Kari Lake's nomination to become the next U.S. ambassador to Jamaica is stuck in limbo, and two men who previously held that exact diplomatic post are warning it should stay that way. President Donald Trump nominated the former Arizona news anchor and two-time failed statewide candidate for the Kingston post in May 2026, but her confirmation has run into pointed opposition from former ambassadors, sitting judges, and even China's embassy in Jamaica.
Lake's nomination was listed on the U.S. Senate's order paper for consideration on Friday, but senators adjourned for summer recess until September 14 without taking a vote, according to the Miami Herald. That leaves her appointment pending for at least another month, even as critics on both sides of the Caribbean Sea escalate their objections to her taking the post. Donald Tapia, who served as U.S. ambassador to Jamaica from 2019 to 2021 under Trump's first term, told the Herald flatly that Lake “cannot be trusted” and warned she could damage Jamaica's relationship with Washington.
Tapia, an 88-year-old retired Arizona electrical distributor executive who helped finance Trump's first-term inauguration, is no political outsider looking to score points against the president he supported. But he told the outlet that Trump “does not listen to his advisers” and that the president “gets rid of advisers who do not listen to him” — a dynamic Tapia suggested has repeatedly steered Trump toward appointees like Lake. Tapia went further on Jamaican radio station Nationwide 90FM, telling listeners on August 5 that Lake is “not the person for Jamaica.”
A Predecessor's Warning From Kingston
Tapia isn't the only former Kingston ambassador sounding alarms. Luis Moreno, who served as U.S. ambassador to Jamaica from 2014 to 2017, told the Herald that Lake “made a mess” at Voice of America and its parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Moreno said cuts to U.S. global broadcasting under Lake weakened American foreign policy and destroyed important tools for communicating the U.S. viewpoint overseas.
Moreno characterized Lake's nomination as a diplomatic post handed out after political failures at home, referencing her two losing statewide campaigns in Arizona. Still, he told the Herald he expects Jamaica's government to work with Lake if she is confirmed, simply because she would hold the title of ambassador. That measured stance echoes what analysts on Nationwide 90FM described on August 5: commentators Dr. Henley Morgan and Lloyd B. Smith cautioned that Lake's lack of diplomatic experience and confrontational rhetoric could complicate relations between Kingston and Washington, even as they noted Trump has a history of non-traditional diplomatic appointments.
The USAGM Wreckage Still Being Sorted Out
Much of the opposition to Lake traces back to her brief, chaotic tenure atop U.S. global broadcasting. After being appointed head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Lake appointed herself chief executive officer and oversaw layoffs of more than 1,000 journalists and staffers, while Radio Free Europe was pulled back from her authority. She defended the cuts, saying the American people gave Trump a mandate to “cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste and restore accountability to government.”
But U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled in March 2026 that Lake had no authority to oversee the layoffs, declaring all of her actions over the prior year null and void. According to Jurist, Lamberth found Lake's leadership at USAGM violated both the Constitution's Appointments Clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act because she had never served in a Senate-confirmed position before taking on acting authority. Lake, per NPR, planned to appeal the ruling. Tapia separately estimated to the Herald that Lake's actions cost the federal government a few million dollars.
The legal fallout hasn't stopped there. In April 2026, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a temporary stay pausing Lamberth's order mandating the immediate reinstatement of more than 1,000 Voice of America employees, as reported by the Washington Post. The stay paused staff reinstatement without disturbing the underlying finding that Lake's wind-down of the agency was unlawful. Separately, four Voice of America journalists joined press freedom groups PEN America and Reporters Without Borders in filing a new federal lawsuit in March 2026 against USAGM and Lake, according to the Democracy Defenders Fund, alleging ongoing press censorship and retaliation.
An Arizona Feud Still Following Her
Lake's Arizona political history is also part of the backdrop to her nomination fight. Jeff DeWit resigned as Arizona Republican Party chairman in January 2024 after he was heard on a leaked recording asking Lake to name her price to stay out of politics, working on behalf of donors who wanted her to sit out the 2024 U.S. Senate race, per Tapia's account. Tapia told the Herald that Lake earned $200,000 in connection with that episode. Lake went on to run for Senate anyway and lost, having previously claimed without evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
Beijing Weighs In, and CARICOM Watches Closely
The controversy has also drawn a rare public rebuttal from Beijing. Following Lake's June 2026 Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony pledging to counter China's influence in the Caribbean, China's embassy in Kingston issued a statement highlighting its 53-year diplomatic partnership with Jamaica and more than $2.1 billion in local investments spanning ports and highways, according to the Jamaica Gleaner.
Jamaica remains among the United States' closest Caribbean partners, and the stakes of the relationship are considerable. At her June 18 confirmation hearing, Lake cited figures showing bilateral trade between the U.S. and Jamaica exceeded $3 billion in 2025, with American tourists — roughly two million people annually — accounting for over 70% of foreign visitors to the island, per the Caribbean American Heritage Foundation of Texas. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has sought a pragmatic approach to Washington even as broader Trump administration policies have strained relations within CARICOM, the 15-member regional bloc.
For now, Lake's fate rests with a Senate that won't reconvene until mid-September, leaving her diplomatic ambitions — and the objections of the men who came before her in Kingston — unresolved through the rest of the summer.
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