The US Senate has confirmed Sean O’Neill, a former consul general in Chiang Mai, as the next US ambassador to Thailand.
He was among a group of more than 100 nominees proposed by US President Trump voted in with a simple majority.
The party-line vote comes after Senate Republicans changed the rules last month to allow most executive branch nominees to be confirmed as a group, whereas lawmakers previously had to hold a vote on each one.
Several other appointees critical to Mr Trump’s Asia diplomacy were also confirmed in the 51-47 vote.
These included nominees for senior State Department positions like Michael DeSombre, a former ambassador to Thailand, as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Paul Kapur as his counterpart in charge of South Asian Affairs.
O’Neill has served eight overseas tours across the Indo-Pacific region, including in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma, Hong Kong and as the consul general in Chiang Mai.
His domestic duties have included service in the Department of State, as a legislative fellow on the staff of the chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs and as a foreign policy advisor to the commandant of the United States Marine Corps.
O’Neill is a native New Yorker, who worked as a capital markets attorney in New York and Tokyo before joining the Foreign Service.
He received a BA from Tulane University and a JD from Fordham University’s School of Law. He has studied Thai, Chinese, Burmese, Bengali and Japanese.
He will replace Robert F. Godec, who has held the post since Oct 7th, 2022.
In his recent confirmation hearing, he was asked what he would do to ensure that the ceasefire agreed between Thailand and Cambodia become a long-term peace agreement, O'Neill said:
"I think the first thing I would do is to point out to Thailand, which is one of our only treaty allies in Asia, that wars like this, conflicts like this, do nothing to help their people.
"They do nothing to strengthen our alliance; they do nothing to address the challenges that both of our countries face. They are just a needless waste of life and treasure."
O'Neill also said Thailand should not lend legitimacy to the military government in its neighbour, Myanmar.
