WASHINGTON: Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken told The Associated Press that he hopes the incoming Trump administration will press forward with key points in President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, including on the Middle East and Ukraine.
But in an wide-ranging interview Friday on his last workday as America’s top diplomat, he expressed concern that the Trump team might abandon all or some of those policies.
Blinken said there is reason to be concerned that the new administration might not follow through on initiatives that Biden’s national security team put into place to end the war in Gaza, keep Ukraine free of Russian interference and maintain strengthened alliances with key partners.
“When we came in, we inherited partnerships and alliances that were seriously frayed,” he said. “So if past is prologue, yes, it would be a concern.”
“I don’t know, can’t know, how they approach things,” he said. “I do think that there is, there could and I believe should, be some real continuity in a couple of places.”
President-elect Donald Trump has been skeptical of US alliances, including NATO and defense partnerships in the Asia-Pacific, all of which the Biden team has worked to shore up over the past four years. Trump has also been critical of US military aid to Ukraine and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy has been deeply involved in helping the Biden administration broker a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas this week. Both incoming and outgoing presidents claimed credit for the breakthrough.
“The best laid plans: There’s, of course, no guarantee that our successors will look to them, rely on them,” Blinken said. “But at least there’s that option. At least they can decide whether this is a good basis for proceeding and make changes.”
Efforts to reach the Trump’s transition team for comment were not immediately successful.
Blinken and the Biden administration overall have been heavily criticized for their handling of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and, more recently, for their support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Critics accuse them of not imposing meaningful restrictions on weapons shipments to Israel or pushing its ally hard enough to ease a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
On Thursday, protests accusing Blinken of complicity in Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians interrupted his final appearance in the State Department press briefing room, and demonstrators have routinely gathered outside his home.
Blinken lamented that the Biden administration has been diverted from its central foreign policy priorities by world developments, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Gaza crisis, all of which took time and energy away from pursuing core objectives, notably in the Indo-Pacific.
These are “not what we came in wanting or expecting to have to be focused on,” he said.
That said, he stressed that even as the administration dealt with those crises, it had still been determined to look at the rest of world, and had succeeded, in his estimation, at rebuilding frayed alliances and partnerships around the world.
“Rest of world: can’t lose sight of it,” he said. “Got to keep the focus on in the places where it really matters for America’s security and for America’s future.”
The interview, conducted in Blinken’s office on the seventh floor of the State Department, followed his farewell remarks to the agency’s staffers. He urged career personnel to carry on in their mission amid uncertainty about how the incoming administration will handle relationships and rivalries abroad or treat career American diplomats.
In that address to employees, Blinken paid tribute to their work over the past four years despite multiple challenges, ranging from Afghanistan and Ukraine to the Middle East.
“Without you in the picture, this world, our country would look so much different,” Blinken told a cheering crowd of several hundred staffers gathered at the department’s main Washington entrance, decorated with the flags of all countries with which the US has diplomatic relations.
“With you in the picture, both are so much better,” he said. “You’re working every day to make things just a little bit better, a little bit more peaceful, a little bit more full of hope, of opportunity. That’s your mission, and you do it so well.”
Trump has been publicly skeptical of the State Department and its traditional role in crafting administration foreign policy.
Trump once referred to the agency as the “Deep State Department,” and he and his associates have made no secret of their desire to purge career officials who do not show sufficient loyalty to the president. His choice to be Blinken’s successor, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, has said he respects the foreign service, but he has not yet detailed any plans for how the department will be managed.
Blinken called for staffers to remain resilient.
“This is a time of transition, and when we talk about transition, sometimes we talk about passing the baton. That’s what I’ll be doing,” he said. “But that’s not what most of you will be doing. Most of you come Monday, you will keep running, and what gives me more confidence than anything else is to know that that’s exactly what you’ll do.”