Missing ambassadors, inexperienced appointees – is Washington dropping the diplomatic ball?

Just before the end of September 2026, the United States Senate confirmed ten new ambassadors ahead of Congress adjourning for a long midterm recess. Among these were new U.S. representatives for Kenya, Nicaragua, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan. These assignments are significant as they represent countries of strategic and geographical importance to U.S. diplomacy.

However, despite being in its second year, the second Trump administration still has 92 of the 196 ambassador positions remaining vacant. In some of these cases, the White House has not submitted names to Congress, despite having been in office for more than a year. In others, the Senate, which is controlled by the same party as the White House, has not acted on the nominations provided.

Regardless of the reason, as a former ambassador and expert in diplomatic processes, I find these vacancies troubling. Among these unfilled embassies are crucial partners for the U.S. – nations essential for achieving its security, economic, and strategic goals. What makes these vacancies even more concerning is that they occur amid other troubling developments in the State Department’s staffing of embassies.

One of the most notable issues is the high percentage of politically appointed ambassadors compared to those filled by career diplomats – senior foreign service officers with at least 20 years of diplomatic experience. While many countries assign politicians as ambassadors, the U.S. has a unique situation where a greater percentage of its ambassadors are political appointees than in many other nations.

Moreover, these political appointees are often donors with little to no government experience. This practice, which has been in place for decades, has become more prevalent in recent years. During the Obama administration, around 30% of ambassadors were political appointees, but this rose to approximately 40% under the first Trump administration and the Biden administration.

However, in the second Trump term, about 80% of the names sent to the Senate were political. Many of the individuals appointed by Trump lack the typical credentials expected for such high-level positions. Instead, they are often friends, associates, or donors to Trump, with little overseas experience or knowledge of the country they are assigned to.

For instance, the ambassador to the Philippines, Lee Lipton, owns a restaurant in Palm Beach, a member of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club, and has contributed to his political campaign. Similarly, the ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, is a former Trump adviser and ex-fiancée of his son, Donald Jr. While appointing noncareer diplomats to certain countries has historically been common, the scope of this practice has expanded under the second Trump administration.

This expansion has created additional challenges, as these appointees may not spend much time in their assigned country, and the rule of thumb of limiting U.S. ambassadors to no more than one month back in the U.S. per year is often disregarded. Another related issue is the State Department's handling of ambassadors' deputies, known as deputy chiefs of missions (DCMs), under Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Under the Trump administration, politically appointed ambassadors were sometimes encouraged to replace their predecessors' DCMs, leading to lengthy hiring processes that left key positions vacant for months. In 2025, the State Department further exacerbated this issue by canceling the assignments of senior officers heading to embassies and opening a new hiring process.

This action was part of a wider purge of what many MAGA Republicans viewed as a "deep state" civil service. DCMs play a critical role in assisting political appointees to navigate bureaucracy, implement policy ideas, and provide a reality check. With more politically appointed ambassadors, some lacking relevant experience, having an experienced DCM can be the difference between success and failure.

Taken together, these personnel changes signal a dilution of what was once considered one of the most effective diplomatic services in the world. The absence or inexperience of ambassadors is particularly concerning in certain regions. For example, Belarus and Bulgaria, neighboring Russia and Ukraine, do not have U.S. ambassadors currently.

Additionally, important countries involved in counterterrorism efforts or geopolitical hotspots, such as Kuwait, Qatar, and Mauritania, are also without U.S. ambassadors. Other nations in need of U.S. assistance with issues like inward migration, including Haiti and Guatemala, also lack diplomatic representation. The consequences of these vacancies extend beyond the U.S. perspective.

Host countries may perceive the absence of capable diplomats as a lack of importance, causing them to have fewer channels to effectively communicate with the U.S. administration during crises.