Trump rushes Gulf ambassadors through before Democrats take the Senate

Republicans are rushing to confirm Washington’s new ambassadors to the region after many posts have remained vacant for months. US President Donald Trump nominated new ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and the UAE, whose confirmations the Republican-led Senate will push through before Democrats take control of the Senate in January, Semafor says. The nominees for Riyadh, Cairo, and Kuwait City appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, and the UAE nomination, Jeffrey Colyer, reached the Senate on 9 November. Qatar, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have no nominee, so their ambassadors will go before a Democratic Senate whose members have already threatened to investigate the deals behind the Gulf’s access to US chips.

The four posts have been run by chargés d’affaires for between 10 months in Egypt and 22 months in Saudi Arabia, a stretch in which Washington and Riyadh negotiated a defense agreement and the US cleared advanced chip sales to the Gulf.

The Riyadh nominee set out what the next ambassador will be working on. Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Texas Republican, told senators a US civil nuclear agreement with the Kingdom is needed to keep it from turning to China, and that normalization with Israel remains “part of the negotiation process,” Semafor said. His written testimony pledged to build on the Strategic Defense Agreement and expand Saudi investment in the US. The Egypt nominee — lawyer Nick Oberheiden — pledged to work with Cairo on the Gaza peace plan, Libya, and Sudan. Trump has also nominated Dino LaVerghetta for Kuwait.

Nominations still pending when this Congress ends are returned to the White House under Senate rules and would have to be resubmitted to the new chamber.