Branstad sees confirmation as ambassador coming as soon as May

DES MOINES - Gov. Terry Branstad anticipates being in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as soon as April with confirmation as President Donald Trump's ambassador to China coming as early as May.

'As soon as I am confirmed, then shortly thereafter it would be my intention to resign” he said. At that time, the powers and duties of his office will 'devolve” to Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Branstad, who met with Trump and members of his administration, as well as members of the Foreign Relations Committee while in Washington, D.C., for the National Governors Association winter conference in late February, laid out the tentative timeline during an interview in his formal Statehouse office Thursday.

'I spent about three hours with the State Department, with some of their staff and, basically, they indicated to me it'll probably be around the first week in April when I'll come up,” Branstad said.

He and his wife, Chris, sat next to the president and First Lady Melania Trump at a White House dinner for the governors Sunday.

Between now and the Senate hearings on his nomination, Branstad will continue to meet with officials in Washington, including each committee member. In addition, he will be grilled by a 'murder board” that prepares nominees for their confirmation hearings.

Branstad has completed paperwork for the Foreign Relations Committee, the State Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Trump's transition team. He also spent two hours with a State Department interviewer who also interviewed the Iowa governor's staff and his associates.

Branstad also met with Missouri First Lady Sheena Greitens, a professor and fellow with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations' Public Intellectuals Program, and associate in research at the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

She and her colleagues gave me information about some of the things that are going on in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, with North Korea and a number of other things,” Branstad said.

'Obviously, I know more about the trade side of things,” Branstad said. 'I'm not going to be the policymaker. I'm going to be more of the go-between. I think what the president saw in me was somebody who has a longtime relationship with China and the Chinese leadership and is an old friend of the president of China.”

What he knows about diplomacy comes from experience.

'I learned a long time ago the best deal is usually a win-win,” Branstad said. 'And if it's good for America and good for China it's probably good for the rest of the world, too.”

He doesn't know when he will leave for China because he may go through an orientation program for new ambassadors. His predecessor, former Montana Sen. Max Baucus, told him he didn't go through the program.

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