Wife of ‘God Bless the USA’ Singer Lee Greenwood Nominated as US Ambassador to Barbados

The wife of “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean on Monday.

Kimberly Payne Greenwood, a former Miss Tennessee, posted a photograph of herself and her husband with Trump on social media later on Monday, and thanked him for the nomination, which has to be approved by the Senate.

“To be asked by the President of the United States to represent the country I love is one of the greatest honors of my lifetime,” she wrote.

‘America Values Their Friendship’

“If confirmed by the United States Senate, I will work every day to earn that confidence, to listen and learn, to build genuine relationships, and to make sure the people of every nation I am privileged to serve know how deeply America values their friendship,” Payne Greenwood added.

Her husband is one of Trump’s favorite singers, and his “God Bless the USA” song has been his chosen walk-on song at recent political events, including the pre-midterm convention in Dallas last week.

Greenwood, who is 83, wrote it in the fall of 1983, shortly after the communist Soviet Union shot down a Korean airliner carrying 239 people, including Congressman Larry McDonald.

“It was also the song I always felt the need to write,” Greenwood told The Epoch Times in January.

On March 26, 2024, Trump announced a collaboration with Greenwood to promote the “God Bless The USA Bible,” encouraging people to buy it and “make America pray again.”

It was billed as “the only Bible endorsed by President Trump,” and according to the product’s website, it “is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign.”

In his own Instagram post, Greenwood said his wife had worked with Trump for 18 years, during which time he owned the Miss Universe Organization, and she directed state pageants.

“My heart is overflowing with pride today as I share that President Donald J. Trump has nominated my beautiful wife, Kimberly Payne Greenwood, to serve as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Barbados and, concurrently, to the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,” the singer wrote.

In September 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Seattle businessman Roger Nyhus—a donor to the Democratic Party—to be the U.S. ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.

Nyhus was approved by the Senate in November 2023 and took up his post in January 2024, but served only 12 months before Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The post fell vacant in January 2025, and the job is currently being handled by Chargé d’Affaires Karin B. Sullivan, a career diplomat.

Barbados, a former British colony, cut its ties with the monarchy and became a republic in 2021, and in September 2023, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a global conversation on reparations for slavery, an issue she revisited earlier in Accra, Ghana, in June.

Many US Ambassador Roles Empty

Trump on Monday also nominated Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) to be U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Before entering politics, Hunt was a U.S. Army officer who served as a diplomatic liaison in Riyadh.

According to the American Foreign Service Association, which represents diplomats, more than 50 percent of the United States’ ambassadorial roles are vacant.

A large number of those vacancies are positions where Trump has nominated someone, but the Senate has not yet confirmed them for the post.

These include Nick Oberheiden, a criminal defense attorney, who was nominated to the post of ambassador to Egypt in June, and former Phoenix television news anchor Kari Lake, who was nominated as ambassador to Jamaica in May.

There is currently no nomination for the post of U.S. ambassador to Germany, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, or the United Arab Emirates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.