The United States appointed a new head of diplomacy for Latin America

After half a year of delay, the Senate completed the confirmation hearing for the top U.S. diplomat in charge of relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Brian Nichols is the first African-American in this position in more than four decades.

The Republican opposition, with the senator Ted Cruz at the helm, he blocked the nomination of diplomats for the past six months, but in those weeks the processes began to materialize.

The Democratic senator Bob Menendez, Who is also the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house, stressed that Nichols ’role is crucial at this time because of the great instability that exists at various points in the region. Menendez, as a Cuban-American, spoke of the current crisis in Cuba, Where on July 11 the people took to the streets to demand freedom and the end of the dictatorship generating a wave of repression on the island. To this is added the constant instability in Nicaragua and the institutional precariousness in Haiti after the assassination of the president and the earthquake.

“With a extensive experience in the Americas“Ambassador Brian Nichols, a foreign service career official, will deftly promote U.S. national interests,” Menendez told his Senate colleagues.

Nichols began his career in the diplomatic service in 1989 in Peru, Where he learned to speak Spanish fluently. between 1991 and 1993 he was a political official in El Salvador. For three years, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he practiced as deputy political adviser in Mexico. In 2007 and until 2010 it was deputy head of mission of the American embassy in Colombia, And between In 2014 and 2017 he returned to Peru as an ambassador.

Back in Washington, from the State Department headquarters, he was in charge of Washington programs to combat drug trafficking in the region and chaired the offices of Caribbean Affairs and Central American Affairs.

“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have serious social and economic consequences in countries in the region. And there are the ongoing security and governance challenges in Central America that fuel irregular migration,” Menendez said while arguing for the confirmation of Nichols.

Born 56 years ago in Rhode Island, he studied at the prestigious Tufts University and has been married for more than two decades to Geraldine Kam, Also a U.S. foreign service official, with whom she has two daughters.

His diplomatic career led him to live, in addition to Latin America, in Southeast Asia, where he served as a senior diplomat in Indonesia, And in Africa, where until just a few weeks ago he was ambassador to Zimbabwe.

Upon being confirmed in office, one of the first to publicly congratulate him was Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), who through a message on the social network Twitter said that he hoped “anxiously to continue the partnership between the United States and the OAS to promote more democracy, human rights, sustainable development and security for all in the Americas “.

Already confirmed in office, Nichols will immediately swear to stand in front of the office that until now did not have a designated head.

Continue reading: