The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee, veteran diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to function U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, including a key member to his nationwide safety group almost a month after her affirmation listening to, Pattern stories citing Reuters.
The 100-member Senate backed Thomas-Greenfield by 78 to twenty to be Washington’s consultant on the world physique and a member of Biden’s Cupboard, comfortably exceeding the easy majority wanted.
The entire no votes got here from Republicans.
Thomas-Greenfield, 68, is a 35-year veteran of the International Service who has served on 4 continents, most notably in Africa.
Republicans who opposed her nomination targeted on a 2019 speech she gave that some stated was favorable to Beijing. Thomas-Greenfield and her supporters pushed again, citing her many years as a diplomat looking for to extend U.S. affect and counteract China’s.
At her affirmation listening to in late January, she burdened the significance of U.S. re-engagement with the 193-member United Nations as a way to problem efforts by China to “drive an authoritarian agenda.”
China has been working to realize better international affect in a problem to conventional U.S. management, typically by offering loans to growing nations in Africa and elsewhere that tie them nearer to the Beijing authorities.
“Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield has a protracted historical past of expressed opposition to China’s use of debt lure techniques and its more and more malign presence in world governance our bodies,” Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee, stated as he urged help.
Stress between the 2 superpowers hit a boiling level on the United Nations final yr over the coronavirus pandemic, as then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, pulled the USA again from worldwide organizations as a part of his “America First” overseas coverage agenda.
Biden, a Democrat, has burdened his help for multilateralism in overseas coverage, not simply by selecting a veteran diplomat for the U.N. publish, however restoring it to a Cupboard position.
