The post of US ambassador to Dhaka has been lying vacant since July 2024 when the then incumbent Peter D Haas left for his home country even as Bangladesh was plunged into political turmoil in the wake of the students’ movement that forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee to India.
Curiously enough, the post of charge d’affaires was occupied by Helen LaFavre when Haas was the ambassador. But since January 2025, the US embassy in Dhaka is being headed not by a full-fledged ambassador but a charge d’affaires “ad interim” – Tracey Ann Jacobson.
The US embassy, interestingly enough, has a deputy chief of mission, Megan Bouldin, who took up the post in August 2024 even when the then incumbent, Helen LaFave was still in Dhaka. LaFave left Dhaka in October 2024.
Now, Jacobson previously served as US ambassador on three occasions – to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kosovo, and as deputy ambassador at the American embassy in Riga, Latvia.
Bangladesh foreign service sources continue to wonder why a diplomat who held the post of ambassador on three occasions agree to take up the assignment of a charge d’affaires a role which is usually filled in by a deputy chief of mission.
A key element of Jacobson’s posting as charge d’affaires in Dhaka was that this post did not require confirmation by the US Senate which is mandatory for all ambassadorial posts.
“The main aim was to bypass the Senate where control had been wrested by the Republicans following the November 2024 presidential election in which Trump emerged victorious,” a senior Bangladeshi diplomat said.
The sources said that Jacobson met senior Bangladeshi diplomats in Washington DC even before her name was formally announced on January 9, 2025. Surprisingly, within two days, she assumed duties on January 11, 2025. The then Joe Biden administration acted swiftly to move Jacobson to Dhaka to continue its engagement with the Bangladesh interim authority Chief Advisor Mohammad Yunus. She serves as a link between the Democrats and the Yunus-led interim authority.
A career member of the US’ Senior Foreign Service, Jacobson previously served as a senior adviser in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and as charge d’affaires, ad interim, at the American embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Additionally, served in senior capacities as the principal deputy assistant secretary (and acting assistant secretary for an extended period) in the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization. She is credited with “shaping the future” of the Foreign Service first as dean of the School of Professional and Area Studies and then as deputy director of the National Foreign Affairs Training Center.
Among other roles, she has served as deputy executive secretary and senior director for administration for the National Security Council, Washington DC and as management counselor of the U.S. Embassy, Nassau, Bahamas.
In August 2017, Foreign Policy reported that seven months after Donald Trump assumed the presidency for the first time, Jacobson, then 52 years old, “announced her plans to take early retirement to her staff on Friday (August 25, 2017)”.
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While at that time she was “expected to continue in her post (acting director of the Bureau for International Organization Affairs)”, Foreign Policy said “Jacobson confirmed that she was seeking early retirement, ending a 30-year career during which she served presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama as US ambassador to Kosovo, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. She did not say why she had decided to leave.”
