Carper Statement on the Nomination of Tony Blinken to Serve as Secretary of State

WILMINGTON, Del. – Today, U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) released the following statement regarding President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of Tony Blinken to serve as Secretary of State.

“For the last four years, we have recklessly abandoned our alliances and walked away from carefully crafted international agreements with no alternatives in place. From the Paris Climate Accords to the Iran nuclear deal, President Trump, and those around him, seemed to be solely driven by a desire to tear down good policies, simply because they were achievements of the Obama Administration. For the last four years, our country’s foreign policy has been transactional rather than strategic. For the last four years, our country has turned our back on our allies and cozied up to autocrats, ceding our leadership role in the world and compromising the democratic values that the United States has helped to spread across the globe by the power of our example.

“I’ve long said that there is no one better equipped to finally restore our country’s standing in the world than Joe Biden. One of the reasons that I am so confident in President-elect Joe Biden’s ability to do so is because I know that he will empower and surround himself with experienced, thoughtful and eminently qualified individuals like Tony Blinken.

“Having begun his career at the State Department, Tony Blinken not only respects the agency and the critical role it plays in representing the United States to the world. He also respects our diplomats and foreign service officers around the world who work every day to keep our country safe. He has decades of experience in foreign policy and has been tested on the world stage. He helped to build the coalition of over sixty nations and the Kurds to fight ISIS on the battlefield, successfully reducing the terrorist group’s land holdings and influence. Alongside others, he advocated for the Iran Nuclear Deal that successfully kept the Iranian government from developing a nuclear weapon, and which subjected the country to rigorous, intrusive and unprecedented inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Additionally, during his time as Deputy Secretary of State, he showed compassion and leadership by working to address and reduce refugee crises around the world. In 2017, he was an outspoken voice in support of raising the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year to 110,000. In the years since, that same crisis has seen the Trump Administration has slash refugee admissions to their lowest number since the Refugee Act of 1980.

“Finally, Tony Blinken has helped to guide Joe Biden’s thoughtful and strategic foreign policy for decades. With Tony Blinken at the helm of the State Department, the world will know that when the Secretary speaks, he speaks for President Biden. And I have no doubt that Tony will put in place a strong team around him to help build upon the important work that Joe Biden has led for years, especially his work with our neighbors in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America to improve governance and economic opportunity and fight corruption. America will once again play a leading role in efforts to bolster the long-term prosperity and success of our region, rather than trading in ill-conceived threats and transactions in pursuit of short-term gains.

“There are enormous challenges facing our world today that no one country or region can solve on their own. The coronavirus pandemic has made that especially clear. I stand ready to work with Secretary Blinken and President Biden to help rebuild trust with our allies, stand up to our adversaries and bad actors, and work toward peace throughout our world.”