President-elect Joe Biden finalized on Saturday the composition of his diplomatic team, which will include many Obama-era alumni, with a marked desire to break with Donald Trump’s unilateralism and “fix” foreign policy American.
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The future head of state had already announced at the end of November that he had chosen another former member of the Obama administration, Antony Blinken, for the crucial post of secretary of state.
The number two in American diplomacy will be Wendy Sherman (71), who was diplomatic advisor under Bill Clinton before becoming Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs during Barack Obama’s second term.
Future Deputy Secretary of State, Mme Sherman was notably the American linchpin of the Iran nuclear deal and had worked on the North Korean issue in the Clinton administration.
Joe Biden has signaled, on several occasions, his intention, once he is invested, to bring the United States back to the Iran nuclear deal, from which Donald Trump came out in 2018, while reinstating the lifted US sanctions. in 2015.
But the future head of state is waiting, at the same time, for Tehran to return to strict application of the terms of the agreement, with which Iran has recently taken liberties.
Another designation announced on Saturday, that of the Assistant Secretary of State for Management and Resources, a sort of operational head of American diplomacy.
This is Brian McKeon, a close friend of Joe Biden, whom he advised for a long time when the latter was still a senator, before occupying various positions in the government during Barack Obama’s two terms.
“America is back”
With Antony Blinken, this team will have the mission of “repairing” American foreign policy, indicated in a statement, the transition team of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, “but also to imagine it differently”.
As he had done when the name of Antony Blinken was announced, the future president thus clearly wants to mark the break with the nationalist and unilateralist foreign policy of Donald Trump, to reconnect with a resolutely multilateral line.
The new faces of American diplomacy “embody my deep conviction that America is strongest when it collaborates with its allies,” said Joe Biden, quoted in the statement.
The future president thus wants to “restore the moral and world leadership” of the United States, supported by his allies. “America is back, ready to show the world the way, not back down,” said Team Biden.
Coming out of the Iranian nuclear agreement and that of Paris on the climate, Donald Trump has also distanced himself from the United Nations, with the World Health Organization, as well as with the European Union and its members most influential, during his tenure.
The outgoing president also relied on personalities foreign to the world of diplomacy like his two successive Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo, relay of his rougher style abroad.
Joe Biden signals a return to professional diplomacy. On Saturday, he also officially chose three Under-Secretaries of State, three women who worked in Barack Obama’s government.
The appointment of each of these personalities will be subject to a vote by the Senate.
“Americans can be assured that these patriots will promote the interests of the country and reflect its loftiest ideals on the international stage,” tweeted former Bill Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in reaction to the announcements. .
Taking the opposite view of the critics who already accuse him of surrounding himself almost only with former Obama-era alumni, the future president stressed that the State Department would be, at its head, more open than ever to diversity.
“We cannot approach this period with unchanged habits or reasoning,” argued the Biden team. “We need leaders with diverse backgrounds who are representative of America.”