Kari Lake pledges hard line on China, drugs and scams as nominee for Jamaica ambassador
Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, President Trump’s nominee described Jamaica as a key security partner and warned of China’s growing influence on the island.
WASHINGTON, United States. Kari Lake, the Trump administration’s nominee for US ambassador to Jamaica, has pledged to strengthen security co-operation with the island, counter China’s growing influence in the Caribbean and step up efforts against lottery scammers and drug traffickers.
Lake, a senior adviser at the US Agency for Global Media and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate, set out four key priorities at her confirmation hearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Thursday.
“Jamaica is also a key security partner,” she told senators, citing the island’s long collaboration with Washington on anti-narcotics and law enforcement. She promised to work closely with the Jamaican government to dismantle networks involved in lottery scamming, drug trafficking and other organised crime.
China
Lake warned about China’s expanding footprint in Jamaica, arguing that Beijing’s investment in infrastructure and economic projects had broader geopolitical implications. She said “countering China’s growing economic influence less than 500 miles from our shores” would be among her main objectives.
“In a region this close to the United States those efforts are not just economic, they are strategic,” she said, pledging to encourage Jamaica to keep choosing “transparency, sovereignty and partnership with the United States.”
Trade and tourism
Lake said expanding trade and investment would also be a priority, noting that bilateral trade exceeded US$3bn in 2025. She said Americans account for more than 70 per cent of visitors to Jamaica each year, while thousands of Jamaicans take part in seasonal work programmes across 35 US states.
She said she also intended to address Jamaica’s longstanding restrictions on American pork imports, and stressed hurricane preparedness to protect American residents and the roughly two million US citizens who visit the island annually.
Lake told senators she had travelled to Jamaica numerous times over 35 years and spent her honeymoon there. “Yes, Jamaica has beautiful beaches, but it’s the incredible Jamaican people whose warmth, resilience and deep pride in their country that kept us going back,” she said.
Her nomination comes more than a year after the departure of Jamaican-born diplomat Nick Perry, a former New York State Assembly member, who served as US ambassador to Jamaica from 2022 to 2025.
