NASSAU, Bahamas — Chargé d’Affaires Usha E. Pitts, who began her tour at the U.S. Embassy in The Bahamas on New Year’s Day, 2021, met with Prime Minister the Most Hon. Dr. Hubert A. Minnis at the Cabinet Office in downtown Nassau on Thursday, February 4.
Chargé d’Affaires Pitts and Prime Minister Minnis discussed the many important areas of cooperation between the United States and The Bahamas, including cooperation on disaster preparedness and COVID-19 response, collaboration on issues of regional importance, and partnership towards combatting climate change under the new administration of President Joe Biden.
Earlier this week, Chargé d’Affaires Pitts also met with the Hon. Darren Henfield, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Chargé d’Affaires Pitts is a career U.S. diplomat, who has served at diplomatic posts in Russia, Cuba, Italy, Austria, Panama, and Brazil. She has also served in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
“As the Diplomat in Residence for New York City, Ms. Pitts traveled a region of 45 million Americans, recruiting aspiring diplomats and promoting public service,” the U.S. Embassy in Nassau noted on its website. “During her most recent tour abroad, Ms. Pitts led the U.S. Consulate General in Recife, a seaside city in Brazil’s growing Northeast region. Ms. Pitts also worked in Rome and Vienna as a U.S. liaison to international organizations dealing with food security and atomic energy.”
The website added, “During her tour in Washington, Ms. Pitts supervised a team in the State Department’s Operations Center, a 24-hour crisis management and communications center. Earlier in her career, Ms. Pitts worked in Havana, where she tracked the Cuban economy. She began her career at U.S. Embassies in Moscow and Panama City.
“Ms. Pitts was born and raised in Massachusetts, the daughter of an interracial marriage. She traveled to India at age 11, an experience that led to a lifetime of travel and an eventual career in the Foreign Service. She speaks Chinese, Russian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. She holds degrees from the University of Massachusetts, the George Washington University, and the Naval War College. She and her husband are raising two teenagers and looking forward to learning about The Bahamas and other island nations in the English-speaking Caribbean.”
The Bahamas has been without an U.S. Ambassador since California businesswoman Nicole Avant, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, served in that capacity from October 22, 2009 to November 21, 2011.
Since then, the top U.S. diplomats in the country that is the closest neighbor of the United States have been John W. Dinkelman, Chargé d’Affaires, November 2011 to July 2014; Lisa A. Johnson, Chargé d’Affaires, July 9, 2014 to November 9, 2017; and Stephanie Bowers, Chargé d’Affaires, from March 1, 2018 to 2020.
