FAST DOWNLOAD
Trump names former IDB president Claver-Carone as Latin America chief
US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Sunday the appointment of Mauricio Claver-Carone , former president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), as the State Department’s head of Latin America .
Cuban-American Claver -Carone took over at the IDB in October 2020, nominated by Trump in his first term (2017-2021), and was dismissed from the institution following an ethics investigation for having an affair with a subordinate and giving her a pay raise.
Former President Trump, who takes office on January 20 , recalled today that Claver-Carone was the White House’s senior director for Latin America during his first term.
“Mauricio knows the region and knows how to put America’s interests FIRST. He also knows the dire threats we face from mass illegal migration and fentanyl ,” Trump said on the social media site Truth Social.
Claver-Carone, 49, was elected IDB president in September 2020 , becoming the first non-Latin American to hold the position.
He did so amid controversy, as then-President Trump nominated him shortly before the end of his first term. Latin American countries were unable to define a joint candidate, with Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay supporting the US and Argentina withdrawing its candidate at the last minute, due to not having enough support.
These nations did agree to remove him in September 2021, after an external investigation, encouraged by some members of the IDB itself, showed that he had had a romantic relationship with a subordinate whose salary he raised on several occasions.
