Donald Trump picks Bill White as ambassador to Belgium

US president-elect Donald Trump has chosen businessman Bill White as his new ambassador to Belgium. He announced the appointment on his social networking site Truth Social on Saturday. White will replace Michael M. Adler, who has served as US ambassador to Belgium since 2022.

"Bill is a highly respected businessman, philanthropist, author and advocate for our Nation’s Military, Veterans, and First Responders," Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump also praised White for "raising over $1.5 Billion Dollars for our fallen heroes, catastrophically wounded, and severely burned Service Members".

Pension scandal

White is CEO of the consulting firm Constellations Group and former chairman of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York. He resigned as chairman of the museum in 2010 after former state attorney-general Andrew Cuomo launched an investigation into a pension scandal, Politico reports.

White allegedly acted as an intermediary for an investment firm to make deals with a state pension fund and "secretly" received fees for those deals. Cuomo said he "used his access to line his own pockets". White eventually agreed to a settlement of one million dollars.

Politico also writes that White was a major donor to the Trump campaign, having previously supported Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In 2012, White, who is openly gay, publicly withdrew his support for Republican Mitt Romney because of his opposition to gay marriage. White said at the time that Romney was "on the wrong side of history".

^{PHOTO © Elijah Nouvelage / AFP}