Failed Republican candidate Kari Lake of Arizona is one of the top contenders to become President-elect Donald Trump’s ambassador to Mexico.
Citing two sources, Semafor reported this on Monday that Lake is being considered for what could be one of the most taxing ambassadorships of Trump’s term.
Lake is a harbinger of a border state, but was rejected twice by Arizona voters.
She ran for governor in 2022 and lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs and then lost her Senate race in 2024 to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.
Lake claimed her 2022 election was rigged after parroting Trump’s false election fraud claims after he lost the 2020 White House race to President Joe Biden.
Her embrace of Trump’s “big lie” made her a MAGA celebrity and frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago.
Lake was a local television reporter before starting her political career.
The relationship between the US and Mexico will be controversial under Trump.
Kari Lake (left) is considered President-elect Donald Trump’s ambassador to Mexico. She lost a Senate race in Arizona in November after losing her 2022 gubernatorial race, falsely claiming the election was stolen
Kari Lake (right) campaigns with now President-elect Donald Trump (left) in Arizona in October. Lake is a harbinger of a border state and shared similar views on immigration as the new president
He already announced that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexican imports if Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum does not do more to control the flow of migrants across the Mexico-US border.
Trump made the same threat against Canada, where much less foot traffic crosses the border.
He said the Mexican and Canadian tariffs would apply to “ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculously open borders.”
“This tariff will remain in effect until drugs, especially Fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!”
Trump spoke to Sheinbaum by phone on November 27, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid for a trip to Mar-a-Lago to see Trump the day after Thanksgiving.
Moreover, one of Trump’s main campaign promises is a mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
Sheinbaum said Thursday that she wants to make a deal with the Trump administration to limit the number of deportees from third countries who end up in Mexico.
A similar deal to send deportees to their countries of origin has already been struck with the Biden White House.
Many migrants who have crossed the border in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and during Biden’s term in office come from the so-called Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Lake softened her position on abortion during her 2024 Senate campaign, but like other members of the MAGA movement remained an immigration hardliner.
She supported completing Trump’s border wall, increasing the number of asylum judges and quickly deporting migrants entering the United States between ports of entry.
During a debate with Gallego in October, Lake blasted her Democratic opponent for not wanting to deport illegal immigrants while insisting that she wanted to deport “Dreamers,” undocumented people who entered the U.S. as children.
Lake said the country “has to deal with the people who flooded in during the Bidenvasion, the 20 million people who came into our country unattended, we have to deal with them to save our homeland.”
“We need to send them back to their home country,” Lake said.