SINCE his arrival in Jamaica last year September, US Ambassador Donald Tapia has ruffled many feathers, especially when he addressed Sino-Jamaica relations or other foreign policy issues.

The resulting backlash, in some instances, has been harsh, but Tapia — a former US Air Force serviceman — has taken it all in stride, as he appreciates when people speak their mind.

“I find that from the business standpoint, all the years that I’ve been in business — I’ve dealt with presidents of major companies — the best way to negotiate is being honest and straightforward,” Tapia, who is not a career diplomat, shared with Jamaica Observer editors and reporters last Wednesday at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters in St Andrew.

“When I got here I found [it] a little difficult because I can’t lie; I won’t dance around the question. If I have the answer I will answer you. If I can’t answer it, if it’s on a security basis that I can’t answer it, I’ll tell you that’s a question that I cannot answer,” he added.

“To me, when you’re dealing with people they [would] rather hear the truth than hear a bunch of words, and that’s one of the things I think I’ve lived by — they know that I live by my word,” he said.

He related an experience he had in his early years operating his electrical business in the US, pointing out that after being selected to provide equipment for the construction of a casino being built in Nevada by American gambling entrepreneur and rancher Don Laughlin, he went to see Laughlin and told him that his company was not big enough to handle the job.

That honesty, Tapia said, resulted in Laughlin maintaining the contract.

“He said, ‘Look, you give me your invoice and I’ll pay.’ I shook his hand, I said ‘You got it.’ That was the biggest deal that I ever made, on a handshake — US$1 million — because we could trust each other. And that’s the main thing, building trust,” Tapia said.

“That’s one of the things that I think that we’ve done here with the ministers; I don’t think there’s a minister out there that mistrusts me. I find that it’s easier to be blunt, it’s easier to be truthful and be able to take the arrows that come with it,” he added.

Tapia, who ends his tour of duty on January 12, 2021 when he will celebrate his 83rd birthday, is certainly not the first US ambassador whose comments made some people here uncomfortable.

J Gary Cooper, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton and served from 1994 to 1997, stirred controversy with the church when he suggested that the Jamaican Government legalise gambling and use the proceeds to finance education.

Some Jamaicans saw the outspoken diplomat’s comments as interfering.