Report: U.S. Ambassador Left Out of Jared Kushner’s Mexico Meetings

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner did not invite the U.S. ambassador to Mexico to join him in meetings with Mexico’s president and foreign minister during his recent diplomatic trip, The New York Times reports. It was not immediately clear why Roberta S. Jacobson, a veteran diplomat with more than 30 years of experience, was excluded from the meetings. Jacobson is one of three of the State Department’s top Latin America diplomats to announce her resignation recently, though she is not due to leave her post until May. The decision to apparently exclude her was widely seen by experts as a break with tradition that signals a change in the Trump administration’s approach to dealing with Mexico. Kushner’s meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto was announced only a day in advance, and it came after a meeting between Nieto and President Trump was reportedly scrapped following a “tense” phone call between the two. Kushner’s trip to the country also came just days after he had his security-clearance downgraded.