Photo Above - Kari Lake, President Trump's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, participates in a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee nominations hearing in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 2026. Photo by Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

On Thursday June 18, 2026, Kari Lake of Arizona appeared before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee for her confirmation hearing to Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Jamaica. President Donald Trump nominated Ms. Lake on May 11, 2026 and her nomination was sent to the U.S. Senate for consideration. Lake currently serves as Senior Advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America (VOA). VOA is an international multimedia broadcaster with service in more than 40 languages, funded by the United States federal government and established in 1942. Voice of America provides news, information, and cultural programming through the Internet, mobile and social media, radio, and television.

In her opening statement, Lake sated that Jamaica is among our largest trading partners in the Caribbean, with bilateral trade in goods exceeding $3 billion in 2025. Americans account for more than 70 percent of tourists visiting the island, and tens of thousands of Jamaican workers support American farms and businesses each year across more than 35 states. Lake noted that Jamaica is also a key security partner and a founding member of the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition combating narcotics trafficking in the region. "These deep economic and people-to-people ties are the foundation of a strong and enduring relationship," Lake said. Under the Trump Administration, we are seeing a renewed focus on strengthening partnerships in the Western Hemisphere - recognizing that our neighbors are vital to our security and prosperity. If confirmed, Lake told the Committee that she plans to focus on four priorities:

J1) Keeping Americans Safe. Protecting the tens of thousands of U.S. citizens living in Jamaica, along with the roughly two million who visit each year, is a core responsibility. With hurricane season now underway - and after two devastating storms in the past two years - it is especially important that this role is filled and actively engaged to work with the Jamaican government to strengthen preparedness, improve coordination, and respond effectively to future disasters;

2) Strengthening Security Cooperation. Lake plans to work closely with the Jamaican government to dismantle transnational criminal organizations, disrupt drug trafficking, and combat lottery scams that target and defraud vulnerable Americans;

3) Advancing American Economic Interests. Lake plans to advocate for U.S. businesses, work to address trade barriers such as Jamaica's long-standing restrictions on U.S. pork exports, and promote American investment - especially as Jamaica continues to recover from Hurricane Melissa. Lake plans to also work to ensure American companies can compete and succeed as we deepen our economic partnership with Jamaica; and

4) Countering China's Growing Economic Influence Less Than 500 Miles From Our Shores. The Chinese Communist Party has made strategic investments across the Caribbean in ports, infrastructure, and critical sectors that carry long-term security implications. In a region this close to the United States, those efforts are not just economic - they are strategic. Lake plans to work to ensure that Jamaica continues to choose transparency, sovereignty, and partnership with the United States over dependence on actors whose interests do not align with our shared values.

When Senator Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) asked Lake if confirmed, what she planned to do about the lottery schemes in Jamaica that targets venerable Americans to the tune of over $300 million dollars, Lake replied: "There are some bad actors who have built their skills in bilking people out of their money through these lottery scams...we will work closely with Jamaican law enforcement...we will work with our counterparts at the State Department and we will work with local law enforcement here in the United States to make sure that we are doing everything to alert people to this problem...if confirmed, I will put pressure on the Jamaican government to prosecute these types of crimes."

Lake is a former journalist who worked at a local Fox News affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona for 22 years before leaving her career in 2021 to run - unsuccessfully - for Arizona governor as a Republican. She narrowly lost the general election to Katie Hobbs in one of the closest gubernatorial races that year. She later ran in the 2024 U.S. Senate election in Arizona, winning the Republican nomination but losing in the general election to Ruben Gallego.