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President-elect Joe Biden has released a number of nominees to head the foreign policy and national security agencies under his incoming administration. In addition, it is reported that Biden will announce his election as Secretary of the Treasury.
Nominees on Monday included Antony Blinken for secretary of state, Alejandro Mayorkas for secretary of national security, Avril Haines for director of national intelligence, Jake Sullivan for national security adviser, Linda Thomas-Greenfield for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. and former secretary. John Kerry to be the presidential special envoy for climate.
For the Treasury secretary, Biden plans to nominate Janet Yellen, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, and the New York Times.
The proposed appointments come as President Donald Trump has continued to refuse to grant the election, despite a resounding victory projected for Biden. Trump has also refused to allow the roughly 40 agencies that make up his administration to cooperate with Biden’s team, which experts, including more than 100 Republican national security officials, warn could hurt national security readiness when Biden take office on January 20.
The nominees announced Monday include a number of former officials in the administration of President Barack Obama, in which Biden served as vice president. Many have long been Biden’s advisers and confidants.
In a statement, Biden said that “there is no time to lose when it comes to our national security and foreign policy.”
“I need a team ready on day one to help me regain America’s position at the head of the table, unite the world to meet the greatest challenges we face, and advance our security, prosperity and values,” said Biden. “These people have the same experience and crisis proof that they are innovative and imaginative.”
Antony Blinken, Secretary of State
Former undersecretary of state Antony Blinken has been nominated for the post of secretary of state in the Biden administration. [Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo]
Blinken, 58, served as undersecretary of state and deputy national security adviser during the Obama-Biden administration. He has advised Biden on foreign policy since 2002.
The election of Blinken, who has had close ties to Biden, is seen as a reprimand of Trump’s “America First” policy. He has emphasized the importance of international organizations and alliances and is expected to lead the United States’ reincorporation into the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as reactivating the nuclear deal with Iran.
Before becoming foreign policy advisor to the Biden campaign, Blinken served as managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and was the Herter / Nitze Distinguished Scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Blinken has been criticized for his role in overseeing the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in 2011 which observers say created a power vacuum that aided the rise of ISIL (ISIS). He has also faced pushback for his role in overseeing Syria policy under Obama.
Still, by nominating Blinken, Biden appears to be largely sidestepping potentially thorny issues that could have affected Senate confirmation for others on his short list. Susan Rice was expected to face Republican opposition stemming from remarks she made following the 2012 Benghazi attacks in Libya. Senator Chris Coons was generally seen as lacking the detailed expertise to handle foreign policy issues.
With his nomination of Yellen, who, if confirmed, will be the first female Treasury secretary, Biden last week hinted at why he is choosing the former chairman of the Federal Reserve.
“You will see that he is someone who I think will be accepted by all elements of the Democratic Party, progressives through the moderate coalition,” Biden said.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of National Security
Former Undersecretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has been nominated by Biden to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security in his incoming administration. [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]
Mayorkas, a former federal prosecutor in California, served as an assistant secretary in the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under Obama. He was the highest-ranking Cuban-American official in the Obama administration.
If confirmed, the Havana-born Mayorkas would become the first Latino and the first foreign-born leader of the expanding department that was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The department has around 240,000 employees and is responsible for border security, immigration control, cyber security, disaster preparedness and relief, among other portfolios.
Biden has vowed to undo many of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies. The hundreds of planned changes could take months or years to implement. They include lifting the travel ban to 13 Muslim or African majority countries, creating a path to citizenship for the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., and revitalizing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). ), which offers protections to so-called Dreamers – hundreds of thousands of immigrants living illegally in the United States after entering as children.
Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence
Former NSA MP Avril Haines has been nominated by Biden for the position of director of national intelligence. [File: Win McNamee/AFP]
Haines was the deputy national security adviser under Obama, and previously the first woman to serve as a deputy director of the CIA.
If confirmed, she will be the first woman to hold the position of director of national intelligence, which oversees a constellation of 17 agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).
He held various positions at Columbia University after leaving the Obama administration in 2017.
Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor
The former NSA of then Vice President Jake Sullivan has been chosen by Biden to serve as NSA in the incoming administration. [File: Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo]
Sullivan served as Biden’s national security adviser during the Obama administration and also as deputy chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
A 43-year-old Yale graduate who was also a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, Sullivan has a reputation as a behind-the-scenes operator. He participated in secret side channel talks with Iran that led to a 2015 international nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from which Trump withdrew in 2018.
As part of the Biden-Harris campaign, Sullivan had taken on a broad portfolio of advice on foreign and domestic policy, including public health and the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat, has been nominated to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations in the Biden administration. [Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo]
Thomas-Greenfield is a career diplomat who served as Obama’s top diplomat in Africa from 2013 to 2017. She directed US policy in sub-Saharan Africa during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
She had previously served as an ambassador to Liberia and held positions in Switzerland, Pakistan, Kenya, the Gambia, Nigeria and Jamaica.
Since 2017, she has been Head of the Africa Practice at the Albright Stoneridge Group, a private business diplomacy firm chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Thomas-Greenfield will be tasked with restoring America’s stature at the UN, to which the Trump administration has been adversarial. Trump demoted the role of US ambassador from a cabinet position in 2018.
Thomas-Greenfield, who is black, has emphasized the need for diversity within the US foreign policy apparatus.
Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury
Janet Yellen is set to be nominated as the next Secretary of the Treasury [File: Andrew Harnik/AP Photo]
Yellen is a career economist who spent years working in the US Federal Reserve system, including serving as president from 2014 to 2018.
Democrats were upset when Trump refused to re-elect Yellen as president in 2018, breaking with recent tradition when the two previous presidents appointed by Democratic presidents, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, were re-elected by subsequent Republican presidents.
Yellen, who was the first female chairman of the Federal Reserve, would also be the first female Treasury secretary, if confirmed. She also served as chair of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999.
John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
Former Secretary of State John Kerry has been nominated to serve as a special presidential envoy for climate on Biden’s National Security Council. [Gerald Herbert/AP Photo]
Former Obama Secretary of State Kerry will serve as “climate czar” on Biden’s National Security Council. The new position is the first time that a member of the council will be dedicated exclusively to climate change.
Kerry, 76, helped negotiate the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which aims to mitigate emissions around the world.
Kerry, a former Massachusetts senator, was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, losing to Republican President George W. Bush.
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