Former United States’ Ambassador to Algeria (2017-2020)
John Desrocher is the U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. From September 2014 until August 2017 he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Egypt and Maghreb Affairs. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

He also served in Baghdad from 2009-2010 as Minister Counselor for Economic Coordination, responsible for U.S.-Iraq economic policy issues. In the interim he served in the Department of State as the Director of the Office of Iraq Affairs and briefly as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Maghreb Affairs. Between 2006 and 2009 he served as the U.S. Consul General in Auckland.

Ambassador Desrocher has extensive experience in international trade and in the Arab world. Immediately prior to his assignment to Auckland he served as Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. He participated in Palestinian-Israeli economic negotiations while serving at the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem in the late 1990s and served as State Department desk officer for Iraq in the mid-1990s. While detailed to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, he led portions of free trade negotiations with Chile and Singapore. He also served in the U.S. Embassies in Monrovia and Bonn as well as in the State Department Operations Center and Office of European Union Affairs.

Ambassador Desrocher, a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, is a multiple recipient of the State Department’s Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards. He speaks French, German, and Arabic.

Ambassador Desrocher is married to Ms. Karen Rose.