Michael DeSombre | |
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![]() Official portrait, 2020 | |
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs | |
Assumed office October 10,2025 [1] | |
President | Donald Trump |
Preceded by | Daniel Kritenbrink |
United States Ambassador to Thailand | |
In office March 2,2020 –January 20,2021 | |
Appointed by | Donald Trump |
Preceded by | Glyn T. Davies |
Succeeded by | Robert F. Godec |
Personal details | |
Born | 1968 (age 56–57) |
Political party | Republican |
Children | 4 |
Education | Stanford University (BA,MA) Harvard University (JD) |
Michael George DeSombre [2] (born 1968) is a partner of Sullivan &Cromwell [3] and a former United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand. He is also a former chairman of Save the Children Hong Kong.
DeSombre joined Sullivan &Cromwell LLP in 1995 and became a partner of the law firm in 2004,leading its mergers and acquisitions practice in Asia, [4] with clients including Goldman Sachs,Anheuser-Busch InBev and Credit Suisse. [5]
In 2013,he co-founded Republicans Overseas for Americans abroad. The organization focuses on tax reform [6] [7] and proposed replacing FATCA with territorial taxation for individuals to the House Ways and Means Committee,as part of a 2017 executive order to review the Dodd-Frank Act. [8] [9]
DeSombre supported the presidential candidacies of Mitt Romney [10] and Jeb Bush. [11]
He was nominated as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand by President Donald Trump on July 17,2019. [12] He is the first political appointee to the position since 1975. [4] He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 8,2020, [5] succeeding career diplomat Glyn T. Davies. [13]
DeSombre has stated that his Office will primarily encourage the economic partnership between the two countries,with focus on American investment and Thailand's infrastructure projects and supply chains. [14] He has also indicated that U.S. firms are interested in increasing investment in Thailand,including in areas under the 1966 Amity treaty. [15] He was sworn into office on March 2,2020. [16]
In late 2019,following his nomination,DeSombre resigned as chairman of Save the Children Hong Kong,having served since 2015. He was also a member of the board of the Hong Kong Forum. [5] [13] [17]
Following his ambassadorship,he became a senior advisor to the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue;an advisor to the Atlantic Council; [18] [19] and was an independent director of Indorama Ventures in 2021. [20] In October 2021,DeSombre rejoined Sullivan &Cromwell as a partner,to again lead its Asia M&A,as well as heading the firm's Southeast Asia and Korea practices. [3]
President Trump nominated DeSombre for U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific on March 10,2025. [21] He was confirmed to lead the state department by the Senate on October 7,2025,among over 100 nominees then confirmed with a majority vote of 51 to 47. [22] [23]
DeSombre was born in 1968 in Chicago,Illinois. [24] He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Quantitative Economics and a Master of Arts in East Asian Studies from Stanford University. He received his Juris Doctor magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1995. [4] [25]
Prior to assuming his post in Bangkok in 2020,DeSombre lived in Hong Kong,residing in Asia for two decades. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese,and also can speak Korean and Japanese. [17] [4] He is a supporter of the USA Rugby team, [17] and is active in intellectual and philanthropic communities. He is married with four children. [26]