US President-Elect Joe Biden on Monday announced the members of his foreign policy team and also the national security team, in a press release that was also posted on Twitter.
The Democratic Presidential candidate, who defeated Republican incumbent Donald Trump on election night, selected Antony Blinken as the Secretary of State.
Blinken, who served as Deputy Secretary of State during the Obama-Biden administration, has been the nation’s second highest ranking diplomat and has also previously held top foreign affairs posts on Capitol Hill, and in the White House.
The 77-year-old Biden nominated Alejandro Mayorkas as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, making Mayorkas the first Latino and the first immigrant to head the federal agency.
Mayorkas had served as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama-Biden administration.
Biden picked Avril Haines as the Director of National Intelligence, making her the first woman to hold the post. Haines was former Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama and Legal Advisor to the National Security Council.
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Haines was the first woman to serve as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
John Kerry, who played a dominant role in Barack Obama’s cabinet, was elected by Biden as the special presidential envoy on climate. Kerry had signed the Paris Climate Agreement on behalf of the United States in 2015. He had also launched a bipartisan organization with the goal of reaching net-zero carbon in the U.S. by 2050.
Kerry was the 68th United States Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
Biden selected Linda Thomas Greenfield as ambassador to the United Nations and Jake Sullivan to be national security adviser, reported CNN quoting the Biden-Harris transition team.
Greenfield, who served as for the U.S. Foreign Service working across four continents for over 35 years, was also the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs under the Obama-Biden administration. She had also served in diplomatic positions for the US for Liberia, Switzerland, Pakistan, Kenya, The Gambia, Nigeria, and Jamaica.
Jake Sullivan, who bagged the role of the national security advisor, was the National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden and director of policy planning at the State Department during the Obama administration. He also served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The former vice president, Biden, who will take office on January 20, 2021 issued a statement saying, “These individuals are equally as experienced and crisis-tested as they are innovative and imaginative. 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,” Biden said in a statement.”
