On Friday, US President Joe Biden appointed a new ambassador to Italy and San Marino, after two years in which the post was vacant: the ambassador will be Jack Markell, former Democratic governor of Delaware and current US representative at the ‘Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the international organization that brings together some of the most economically developed countries in the world. Markell’s appointment will now have to be confirmed by a vote in the US Senate: as Markell’s representative to the OECD will be replaced by Democrat Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney.
Markell is 62 years old, studied economics at Brown University and then at the University of Chicago, and entered politics after a career as a manager in telecommunications: between 2009 and 2017 he was governor for the Democrats of the small state of Delaware, the where Biden comes from.
The delay with which Biden appointed the US ambassador to Italy had been much discussed in recent months: the position of US ambassador to Italy is normally one of the most coveted and various hypotheses had been made on the reasons why Biden had not yet nominated anyone : one of these was that Biden wanted to reserve this position for Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House, Italian-American and one of the most important figures in US politics in recent years.