President Donald Trump last night announced in a tweet that he was ousting his acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who would become US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland.

Trump’s announcement came after he arrived at his Mar-a-Lago resort for the weekend. The New York Times called the move to replace Mulvaney with Trump loyalist Mark Meadows “one of the most significant switches he can make in his White House on a Friday night when most of the country had tuned out news for the weekend.”

The paper described Mulvaney’s impending new job as a “consolation prize.”

Mulvaney had visited Northern Ireland last month along with US Ambassador to London Woody Johnson, where they met with First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy FM Michelle O’Neill and were briefed on “the importance of our relationship with the US and commitment to explore further investment opportunities and trade links.”

CNN reported that Mulvaney, a former Congressman from South Carolina, had previously lobbied for the envoy role, vacant since 2017 and occupied in the past by figures such as Richard Haass, Gary Hart and most famously George Mitchell. The Trump administration has previously sent mixed messages in its attitude to the role.

The appointment of a US envoy takes on a different context particularly now that Stormont has been reconvened. Given President Trump’s very public pro-Brexit stance, it will be interesting to see how Mulvaney deals with issues surrounding the border, as well as relationships with both Brussels and London – where new Secretary of State Brandon Lewis is finding his feet amid the implementation of the New Decade, New Approach strategy.

The former Secretary of State, Julian Smith, tweeted that “Played right, the role of US envoy to Northern Ireland could be v helpful for trade, inward US investment & overall US commitment to supporting power sharing “

RTE reported that the Irish Embassy in Washington welcomed the appointment of Mulvaney, whose family apparently has roots in County Mayo. “This is a positive development demonstrating the United States’ long-standing commitment to the peace process,” an Embassy spokesperson said.” Mick Mulvaney has always had a great personal interest in Northern Ireland and we look forward to continuing to work with him on this and other issues.”

According to the Washington Post, “Mulvaney was given advance notice of [Trump’s] tweet, a senior White House official said, but did not learn about the job change until the president had already offered Meadows the job.”

Although there had been speculation about Mulvaney’s position for some months – he had retained the “acting” title along with his responsibilities as head of the Office of Management and Budget – once the President’s impeachment had ended in his acquittal, a shake-up seemed more likely. Mulvaney will also be stepping down from the OMB role to take up his new post.

At a press conference last October, Mulvaney was reported to have fallen foul of the president with an off-the-cuff remark about the administration’s approach to aid to Ukraine, the central plank of the impeachment process.

Politico reported that “Lately, White House staffers had wondered privately about Mulvaney’s career plans, since he had been doing an extensive amount of travel and had not been seen around the West Wing as frequently. Another telltale sign of his diminished status was his assigned seat at the recent wedding of White House aides Stephen and Katie Miller: Mulvaney was not seated at the same table as Trump, a fact noted by the large cadre of White House aides in attendance.”

White House Chief of Staff is one of the key positions in any administration, and has been a particularly fraught one during Trump’s tenure. Meadows will be the fourth person to hold the post – after Reince Priebus, John Kelly and Mulvaney, who was in place for 14 months – and the move signals a circling of the wagons for the run-in to what is expected to be a tough campaign ahead of November’s election, particularly amid the uncertainty of a growing health crisis around the coronavirus.

In recent weeks, the President has re-hired loyal aides like Hope Hicks and John McEntee as part of what has been described as “putting the band back together.”

If you’re enjoying Northern Slant’s coverage of US politics in this election year, please join us on March 23rd for a discussion as part of the Imagine Belfast festival about the campaign, its possible outcomes and how they might affect us here in Northern Ireland. Details and tickets are available here.