He said there would be a period of about 15 days after the inauguration, up to five years, the last arms control agreement with Russia, which Mr. Trump initially refused to take because he insisted on bringing China into the treaty as well. “We definitely want to engage China on arms control issues,” Mr Blinken said recently, “but we can achieve strategic stability by extending the new initial arms limit agreement and then try to build on it.”
Mr Blinken has taken a smarter approach to Russia as the 2001 election and the extent of his interference across Europe have become clearer, and in a recent interview he used Russia’s discomfort to his advantage in relying on China, especially in Technol.
“There is a flip side to dealing with Moscow,” Mr Blink said. President Vladimir V. Putin, he noted, “seeks to eliminate Russia’s growing dependence on China,” which has left him in a “not very comfortable position.”
Described as a centrist with a streak of intervention by some, Mr. Blinken has also sought to alleviate the refugee crisis and migration. On the last day of the Obama administration, the State Department set a cap of 110,000 refugees who will be allowed to resettle in the United States in fiscal year 2017. That number has dropped to 15,000 in FY2021.
He said he would look to provide more assistance to Central America’s northern triangle countries – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, to reassure migrants that they would be safe and well off from being left behind.
He said it would leave all the time and resources to the Middle East, although it was the policy area that killed Mr. Blinken in the years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. .
He helped split Mr Biden’s proposal to create three autonomous regions in Iraq, divided by ethnic or sectarian identities, which was widely rejected by the country’s prime minister at the time. During the Obama administration, Mr. Blinken was a key player in diplomatic efforts to help more than 60 countries fight Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
