Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš (born December 13, 1964) is a Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

n politician.

Kariņš was born in Wilmington

Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...

, Delaware

Delaware

Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in a Latvian American family. In 1996, he finished a Ph.D. in linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 from University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

. Soon after, he moved to Latvia, where he founded a company Lāču ledus, a producer and distributor of ice and frozen foods.

He was one of founders of New Era Party

New Era Party

The New Era Party , abbreviated to JL, was a centre-right political party in Latvia. Founded in 2002, the party merged with Civic Union and Society for Other Politics to form Unity in 2011....

 in 2001, was elected to Saeima

Saeima

Saeima is the parliament of the Republic of Latvia. It is a unicameral parliament consisting of 100 members who are elected by proportional representation, with seats allocated to political parties which gain at least 5% of the popular vote. Elections are scheduled to be held once every four years,...

, the Latvian parliament in 2002 and reelected in 2006. Kariņš served as the chairman of the parliamentary faction of New Era Party from 2002 to 2004 and the Minister of Economy in Aigars Kalvitis

Aigars Kalvitis

Aigars Kalvītis is a Latvian politician, former Prime Minister of Latvia and current Chairman of the Board of Latvijas Balzams....

 government from December 2004 to April 2006. In March 2007, he became one of two co-leaders of New Era Party (together with Einars Repse).

Since July 2009 he is serving as 1 of the 8 Latvian MEPs

Member of the European Parliament

A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...

 in the European parliament

European Parliament

The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...

. He is a member of the Reconciliation of European Histories Group

Reconciliation of European Histories Group

The Reconciliation of European Histories Group is an informal all-party group in the European Parliament involved in promoting the Prague Process in all of Europe, aimed at coming to terms with the totalitarian past in many countries of Europe...

.