WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration on Wednesday interrupted or revised much of the Trump era’s foreign policy when the top US diplomat was at the helm of the State Department.
The government has temporarily suspended several arms sales to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, while newly installed foreign minister Antony Blinken has said it is urgently looking into a ceasefire against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. his predecessor had just recently left office.
On his first full day at work, Blinken said the government had begun a comprehensive review of US relations with Russia and was investigating the details of a US-Taliban peace deal signed almost a year ago. He said the government had asked Trump’s special envoy for Afghanistan, former United Nations ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, to continue for the sake of continuity.
Blinken said hours after his ceremonial but coronavirus-restricted access to the State Department’s main portal, the government said it was prepared to return to commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, for which former President Donald Trump withdrew, but only if Iran returns to full compliance with the agreement.
In his remarks to a demoralized diplomatic corps that has often been denigrated or ignored over the past four years, Blinken promised to rebuild the ranks of the foreign service and rely on his expertise while the Biden government seeks the global status of the US to recover. He said the world was watching America follow foreign policy following Trump’s ‘America First’ doctrine which alienated many American allies.
Blinken spoke to the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Israel on Wednesday following his Tuesday counterparts in Canada, Mexico, Japan and South Korea.
In the personal information room, which was rarely used during the Trump administration, Blinken promised to respect journalists and be accessible and to restore the State Department’s daily briefings next week.
On policy issues, Blinken said he was particularly concerned about the designation “foreign terrorist organization” for the Iran-backed Houthis announced by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just ten days before the end of the Trump administration. Many fear that the action, coupled with severe US sanctions, will unnecessarily exacerbate what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Of all the steps Trump and Pompeo have taken in their dwindling days, ‘this is the priority in my book,’ Blinken said of the name. “We are looking at it very urgently.” The Treasury Department has already decided to suspend some of the sanctions associated with the designation, but aid programs say famine could result if they are not all lifted.
The disruption in arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which was announced a few days after the November 6 election that Trump lost to incumbent President Joe Biden, is also linked to Yemen. Critics fear that the two Arab countries may use advanced American weapons to continue the Saudi-led war in Yemen with a significant risk to civilian casualties. The department called the temporary suspension, which halted a $ 23 billion transfer of theft F-35 fighters to the UAE, a “normal administrative action” for a new government.
Blinken said the sales are being investigated to determine if they meet U.S. national security targets.
On Afghanistan, Blinken said the Biden government wanted to take a detailed look at the peace deal negotiated between the Trump administration and the Taliban in February 2020, to try to get US troops out of the country after nearly 20 years of war. “We need to understand exactly what is in the agreement” before deciding how to proceed, he said. Khalilzad, the main US negotiator, was asked to stay at work so that he could “continue the important work he is doing.”
On Iran, Blinken has repeatedly commented on what Biden has done before and that he himself told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing just last week. Blinken said the administration is prepared to ease the sanctions that the Trump administration has re-imposed on Iran as long as Iran fully complies with the 2015 agreement. At that point, Blinken said the government wanted to strengthen and extend the terms of the agreement. But, he said, “we are far from that point.”
Biden has vowed to block Trump’s approach, which alienated many traditional American allies who viewed it as a harsh, one-sided approach that left no room for negotiation. Blinken said that after four years, the United States would reconnect with allies on a reciprocal, rather than a purely transactional basis.
“The world is watching us closely now,” Blinken said. “They want to know if we can heal our country. They want to see if we will lead by example and if our diplomacy with our allies and partners will provide a premium to meet the great challenges of our time – such as the pandemic, climate change, the economic crisis, threats for democracies, fighting for racial justice and the danger to our security and global stability posed by our rivals and adversaries. ”
Blinken, a 58-year-old Biden confidant, has been confirmed as the 71st Secretary of State by the Senate Tuesday in a 78-22 vote. The position is the most senior cabinet post, with the secretary in fourth place in the presidential succession. A former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, Blinken has promised that the U.S. global leadership is back and that the State Department will be ‘central’ to it.
Blinken inherited a deeply demoralized and exhausted career staff at the State Department. Neither of his two immediate predecessors under Trump, Rex Tillerson or Pompeo, offered strong resistance to repeated attempts to relieve the agency. It was only thwarted by congressional intervention.
Blinken said he would promote and protect the foreign service, which was disbanded during the Trump era, and that the Department of State, after four years of atrophy, would once again play a leading role in America’s relations with the world.