S. allies in Europe. Melville, who has served as a diplomat for 33 years and as ambassador to Estonia since 2015, was due to retire soon but said in a private Facebook post announcing his retirement that Trump’s behavior and comments accelerated his decision. A month earlier, Elizabeth Shackelford resigned from her post in Nairobi where she had worked for the US mission to Somalia, saying she was quitting because the US had abandoned human rights as a priority, Foreign Policy reports

In the private Facebook post seen by Foreign Policy, Mr Melville reportedly told friends: "For the president to say the EU was 'set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank', or that 'Nato is as bad as Nafta [the North American Free Trade Agreement]' is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it's time to go."
The U.S. Ambassador to Estonia, James D. Melville Jr., announces his resignation from that post because of U.S. President Donald Trump's comments about NATO and the European Union. He was appointed to the post in December 2015.