David Brat: Trump picks former Republican congressman to be US ambassador to Australia after 17-month vacancy
David Brat represented Virginia in the House of Representatives for two terms
Donald Trump has named the former Virginia congressman David Brat to be the next US ambassador to Australia, ending a 15-month vacancy in Canberra.
Brat served two terms in Congress until 2018 when he was defeated by a Democrat in a close race.
The 61-year-old is a vice-president of business relations at Virginia’s Liberty University.
The White House nominated Brat for Senate confirmation for the role on Tuesday morning, Australian time. The post has been vacant since Joe Biden’s ambassador, Caroline Kennedy, left Canberra in November 2024.
His nomination comes amid a tense moment in the US alliance, as the US president repeatedly criticises the Albanese government for failing to assist with the US and Israeli-led war in Iran, and in efforts to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
Senate confirmation for diplomatic posts can take weeks or months. Brat’s nomination came alongside a series of bureaucratic appointments to US government posts.
Brat was born and raised in rural Michigan; his father was a doctor and his mother a social worker. A local newspaper, the Pioneer Press, reported that his family moved to Minnesota in the late 1970s. He attended university in Michigan, eventually studying business administration. He later received a PhD in economics from American University.
He has a Masters of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, where, Time magazine reported, he wrote a thesis on logical positivism and its impact on economic science.
He has ties to Catholic, Calvinist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Methodist congregations.
Brat used a 2011 paper to argue that capitalism and Christianity should merge, writing: “If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take.”
Described an Ayn Rand enthusiast, in 2010 he co-authored a paper assessing the moral foundations of her writing.
Aligned with the Republican Tea Party movement, Brat achieved one of the biggest congressional primary upsets in US history in 2014 when he defeated the then House majority leader, Eric Cantor, in a Virginia Republican primary. The loss ended Cantor’s political career.
Brat joined the GOP Freedom Caucus in Washington but lost his seat in 2018 to the Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who last year was elected governor of Virginia.
The appointment comes as the Albanese government’s new ambassador to Washington, the former defence secretary Greg Moriarty, takes over from the former prime minister Kevin Rudd.
Trump’s first ambassador to Canberra, the Washington lawyer Arthur B Culvahouse, was appointed two years into his first term in the White House.
The shadow foreign minister, Ted O’Brien, welcomed the appointment on social media.
“The alliance remains central to Australia’s future, but there is no shortage of work to do on the relationship,” he wrote. “I look forward to working with Mr Brat.”
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