Trump nominates Natalie Baker as US envoy to Pakistan

US President Donald Trump has nominated Natalie Baker, the current US charge d’affaires in Islamabad, for appointment as Washington’s next ambassador to Pakistan.

The White House confirmed the nomination, which has now been forwarded to the US Senate for consideration. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will review her nomination before it can proceed to a confirmation vote by the full Senate.

Baker will formally assume the ambassadorial position if her nomination receives Senate approval.

She has been serving as the US charge d’affaires in Pakistan since January 2025, following the departure of former ambassador Donald Armin Blome. She previously arrived in Islamabad in August 2024 to take up the position of deputy chief of mission.

Baker has extensive diplomatic experience, having served in several key assignments across the Middle East and North Africa. Before her posting in Pakistan, she was deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Doha from August 2021 to July 2024.

Her previous diplomatic assignments also include serving as deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires at the US Mission to Libya. She also worked as deputy director of the Iran Regional Presence Office at the US Consulate in Dubai and as economic counsellor at the US Embassy in Kuwait.

At the US State Department, Baker served as director of the Office of North African Affairs within the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

Between 2009 and 2011, she worked in Libya as a political and economic counsellor during the restoration of diplomatic relations between Washington and Tripoli after nearly three decades of strained ties.

Her assignment in the country ended when the Libyan Revolution forced the US Embassy to evacuate in February 2011.

If confirmed, Baker’s appointment will formally establish her as Washington’s next ambassador to Islamabad after more than a year in which she has led the US diplomatic mission in Pakistan as charge d’affaires.