Key facts
- President Donald Trump nominated Texas Republican Representative Wesley Hunt to be ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
- The position of ambassador to Saudi Arabia has been vacant since January 2025.
- Hunt is a U.S. Army veteran who was deployed to Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
- Hunt previously served as a diplomatic liaison officer in Saudi Arabia.
- Hunt is not running for re-election to the House of Representatives.
- Hunt lost the GOP primary for Senate in Texas earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has nominated Texas Republican Representative Wesley Hunt to be the next ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a post that has been vacant since the beginning of Trump's second term in January 2025. The nomination was made on Monday.
Hunt, a U.S. Army veteran who has been deployed to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, previously served as a diplomatic liaison officer in the Kingdom and is considered a close ally of Trump in Congress. He is not seeking re-election to the House of Representatives after an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate earlier this year, where he lost the GOP primary.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Hunt would assume his role in Riyadh at a time of heightened regional tensions, with ongoing conflict in the Middle East and attacks on Saudi Arabia by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis.