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Who is Jon Huntsman?

by VOA News

   Former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman Jr. has served in the
   administrations of four U.S. presidents and now is being considered by
   the fifth.

   On Tuesday, the White House announced that President Donald Trump will
   nominate Huntsman as U.S. Ambassador to Russia.

   Born in March 1960, Huntsman is the motorcycle-driving son of
   billionaire Jon Huntsman Sr., who founded a large chemical
   manufacturer.

   The younger Huntsman dropped out of high school to play keyboard in a
   rock band, later finishing school and graduating from the University of
   Pennsylvania. He also served as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan, and
   speaks fluent Mandarin.

   After university, Huntsman worked as an aide in President Ronald
   Reagan's White House, and, while still in his early 30s, President
   George H. W. Bush appointed him ambassador to Singapore.

   Later he served as a trade official under President George W. Bush, and
   ran the Huntsman family's holding company.

   In 2004, he ran for governor of Utah, promising to simplify the state's
   tax code, develop industry and reform the state's Mormon-inspired
   alcohol restrictions. He was elected governor with 58 percent of the
   vote.

   After his re-election in 2008 with 78 percent of the vote, Huntsman
   began meeting national political consultants and his name started to
   surface in discussions about the Republican Party's prospects for the
   2012 race.

   In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Huntsman to be ambassador
   to China.

   Toward the end of 2010, Huntsman told Newsweek magazine he thought he
   and his family "may have one final run left in our bones." In 2011,
   Huntsman resigned his post in order to return to the United States with
   his family to pursue the nomination of the Republican Party for
   president of the United States.

   Initially, Huntsman looked like a promising candidate with his foreign
   policy experience, moderate position on some social issues, and fiscal
   conservatism. But shortly after a disappointing third-place finish in
   the 2012 New Hampshire Republican Primary, Huntsman resigned from the
   race.

   In January 2014, Huntsman was named chairman of the think-tank the
   Atlantic Council.

   Huntsman indicated in an interview with Politico that he would not run
   in the 2016 presidential election. In April 2016, Huntsman decided to
   endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump, but later retracted that
   endorsement.