Martin J. Silverstein

Martin J. Silverstein (born 1954) is a American attorney and diplomat. He served as the United States Ambassador to Uruguay under George W. Bush, from 2001 to 2005.

Martin J. Silverstein served as a senior member of the Transition Team for President-elect Donald Trump. He has practiced law for nearly four decades beginning his legal career in Philadelphia. Since leaving his post as United States Ambassador to Uruguay in 2005, he has been working as an attorney in New York., New Jersey and Texas as senior counsel with an international law firm, practicing Global and Corporate & Securities law. President George W. Bush named Silverstein as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay just prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. A Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, Silverstein also sits as a Judge Pro Tempore in the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania.

While serving as Ambassador to Uruguay from 2001 to 2005, according to news reports, Silverstein facilitated a $1.5 billion U.S. Treasury bridge loan to salvage Uruguay's banking system, pending receipt of an IMF loan. He also engineered the reopening of U.S. markets to banned Uruguayan commodities and fostered the signing of the first Bilateral Investment Treaty of the Bush Administration. These actions prompted the President of Uruguay to publicly credit President Bush and Silverstein personally, with saving his government and preventing economic collapse.