Accepting the position, Haley said, “Our country faces enormous challenges here at home and internationally, and I am honoured that the President-elect has asked me to join his team and serve the country we love as the next Ambassador to the United Nations.”

Her appointment caps a year of political achievements for Indian Americans. Her full name is Nimrata Nikki Randhwa Haley and she is the daughter of Sikh immigrants from Amritsar. While Haley does not have direct foreign policy experience, she has travelled to India and Europe for developing businesses in her state. She also has well-honed diplomatic skills having manoeuvered her way through the politics of South Carolina, a conservative state, where she was opposed by a section of her own party. Trump alluded to this when he made the announcement calling her “a proven deal-maker.”.

Indian Americans made significant political headway this year in the US. For the first time an Indian American, Kamala Harris, was elected to the Senate, and the House of Representatives now has four from the community with the election of Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Ro Khanna, who will join the re-elected Ami Bera. The first Hindu elected to Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, is also under consideration for a job in the Trump administration. A military veteran of Afghanistan, she has been critical of US military entanglements abroad, while taking a strong position against terrorism, which aligns her with Trump’s state policies. Gabbard was invited by Trump to meet with him and discussed the Syrian situation, terrorism and the department that deals with ex-service people.

By appointing Haley, Trump is reaching out the centrist sections of the Republican Party that had been critical of him. Haley had vehemently criticised Trump during his campaign for the Republican nomination, going to the extent of saying that he was everything she didn’t want to see in a president. When she gave her party’s response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, she made an indirect criticism of Trump for fomenting a politics of anger. However, Haley endorsed Trump after his nomination as the party candidate. She was in the first batch of potential candidates for positions in the Trump administration who were interviewed by him for possible positions.