24/11/2020
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday unveiled a slate of top foreign policy and national security picks, including the first woman to lead the US intelligence community and first Latino to helm the Department of Homeland Security.
Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas, a former deputy secretary of DHS who Biden has nominated to lead the department, will be tasked with rebuilding an agency that carried out some of the most draconian measures associated with President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policy, including family separations at the US-Mexico border. Biden's pick for director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, a former top CIA official and deputy national security adviser, will also make history if confirmed by the Senate.
Biden is moving swiftly to craft his incoming administration despite Trump's ongoing efforts to reverse the election results and gum up the transition. CNN reported Monday that Biden is expected to name Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary, according to a source with knowledge of the pick. Yellen would be the first woman to serve as secretary of the Treasury if nominated and confirmed.
The slate of nominations announced on Monday included confirmation of the selection of Antony Blinken, Biden's top foreign policy aide, as the next secretary of state, Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be the US ambassador to the United Nations. Jake Sullivan will join the White House team as Biden's national security adviser.
The choices reflect Biden's desire to construct a diverse Cabinet with experts versed in public policy and deep experience in government. Former Secretary of State John Kerry has been tapped to serve as Biden's climate czar. Kerry is a champion of the Paris climate agreement, the landmark deal from which Trump withdrew the US. Kerry was also Biden's pick to co-chair a "unity task force" on climate change with allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders after the Democratic presidential primary.
Biden in a statement described Monday's selections as "the crux" of a team charged with reasserting American leadership on the global stage in the aftermath of Trump's efforts to cut off multilateral diplomacy and wreck fragile pacts like the Iran nuclear deal.
"These individuals are equally as experienced and crisis-tested as they are innovative and imaginative," Biden said. "Their accomplishments in diplomacy are unmatched, but they also reflect the idea that we cannot meet the profound challenges of this new moment with old thinking and unchanged habits -- or without diversity of background and perspective. It's why I've selected them."