Matthew P. Roth arrived in Hermosillo, Sonora as Principal Officer and Consul General of the United States in August 2023.
Immediately prior, he was the Deputy Director of Andean Affairs at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC, overseeing bilateral relations with the five countries of the Andes region. Before that assignment he was the Commandant’s Distinguished Chair for Diplomatic Studies at Army University. Headquartered at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, he taught national security policy to U.S. and international officers at military bases throughout the United States. His area of published research as an academic was the critical role of state and local governments in foreign policy.
He was Chargé d’Affaires a.i. and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda; Chargé d’Affaires a.i. and acting Deputy Chief of Mission in Managua, Nicaragua; and Chargé d’Affaires a.i. and acting Deputy Chief of Mission in Maputo, Mozambique. He served as Economic Counselor and acting Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Mission to Brazil. He also served in Colombia, Peru, Panama, and in the Office of Mexican Affairs in Washington, DC. In this last role, he focused on cross-border trade and transportation, as well as coordination between Mexican and U.S. military and law enforcement entities.
Roth graduated from the University of Kansas with a Master of Public Administration degree and has undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Latin America studies from the same institution. Both he and his wife Ramona grew up on ranches in central Kansas and maintain strong connections to agribusiness. They have two daughters.