MEXICO CITY, April 23 (Reuters) – Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday that she will propose economist Roberto Lazzeri as the country’s next ambassador to the United States, replacing a pick by her predecessor who held the post since 2021.
“We need to submit it to the United States and see if they approve the process,” she said in a daily press conference.
Lazzeri would replace current ambassador Esteban Moctezuma, who was named by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The move to appoint Lazzeri, the head of two of Mexico’s top development banks, Nafin and Bancomext, and who has also overseen public debt for the federal government, comes amid talks to review the key U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact.
Mexico and Canada have been looking to the USMCA negotiations as a way to provide relief from the steep duties U.S. President Donald Trump imposed last year that have caused difficulties for automakers and other industries in a highly integrated North American economy.
(Reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Raul Cortes; Editing by Sarah Morland and Daina Beth Solomon)
