Natalie Baker to be US ambassador to Pakistan as nomination goes to Senate
US President Donald Trump has nominated Natalie Baker as the next United States ambassador to Pakistan. She is currently serving as the chargé d'affaires at the US embassy in Islamabad. Her nomination has been sent to the US Senate for approval.
The information was given in a White House statement. To take charge as ambassador, Baker must first pass a review by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then receive the approval of the full Senate.
There is currently no permanently appointed US ambassador in Pakistan. When the then ambassador Donald Armin Blome's term ended in January 2025, Baker took charge as acting ambassador. Earlier, in August 2024, she had joined the US embassy in Islamabad as deputy chief of mission.
In a long diplomatic career, Baker has served in various countries in the Middle East and North Africa. From August 2021 to July 2024, she was deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Doha, Qatar.
Before that, she served as deputy chief and acting ambassador of the US mission in Libya, deputy director of the Iran Regional Presence Office at the US consulate in Dubai, and economic counsellor at the US embassy in Kuwait.
From 2009 to 2011, Baker served as political and economic counsellor in Libya. At that time she was involved in the process of normalising relations between Washington and Tripoli. When the revolution began in Libya in 2011, the US embassy was moved away for security reasons, and Baker too had to leave the country.
She has also served as director of the North Africa Division of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US Department of State. She also has experience working as a consular officer in Islamabad and as a cultural officer in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.
In her education, Natalie Baker earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University in the United States and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University.
Her appointment as ambassador to Pakistan now awaits approval by the US Senate.
