Senate Confirms Herro Mustafa Garg as U.S. Ambassador to Egypt

The position has gone without a Senate-confirmed leader while war is being fought between Israel and Hamas.

The U.S. Senate today held a record vote to confirm one individual nominated by President Joe Biden to serve abroad as an ambassador. Today’s action is the first approval for service in a pivotal country in North Africa since the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

With a voice vote, Herro Mustafa Garg was confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt. The posting has been led by several chargé d’affaires since March 2022, when Jonathan Cohen resigned after serving since November 2019.

Mustafa Garg was nominated to this position by Biden in March 2023. She is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Minister-Counselor. She previously served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Portugal from July 2016 to September 2019 and as the U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria from October 2019 to February 2023.

Prior postings during Mustafa Garg’s time in the foreign service include work at the U.S. embassies in Greece, India, Iraq and Lebanon.

Mustafa Garg’s confirmation comes the same day that Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing to allow medical evacuations from Gaza. Thousands of individuals have been killed or injured in Gaza and Israel over the last month. Only limited humanitarian resources have been let through the sole border crossing over the last week. The Egyptian government has previously opposed any efforts to accept refugees from Gaza seeking to escape this conflict.

All of this proves just how consequential it is for the United States to have a Senate-confirmed representative with a career in the foreign service on the ground advocating for the American position. Mustafa Garg’s confirmation hearing recently happened on October 19 - proving the Senate is capable of moving quickly on these nominations.