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A longtime proponent of harsh sanctions, Mauricio Claver-Carone was forced out of his job at the Inter-American Development Bank in 2022.
- Dec. 23, 2024, 6:05 p.m. ET
President-elect Donald J. Trump signaled a return to his first term’s maximum-pressure policies against left-wing regimes on Sunday when he named a longtime foreign policy hawk known for hard-line positions on Cuba to be the special envoy for Latin America.
His choice, Mauricio Claver-Carone, 49, is a lawyer, blogger, lobbyist and former Treasury Department official. Mr. Claver-Carone served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council during Mr. Trump’s first term.
He left the administration for a prestigious five-year post running the Inter-American Development Bank. But he was fired after two years when allegations emerged that he was in a romantic relationship with a subordinate whose salary he had increased by $133,000 in less than a year, according to a confidential internal investigative report cited by The Associated Press.
Mr. Claver-Carone strongly denied the allegations of an affair.
In being named a special envoy at the State Department, Mr. Claver-Carone could dodge the Senate nomination process, which would dredge up the murky circumstances surrounding his departure from the regional development bank.
The bank, made up of 48 member countries, aims to reduce poverty and develop Latin America; its presidency had always been held by someone from the region.
Mr. Claver-Carone has said he was the victim of a smear campaign by officials in various countries who wanted to force him out after he refused to hire their cronies. The bank reached a financial settlement with him and two other employees after they filed complaints in an administrative tribunal, Mr. Claver-Carone told The New York Times on Monday. He declined to comment further.
