Senior foreign service officer Donald Blome was sworn in on Tuesday as assistant U.S. secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, which is officially the Trump administration’s top diplomat for the Middle East, although special envoys, advisers and ambassadors like Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Tom Barrack are expected to continue to play outsized roles.
“Drawing on decades of experience across the Middle East, he will advance U.S. President Donald Trump’s America First agenda by strengthening regional partnerships, expanding economic ties and supporting President Trump’s efforts to bring peace and stability to the region,” the State Department stated.
Blome was deputy director and acting director of the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs in U.S. President George W. Bush’s first term, and later served as consul general at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem under Presidents Barack Obama and Trump.
A lawyer, he has also been posted in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, Tunisia and Pakistan, and was ambassador to Tunis and Islamabad.
He directed the State Department’s Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs under Obama, and most recently served as the acting assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research when his posting in Pakistan ended.
Trump has filled the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs post on an interim basis with several people since Trump took office again on Jan. 20, 2025.
The president’s first choice for the job was Joel Rayburn, but the former special envoy for Syria and National Security Council staffer, dogged by allegations he helped obscure U.S. troop-level numbers in Syria from Trump, couldn’t get confirmed by the Senate.
The administration withdrew Rayburn’s nomination last October.
Blome barely made it out of the Senate earlier this month and was confirmed by a 51-47 vote. He begins his post amid a still-simmering Iran war, ties with Gulf allies strained or in limbo and uncertainty ahead in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Trump administration has no Senate-confirmed ambassadors in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
