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While President Trump and many of his top aides seem to have left the nation’s business behind, largely disappearing from view in the days since Joe Biden’s election was formalized and Trump-inspired violence erupted, one corner of the administration has moved into overdrive.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made near-daily announcements of major foreign policy actions, many of which appear designed to cement Trump priorities and create roadblocks to new directions charted by the incoming Biden team.
Among the barriers put in place are the relisting of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, the designation of Yemen’s Houthi rebels as terrorists, the removal of long-standing restrictions on contacts between senior U.S. officials and their Taiwanese counterparts, the recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the long-contested Western Sahara, the fast-track approval of controversial arms sales, and a slew of new sanctions against Iran.
All of those changes can be undone. But each complicates the challenges Biden will face in putting his own stamp on policy.
Biden officials express little doubt that most, if not all, of the moves are motivated by domestic politics. But they have not spoken out against them, in part because of the “one president at a time” tradition regarding U.S. national security interests overseas.
“We’ve taken note of these last-minute maneuvers,” said a senior Biden transition official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before the inauguration. Each is being reviewed, the official said, “and the incoming administration will render a verdict based exclusively on one criterion: the national interest.”