WASHINGTON: The appointment of the next US ambassador to Japan will likely have to start from scratch after Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden declared victory in the presidential election.

Experts say current US President Donald Trump’s nominee for the post is unlikely to be approved, and that the new president will have to restart the nomination process from square one.

Trump expressed his intention in March to nominate Kenneth Weinstein, president of the conservative think tank Hudson Institute, as ambassador to Japan.

But the Senate appointment process was delayed due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, and the first online hearing on the matter at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began in August.

The committee endorsed the nomination on Sept. 22, urging the full Senate to confirm Weinstein for the post.

However, the Senate has not approved the nominee as the presidential and Senate elections went into full swing soon afterward.

“(Weinstein’s) nomination would lapse with the end of President Trump’s term,” Kent Calder, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said.

Calder also noted that actions in the Senate, such as Weinstein’s approval in the Foreign Relations Committee, will also expire when the newly elected Senate is convened in early January next year.

“What is clear is that, as of January 20, the decision on nominating an ambassador to Japan would rest with President-elect Biden, provided that his election is certified in coming weeks,” he added.

People close to Weinstein declined to comment when contacted by Jiji Press.

The nominee is viewed as being close to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump’s inner circle, and was expected to play a vital role in connecting Tokyo and Washington.

William Hagerty resigned as US ambassador to Japan in July 2019 to run for the Senate. The post has been vacant for over a year.