Biden chooses a woman of Dominican origin as the new US ambassador to Spain

Julissa Reynoso, in a May 2021 file photo.Patrick Semansky / AP

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has proposed this Tuesday Julissa Reynoso as the new ambassador of the United States in Spain and Andorra, as reported by the White House in a statement.

Reynoso's appointment is a position that has yet to be confirmed by the US Senate.

Born in the Dominican Republic, the diplomat migrated to the United States when she was seven years old and her youth was spent in the South Bronx (in New York City). Trained at Harvard University (Massachusetts), this 46-year-old woman also passed through the classrooms of the British Cambridge and ended up shaping her curriculum in Columbia (New York). Her career in politics began in 2008 when she participated in former Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House. After the defeat of the former first lady and the victory of Barack Obama, Reynoso practiced law in a legal cabinet.

In March 2012, she became an extraordinary ambassador and plenipotentiary of the United States in Uruguay.

Within the Obama Administration, she also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs, within the State Department.

Reynoso leaves her position as chief of staff to the first lady, Jill Biden, to join Biden's government team.

With an emphasis on immigration, this lawyer was part of an Executive delegation last March that visited the US border with Mexico in Texas, to see first-hand the detention centers for immigrant minors.

So far she has been part of the newly created White House Gender Policy Council, as the Biden Administration has among its priorities a national plan of action to curb gender-based violence.

The US ambassador to Spain who left after Trump's defeat, Duke Buchan, 57, was very critical of the Republican Administration after the events of January 6, when the Capitol was stormed.

Originally from the world of finance and with studies in both Valencia and Seville, he arrived at the American embassy in Madrid as a reward for the donations made to the New York magnate's campaign (about $ 900,000, the maximum allowed by federal law). in 2016. Buchan replaced James Costos, appointed by Obama and who in January 2017 left Madrid for Los Angeles after Trump's arrival at the White House.

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