Thomas E. Cooney is a former American diplomat who most recently served as the charge d'affaires of the United States Embassy to Buenos Aires, Argentina from 2017 to 2018. He retired from the State Department with the senior rank of Minister Counselor in 2019 and became Vice President of Global Public Policy for General Motors in Detroit.

Career

Cooney, a native of

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, speaks Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. He was a career member of the U.S. foreign service, having served as a foreign policy advisor to the Commanding General of the

United States Army, Pacific The United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) is an Army Service Component Command (ASCC) designated by the Secretary of the Army (SECARMY); it may also serve as a Joint Task Force headquarters. It is the army component unit of the United States Indo ...

and as Deputy Consul General to the Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macau. He was the Deputy Commissioner General for the

USA pavilion at Expo 2010 The USA Pavilion was a pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China. It represented the United States and was one of the most visited pavilions of the event. Attendance As of August 31, 2010, the pavilion reported that attendance had surpassed 4.7 mi ...

during his tenure as Public Affairs Officer of the United States Consulate General Shanghai. Cooney became Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Argentina on July 30, 2016, and took office as the interim Ambassador to Argentina upon the resignation of Noah Mamet on January 20, 2017. At the end of his term in May of 2019, the Argentine government recognized him with the

Order of the Liberator General San Martin Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

, the highest honor conferred to non-citizens by the government of Argentina. In 2019, he was hired by General Motors to lead its international government relations teams globally. In 2021, Cooney joined the board of directors of Global Ties Detroit, a non-profit that seeks to strengthen Detroit’s international partnerships.

References

Ambassadors of the United States to Argentina Cornell University alumni University of South Carolina alumni United States Foreign Service personnel Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Detroit {{US-diplomat-stub