South Korea, Germany, Egypt: These are among 41 countries that don't have a U.S. ambassador
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The job posting could be hung outside of 41 of 188 U.S. embassies and international organizations that still lack an ambassador since President Trump took office.
The vacancies mean dozens of U.S. missions rely on the State Department’s career foreign service officers, who may be less influential than ambassadors, to represent American interests.
At this point in his presidency, Barack Obama, had 21 vacancies, or 12%, on his ambassadorial roster. Trump’s vacancy rate is 21%.
Trump does not have a hand-picked representative in South Korea, which faces nuclear-armed North Korea. He has no envoy in Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally that helps stabilize the Middle East stable and counterbalances Iran’s influence.
There’s no ambassador defending the U.S. in Turkey, where President Recip Tayyip Erdogan blames the U.S. for an attempted 2016 coup. And Trump has no personal envoy to the European Union, as the continent struggles with far-right nationalist movements and Russian aggression.
The U.S. still needs ambassadors in Germany, Europe’s largest economy; Cuba as it forges a new relationship with the U.S., and Egypt, an ally in the fight against the Islamic State.Â
A team without its captain
Leaving those posts vacant is like sending a sports team to the championship game without the coach and captain, said Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, a professional association and labor union for the foreign service.
“With all the threats facing our country this is not the time to pull the foreign service team from the field and risk forfeiting the game to our adversaries,†she said.
The White House nominated four people for ambassadorial posts in February.
The State Department directed questions about the vacancies to an interview of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CBS earlier this month. Tillerson, responding to a question about the vacancies, said some additional nominations await Senate confirmation.
 “Our foreign policy objectives continue to be met,” he said.
The State Department promotes its diplomats from within, like in the military. It pulls its top ranks – ambassador and the second-in-command deputy chief of mission – from veterans with years of experience.
The number of foreign service officers dropped nearly 3% from 8,176 in March 2017 to 7,940 at the end of December, State Department records show.Â
Senior staff declined nearly 16% from 968 to 816. Among its most senior staff – the six career foreign service officers who rank as ambassadors, four have left the State Department during Trump’s presidency. A fifth foreign service officer, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Tom Shannon, announced he’ll retire in March.
Where they’re posted
While some posts languished, Trump moved quickly to fill some plum assignments with campaign donors, business leaders and personal friends.
In Italy, he tapped Lewis Eisenberg, a former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, whose previous job was chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.Â
In France, Trump appointed Jamie McCourt, a Boston real estate developer who until 2011 co-owned the Los Angeles Dodgers. She donated more than $400,000 to the Trump Victory fund, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In Switzerland, Trump appointed Ed McMullen, an advertising and public relations executive who headed Trump’s South Carolina 2016 campaign office.
Some of Trump’s appointees have received a lukewarm reception.
In the Netherlands, Dutch journalists grilled former congressman and new Ambassador Peter Hoekstra, during his first press conference in January about comments he’d made in 2015 about Muslim immigrants burning cars and politicians in some Dutch neighborhoods. The comments proved untrue and Hoekstra later apologized.
Trump’s ambassador to Israel David Friedman is the president’s former real estate lawyer. His nomination sparked controversy because he supported American Friends of Beit El Institutions, an organization that advocates for Jewish West Bank settlers who live on land claimed by Palestinians.Â
Keeping crises far away
An ambassador’s role is to coordinate all 26 U.S. departments and agencies operating under the authority of the embassy.
“In some countries, you can do perfectly well with a chargé d’affaires,” said Robert Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, using the term for a staffer left in charge when an ambassador is absent.Â
“In some countries, you simply don’t have the same access if you don’t have the title,” he said.
Neumann, who served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria, Bahrain and Afghanistan, notes that embassies play a critical role when crises erupt abroad. The State Department organized the response to the Ebola virus in Africa, helping officials in Ghana and elsewhere implement a public health response that prevented the virus from spreading more widely.
A lot of the embassy’s success there was due to an effective ambassador, Neumann said. “It’s about what kind of contact they have with the boss.” Â
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