President Donald Trump has named incoming Ambassadors to five African nations, excluding Nigeria, as Washington moves to fill vacant top positions on diplomatic missions overseas.
The nominations sent to the United States Senate this week show the new Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary will be deployed to 20 countries after their confirmation.
For Africa: Stanley Brown – Virginia (Equatorial Guinea), Nick Oberheiden – Texas (Egypt), Henry Wooster – Virginia (Kenya), Laurence Socha – Illinois (The Gambia), and Daniel Travis – California (Sierra Leone).
It is unknown when Nigeria will get another U.S. Ambassador following the departure of Biden-appointed Richard Merrill Mills Jr., who served from July 2024 until January 16, 2026.
Mills was among the diplomats affected by the Trump administration’s worldwide recall. Deputy Chief of Mission Keith Heffern has been serving as the Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja.
According to the American Foreign Service Association’s Ambassador Tracker, as of May 19, 2026, there were 109 vacancies out of 195 total positions, the majority being country-specific and global organizations.
Other nominations include Mark Abreu – Florida (El Salvador), Alexander Alden – Virginia (Azerbaijan), Christopher Anderson – Wisconsin (Cambodia), Daniel Perez – Florida (Brazil), and Michael Young – Utah (Serbia).
Joseph Burkhalter – Georgia (Moldova), William Grayson – California (Indonesia), Douglas Holder – Florida (Bulgaria), Ronald Johnson – Massachusetts (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Peter Snyder – Virginia (Ecuador).
Jennifer Johnson-Carroll – Florida (Trinidad and Tobago), Paul Kalmbach – Ohio (Paraguay), Peter McCoy – South Carolina (Montenegro), Nathaniel Morris – Kentucky (Colombia), and Keith Noreika – Pennsylvania (Lithuania).
Also subject to Senate confirmation are Carl Anderson, of Virginia, to be Inspector General at the Department of State, and Ge Bai, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Johnny Figueroa, Ambassador-At-Large, Global Health Security and Diplomacy/Coordinator of U.S. Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally; John Hurley, Representative, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Donald Blome, of Illinois, Asst. Secretary of State (Near Eastern Affairs), Katherine Bowles, of Alabama, Asst. Secretary of State (Legislative Affairs), and Maria Lopez, of Florida, Chairman of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals.
