Is Kristi Noem adding any kind of value to President Trump as special envoy to his Shield of the Americas initiative?

After watching videos of the Latin American conservative leaders whooping it up in Peru at the inauguration of new president Keiko Fujimori, it was pretty obvious based on the size and quality of the gathering that this was the happenin’ event in the hemisphere. So many heads of states attended. Even the ex-heads of state came, as did many Latin American luminaries in other fields. They all seemed to be among friends, and the star of the show, Keiko Fujimori, looked splendid.

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This selfie, the second picture in the sequence, done by the president of Chile, Jose Antonio Kast in the foreground, is my favorite picture of them:

At such an event, alliances are being formed. Ties are strengthened. Even nations that never got along very well in the past, e.g., Chile and Peru — are getting along great now. 

My question: Where was the U.S.?

Sure, they sent Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, who is well-known and respected in the region, and given Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s other tasks, he probably was not a bad choice for representation.

Where was Shield of the Americas special envoy, Kristi Noem?

The former Homeland Security secretary should have at least been visible. She was highly visible as she presided over the Shield of the Americas launch last March in an event attended by almost the same crowd — 13 presidents — as seen in the Peru pictures.

But she wasn’t there; her new boss, Landau, was. The promise at her own event was for the coordination of major security improvements in the region to crush terrorism, narcoterrorism, organized crime, foreign interference (read: China) and human trafficking. The idea was to make the Monroe Doctrine operative again in the hemisphere and for the countries affected to see the benefit of it. Reuters reports one agreement signed for the acceptance of deported foreign nationals with Costa Rica which was done in a dual capacity as Homeland Security secretary and Shield envoy.

I’m underwhelmed.

Seems she should have been networking in that gathering.

Based on what I could find, she wasn’t.

And actually, I have not heard of anything she has done in that role, which is kind of disappointing, given that she makes an undisclosed but likely large salary from it, possibly as much as or more than her $253,000 Homeland Security salary, though I don’t believe any of the reports I’ve seen.

A Google ai search of what she’s done in the Shield role comes up with words like ‘focused,’ ‘engaged,’ ‘advanced,’ and ‘promoted.’ But no concrete results.

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I found no speeches, which is a little unusal for her, given her interest in self-promotion, and there was just a brief mention of the Shield task in an interview with Maria Bartiromo last month, describing how she transferred what she learned at Homeland Security to other countries and directed U.S. businesses to invest in those countries in place of China. She didn’t cite any success stories.

Which seems a little low on the accomplishment front, almost like Kamala Harris’s border czar role.

What is she doing for that special envoy government salary?

And why has she taken a second job to represent a Canadian mining exploration company, which given its startup status, probably doesn’t pay much. Does she need the money? It looks like a distraction if not a potential conflict of interest against her national security job at Shield of the Americas. 

Why is she shilling for a Canadian penny stock which only has a patent application out for ai exploration; not a mine, not proved reserves; for rare earth minerals? Startups are great, of course when they have a new product or service, but they’re by nature private sector operations. Why is she going onto television to promote that instead of Shield of Americas, with only a boilerplate response to Bartiromo about her Shield work, as if it were an afterthought? Unless the idea is to sell influence, which I hope is not the case. 

The details of the Canadian start-up are well-explained in this piece by Wayne Horton.

The problem with this is not just money. It’s that President Trump is struggling in the polls, the midterms are approaching, and this seeming cashing in is exactly the kind of thing the left is focusing on in its coverage of the Trump administration as it is the sort of thing the voting public does not like. 

Noem was ousted from her job at Homeland Security when her grandstanding for personal exposure and cruelty-first approach to immigration enforcement did too much damage to President Trump in the polls. 

Now she’s got a side gig she’s promoting a Canadian start-up while on the job at a major federal initiative and no accomplishments to show for the latter.

That isn’t helping Trump, either, and maybe she should be released from it to promote private projects full time instead. Nobody should be making a federal salary for doing nothing.

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Image: Screenshot from shareable Maria Bartiromo Facebook video post.