Antony Blinken: Nominee Currently: Mike Pompeo
In the Trump administration, scores of veteran diplomats left after their loyalty to Trump was questioned and career employees were replaced by political appointees.
Under Biden, the State Department is expected to be at the forefront of reversing some key Trump-era policies and restoring the centrality of diplomacy in foreign policy and battered U.S. credibility. Priorities include rebuilding strained alliances with Europe, returning to a more balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, corralling global efforts to combat climate change and possibly changing course with Iran if the U.S. reenters the nuclear treaty Trump abandoned. They also are expected to maintain pressure on China over human rights and trade issues.
Antony Blinken
Former deputy secretary of state and longtime Biden foreign policy aide
Blinken is a longtime Biden confident with decades of experience in Congress. During the Obama administration, Blinken served as deputy national security adviser from 2013 to 2015 and the deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017. Since the start of Biden’s presidential campaign, Blinken has been on leave as managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, to serve as Biden’s foreign policy adviser.
Source: Washington Post Reported by John Hudson and Carol Morello.
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2021-01-20 Joe Biden’s Top Diplomat Vows Firmness On China, Iran Anthony Blinken distanced himself from the outgoing president’s needling of allies and denunciations of multilateralism but said that Trump “was right in taking a tougher approach to China.”
2021-01-19 Antony Blinken Must Explain Anonymous China Donations to Penn Biden Center The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) is calling upon the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to demand Tony Blinken, Joe Biden’s pick to be Secretary of State, explain anonymous Chinese funding of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement that Joe Biden established in 2018 with the University of Pennsylvania, where Blinken was Managing Director and other Biden aides from the Obama Administration operated as the government-in-waiting.
NLPC filed a major complaint with the Department of Education earlier last year demanding that the University of Pennsylvania and its Penn Biden Center disclose the identity of $22 million in anonymous Chinese donations since 2017, including a single eye-popping donation of $14.5 million given on May 29, 2018, shortly after the opening of the Biden Center in Washington, DC. Altogether, China gave $67 million in two years to the University of Pennsylvania.
NLPC also filed a major complaint with the Department of Justice on November 1, 2020, alleging that Hunter Biden and the Biden Center should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) because of their Chinese financial arrangements.
2021-01-19 WATCH: Antony Blinken, secretary of state nominee, testifies at confirmation hearing
2020-12-28 Neera Tanden and Antony Blinken Personify the ‘Moderate’ Rot at the Top of the Democratic Party What’s so moderate about being on the take from rich beneficiaries of corporate America while opposing proposals that would curb their profits in order to reduce income inequality and advance social justice?
For OMB director, Biden selected corporate centrist Neera Tanden, whose Center for American Progress thrives on the largesse of wealthy donors representing powerful corporate interests. Tanden has been a notably scornful foe of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing; former Sanders speechwriter David Sirota calls her “the single biggest, most aggressive Bernie Sanders critic in the United States.” Who better to oversee the budget of the U.S. government?
For Secretary of State, Biden chose his longtime top foreign-policy adviser, whose frequent support for U.S. warfare included pushing for the disastrous 2011 military intervention in Libya. Antony Blinken is a revolving-door pro who has combined his record of war boosterism with entrepreneurial zeal to personally profit from influence-peddling for weapons sales to the Pentagon. Who better to oversee diplomacy for the U.S. government?
2020-11-23 5 things to know about Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state
2020-11-23 9 things to know about Antony Blinken, the next US secretary of state
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