Mexico names new ambassador to U.S.

Mexico nominated a new ambassador to the United States on Tuesday April 5th, a little over a half-year after his predecessor took up what is likely the country’s most important overseas diplomatic post.

The new top envoy to Washington will be Carlos Manuel Sada Solana, who is currently consul general in Los Angeles, the Foreign Relations Department said in a statement.

It added that Sada has worked previously at the embassy in Washington as a liaison to Congress and as consul general in New York, Chicago, San Antonio and Toronto.

The current ambassador, Miguel Basanez, was confirmed by Mexico’s Senate in September 2015. The Foreign Relations Department did not say why Mexico was nominating a new envoy just seven months later.

Mexican authorities will send Sada’s name to Washington for approval, and he must still be confirmed by the Senate.

The United States is Mexico’s biggest trade partner and home to more than 11 million Mexican-born people.

Mexico has also been the target of U.S. campaign rhetoric from some candidates such as Donald Trump, who says that as president he would wall off the entire border and force Mexico to pay for it.

The U.S. has been without an ambassador to Mexico since last July.

President Obama’s nomination of Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson to fill the position has been held up in the Senate by former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who objected to her role in negotiating the restoration of diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba.

Source: greenfieldreporter.com, via AP