United States President Donald Trump has nominated Natalie A. Baker, who has run the American mission in Islamabad since January 2025, to serve as Washington’s ambassador to Pakistan. If the Senate confirms her, the post will be filled by a permanent envoy for the first time in almost two years.
The White House included the nomination in a batch of appointments sent to the Senate on Monday. Baker is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service at the rank of Minister-Counselor.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will review the nomination first. If the committee approves it, it goes to a vote by the full Senate. Baker would take up the ambassadorship only after confirmation.
Baker has served as chargé d’affaires since Ambassador Donald Blome left Islamabad in early 2025, after Trump returned to office. She had arrived in Pakistan in August 2024 as deputy chief of mission, a role she previously held at the US Embassy in Doha, Qatar, from 2021 to 2024.
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Her career has centered on the Middle East and North Africa; she has served as director of the State Department’s Office of North African Affairs, as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires for the US mission to Libya, and as deputy director of the Iran Regional Presence Office at the US Consulate in Dubai.
She was also economic counsellor at the US Embassy in Kuwait and earlier worked as a consular officer in Islamabad. According to the US Embassy, Baker was political and economic counsellor in Libya from 2009 to 2011, as ties between the two countries were normalizing after a gap of nearly 30 years. She stayed until the revolution forced the embassy to evacuate in February 2011.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard. She also graduated from the National War College.
Pakistan has often gone long stretches without a Senate-confirmed US ambassador. For example, Blome took charge in May 2022, after Senate approval that March, ending a gap of nearly four years. He was the first permanent envoy since David Hale left in August 2018.
