Biden Appoints Obama-era Veterans To State Department

Washington – US President-elect Joe Biden filled several vacancies in what will become his State Department on Saturday with a group of career diplomats and veterans of the Barack Obama administration, thereby indicating his desire to return to a foreign policy. more traditional after four years of uncertainty and unpredictability under President Donald Trump.

Biden will appoint Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state and Victoria Nuland as undersecretary for political affairs – the second and third highest positions in the Department. They were among 11 officials announced to serve under incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The team “represents my core belief that America will be stronger when we work with our allies,” Biden said in a statement. He stated that he is trusting that “they will use their diplomatic experience and skills to restore the country’s moral and global leadership.”

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Among the others named are:

—Brian McKeon, a veteran aide to Biden in the Senate, who will be Assistant Secretary of State for Administration. That position has long been vacant and McKeon and Sherman are expected to share duties as No. 3 in the Department.

– Former diplomats Bonnie Jenkins and Uzra Zeya, as undersecretary of state for arms control and undersecretary of state for democracy and human rights, respectively.

– Derek Chollet, a family contributor in Democratic circles, as an advisor to the Department.

– Former UN official Salman Ahmed, who was head of strategic planning at Obama’s National Security Council, as director of policy planning.

– Suzy George, who was a senior assistant to Secretary of State Madeleine Albraight, will serve as Blinken’s chief of staff.

– Ned Price, a former member of Obama’s National Security Council and a career CIA official who resigned in protest early in the Trump administration, will serve as the Department’s spokesman.

– Jalina Porter, communications director for Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond, who is leaving Congress to work in the White House, will serve as Price’s deputy.

Price and Porter plan to return to the practice of holding daily encounters with the press, officials said. Those encounters had been eliminated by the Trump administration.

Jeffrey Prescott, a former national security adviser when Biden was vice president, is Biden’s selection to be the assistant ambassador to the UN, where he will work with Ambassador-designate Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Five of those named are non-white or LGBTQ people. Although most are not well known, all are supporters of multiculturalism and many are familiar with Washington and diplomatic circles abroad. His selections reflect Biden’s intentions to reverse the transactional and often one-sided approach to international relations during the Trump administration.

Sherman spearheaded the Obama administration’s negotiations for the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which Trump withdrew and participated in the ballistic missile talks with North Korea in President Bill Clinton’s second term. Nuland was assistant secretary of state for European affairs during the crisis in Ukraine.

Sherman, McKeon, Nuland, Jenkins and Zeya will require Senate confirmation.

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