Donald Trump has nominated David Brat, a conservative former Republican congressman and economics academic, to serve as the next US ambassador to Australia, ending a 15-month gap in diplomatic representation in Canberra. The White House sent Brat's nomination to the Senate for confirmation on Tuesday, Australian time. The post had been vacant since Caroline Kennedy, appointed by the Biden administration, departed in late 2024.
Brat, 61, is a Virginia-based academic who currently serves as senior vice president of business relations at Liberty University, a conservative evangelical Christian institution. He rose to national prominence in 2014 when he pulled off one of the biggest primary upsets in modern US political history, defeating Eric Cantor — then the House of Representatives majority leader — in a Virginia Republican primary backed by the conservative Tea Party movement. He served two terms in Congress as a member of the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative bloc within the Republican Party, before losing his seat in 2018 to Democrat Abigail Spanberger. Brat holds a PhD in economics from American University and a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and has written extensively on the intersection of religion and markets — his core argument, as described in a 2011 paper, being that capitalism and Christianity should merge.
His nomination arrives at a tense moment in the US-Australia relationship, with the Trump administration publicly criticising the Australian government over its stance on the US and Israeli-led conflict with Iran and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically vital waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. Brat has also drawn scrutiny for past statements: in a 2022 interview he called on Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia, and he has claimed US intelligence agencies conspired to remove Trump from office.
Asked at a press conference whether Brat was someone he could work with, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave a measured response.