The nominees are Devin Kennington (Somalia), Junaid Munir (Djibouti), and Wesley Hunt (Saudi Arabia).
Devin Kennington is a career U.S. diplomat who entered the Foreign Service by 2011. He has served as vice consul in São Paulo, Brazil, consular-affairs chief at the U.S. Embassy in Djibouti, and chief of American Citizen Services in Hong Kong.
Most recently, he worked on Central Africa as the State Department’s Great Lakes Unit chief and senior Democratic Republic of Congo desk officer. He has relevant African and Horn-region experience, although no previous Somalia-specific role has been publicly identified.
Junaid Munir, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Djibouti, is a senior career diplomat who joined the Foreign Service in 2004. A Harvard Law School graduate and former attorney, he is currently chargé d’affaires in Côte d’Ivoire and previously served in senior positions in Yemen and Oman, with additional assignments in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, France, Pakistan and Syria. He speaks Arabic, French and Urdu and has extensive experience in the Middle East, Africa and the Muslim world.
Wesley Hunt, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, is a Republican congressman from Texas and former U.S. Army officer. A West Point graduate and Apache helicopter pilot, he served in Iraq and completed two deployments to Saudi Arabia as a diplomatic liaison officer. He has represented Texas’s 38th Congressional District since 2023 and holds three graduate degrees from Cornell University. Unlike Devin Kennington, Hunt is a political appointee rather than a career diplomat, but he has direct experience in Saudi Arabia.
All three nominees require Senate confirmation before they can assume their posts.
