NEW YORK – President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Rep. Elise Stefanik as his ambassador to the United Nations, choosing a loyal ally with little foreign policy experience to represent the United States at the international organization.

“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough and smart fighter for America First,” Trump said in a statement Monday announcing his pick for the job, his first selection that will require Senate confirmation.

Stefanik, 40, who serves as chair of the House Republican Conference, has long been one of Trump’s most loyal allies in the House and was among those discussed as a possible vice presidential candidate.

It will become embroiled in the world body’s deep divisions, from wars in the Middle East and Ukraine to control of nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran.

He will also come face-to-face almost daily at the UN Security Council with the ambassadors of Russia and China, whose countries are now strongly allied and warily eyeing a second Trump presidency, and sometimes with his North Korean counterparts. and Iran.

Stefanik will succeed US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat and former Undersecretary of State for Africa who served throughout the Biden administration and was a member of his Cabinet. Stefanik will also be a member of Trump’s Cabinet, he said in the statement.

In Trump’s first administration, he tapped former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for the U.N. job, who had little experience abroad except for a few trade missions. He resigned after two years and then challenged Trump for the Republican nomination. Haley was replaced by then-U.S. ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft, the wife of a Kentucky coal magnate, who in 2023 failed in her bid for the Republican nomination for governor of the state.

John Bolton, a former U.S. national security adviser under Trump and U.N. ambassador during the Bush administration, told The Associated Press that he sees Stefanik as the 2024 version of Haley.