A US Senate committee on Wednesday voted to advance President Donald Trump's nominee for assistant secretary of state for the Middle East.
The Near Eastern affairs post has been vacant since January 2025, leaving the bureau without a Senate-confirmed leader during a period of intense US engagement in the Middle East.
The bureau plays a central role in shaping US policy on regional conflicts and managing relations with key allies, including Israel and Gulf states.
Mr Trump last month nominated Donald Blome for the post. His nomination will now go before the full Senate.
If confirmed, Mr Blome would succeed Barbara Leaf, a career diplomat and former US envoy to the UAE. She served under former president Joe Biden and since her departure the bureau has been led by acting officials.
The prolonged vacancy reflects a broader trend in the Trump administration, which has been slow to fill several senior foreign policy posts requiring Senate confirmation as it has centralised much of its decision-making in the White House.
Mr Blome is a career diplomat who has held several senior postings in the Middle East and surrounding region. He was most recently US ambassador to Pakistan after a stint as ambassador to Tunisia.
Earlier in his career, he was political counsellor in Kuwait and Kabul, minister-counsellor at the US embassy in Cairo, director of the State Department's office of Arabian Peninsula affairs, and its Israel and Iran desk officer.
From 2015 to 2018, Mr Blome was US consul general in Jerusalem, where he managed US relations with the Palestinians. His tenure coincided with Mr Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocate the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. In 2019, the administration merged the US consulate general in Jerusalem into the embassy.
Before joining the Foreign Service in 1993, Mr Blome practised law in Chicago. He is fluent in Arabic.
