U.S. Senate confirms new Ambassador to the Netherlands

The United States Senate confirmed Shefali Razdan Duggal as the new American ambassador to the Netherlands. Razdan Duggal, a political activist and women’s rights campaigner, will succeed Pete Hoekstra.

The U.S. Senate considered Razdan Duggal’s nomination on Wednesday and confirmed it in a voice vote. The confirmation happened six months after U.S. President Joe Biden submitted her nomination to the Senate.

Razdan Duggal is a San Francisco committee member of Human Rights Watch and a former presidential appointee to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, among other things. She also served as national co-chair of a women’s movement that campaigned for Biden before the 2020 presidential election.

The former U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands - Dutch-American politician Pete Hoekstra - left office in early 2021. He was nominated by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017.