Mari Carmen Aponte (born 1946) is an American attorney and diplomat who has served as the United States Ambassador to Panama in the Biden administration since November 2022. She previously served as acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs on May 5, 2016.[1] She also served as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador from August 2010 until December 2011 and again from June 14, 2012, until December 2015.[2][3] Before that she was serving as a member of the board of directors of Oriental Group, a major financial and banking services enterprise in Puerto Rico. President Obama also nominated her as the United States' permanent representative to the Organization of American States,[4] but the Senate had not acted upon that nomination upon adjournment in December 2014.
In 1979, she was appointed a White House Fellow by President Jimmy Carter, serving as a special assistant to former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Moon Landrieu.
Clinton administration
In 1998, President Bill Clinton nominated Aponte to serve as the United States' ambassador to the Dominican Republic. However, Aponte asked that her nomination be withdrawn from consideration by the Senate after her involvement with Roberto Tamayo was made public.[6] After Aponte's nomination was withdrawn, Clinton designated Aponte a special assistant in the Office of Presidential Personnel.[7]
In 2011, Aponte helped organize and hosted President Obama's state visit to El Salvador as part of a Latin American tour that also included Brazil and Chile.
In August 2011, she personally hosted a visit from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was meeting with Salvadoran counterparts.[9]
In December 2011, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed for cloture on Aponte's nomination, in an effort to break Senate Republicans' filibuster of her nomination. However, the cloture vote failed by a vote of 49–37.[10]
Aponte returned to the United States at the end of December 2011, when her recess appointment expired.
On June 14, 2012, the Senate confirmed Aponte to be the ambassador by voice vote.[11] She presented her credentials on August 21, 2012, and served until February 7, 2016.[12]
Aponte was also nominated by President Obama as a permanent representative to the OAS, but the Senate adjourned in December 2014 before taking up her nomination.
Biden administration
On October 8, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Aponte to be the next U.S ambassador to Panama.[13] The Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not act on it for the rest of the year, and it was returned to President Biden on January 3, 2022.[14]
President Biden resent Aponte's nomination the next day. Hearings on her nomination were held before the Foreign Relations Committee on May 18, 2022. Her nomination was favorably reported on June 9, 2022. She was confirmed by the Senate on September 29, 2022.[15] She presented her credentials to President Nito Cortizo on November 21, 2022.[16]
Aponte has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Oriental Group, a major financial and banking services enterprise in Puerto Rico, from 1998 to 2001 and from 2005 until appointed ambassador to El Salvador.
In the early 1990s, Aponte dated insurance salesman Roberto Tamayo. Tamayo was accused by a Cuban intelligence defector of spying for the Cuban government. Tamayo was alternately accused of being an FBI informant by a U.S. intelligence source. Aponte's relationship with Tamayo, which ended in 1994, was brought up by Republican Senator Jim DeMint as a reason to stop her confirmation as ambassador to El Salvador in 2011, however, she was confirmed as no "nefarious connection was found".[17]
