President Joe Biden has nominated Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to the post of ambassador to India. Garcetti is a close political friend and a former Navy intelligence officer with Indo-Pacific expertise.

FREMONT, CA: U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to the post of Ambassador to India. Mr Garcetti’s nomination, which had been expected for weeks, was announced by the White House as part of a set of ambassadorial nominations.

Garcetti was a co-chair of Biden's election campaign and a committee member that examined candidates for Vice President. Garcetti brings 12 years of expertise as an intelligence officer in the US Navy Reserve, where he operated under the US Pacific Fleet Commander and in the Defense Intelligence Agency, to Washington's Indo-Pacific policy, which envisions India playing a vital role in the region.

In New Delhi, Garcetti will have to handle challenging task of reconciling Washington's priority of negotiating India's role mainly as a regional power or a significant defense ally in the Indo-Pacific region, where it faces Beijing's aggressive posture with disagreements over trade, human rights, and India's purchase of a Russian missile defense system, which the US opposes.

One of his greatest successes as mayor was winning the 2028 summer Olympics for Los Angeles with a successful worldwide campaign. In addition, Garcetti has long been a proponent of climate action, which is a crucial component of Biden's platform and expected to emphasize India.

Former senators Richard Frank Celeste or Chester Bowles, former congress members Kenneth Keating, Sherman Cooper, William Saxbe, and public ideologues John Kenneth Galbraith and Daniel Patrick Moynihan were among the 15 political appointees in New Delhi.