- An unnamed transitional officer on President-elect Joe Biden’s team said President Donald Trump’s latest foreign policy moves “look like sabotage,” according to PBS NewsHour.
- In the exclusive interview with PBS, the official singled out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for implementing controversial foreign policies in the final days of Trump’s presidency.
- He suggested that the timing of these decisions was suspect and was an effort by Pompeo to “fuel his own domestic political ambitions”.
- A lawmaker described Pompeo’s recent announcements about the US’s relations with Iran, Taiwan, Cuba and Yemen as “rash” and “reckless”.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
A member of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said the recent foreign policy moves under President Donald Trump’s government “look like sabotage.”
In an exclusive interview with PBS NewsHour, the unnamed official accused the Trump administration – particularly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – of making decisions that are unwanted by either party.
The Biden official said, “We are going to manage this, but at some point it starts to look like sabotage. They don’t just know that we don’t want to implement some of these approaches; they don’t even want to implement them.”
The transition officer then hinted that the timing of these decisions was suspect. “This is why they are doing this now, rather than at any other time in the previous four years,” they told PBS.
Read More: See how Biden will demolish Trump’s legacy.
There was a particular focus on Pompeo’s actions, which last week announced that the State Department would designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organization.
This was a controversial decision that could trigger hunger in Yemen, which immediately resulted in 50 organizations writing to Biden to overturn the decision, according to Al Jazeera.
The transition official told PBS, “Secretary of State Pompeo is literally risking hundreds of thousands of lives. Most of Yemen are at risk of starvation so that Mike Pompeo can feed his own domestic political ambitions.”
They continued: “This is not a special affinity we have with the Houthis. But the actions of the Trump administration are only further damaging the people of Yemen, who have already suffered unimaginably. This is childish and foolish, and we will not let ourselves to fit in. “
This month, Pompeo revealed several other dramatic changes in US foreign policy.
On January 9, it was announced that the State Department would declare that the rule book used to help US officials navigate diplomatic relations with Taiwan would be “null and void”.
Two days later, Pompeo designated Cuba as a “terrorist sponsoring state” – a move that rescinded Obama’s lifting of that designation six years earlier.
On January 12, the Secretary of State declared that Iran was now the “base” of Al Qaeda. Some lawmakers think this may be an attempt to establish the legal basis for a possible war with Iran, according to NBC News.
Last month, several officials told the Daily Beast that Trump had given Pompeo the green light to do whatever he wanted with Iran, as long as he did not run the risk of “starting World War III”.
Representative Gregory Meeks, chairman of the Chamber’s Foreign Affairs Committee, believes that the government’s latest foreign policy moves are “reckless” and “hasty”.
He told Insider: “Pompeo is continuing with reckless and politicized foreign policy decisions, instead of focusing on facilitating a smooth and efficient transition.”
Meeks continued: “Pompeo’s policy announcements this week are more of the same kind of disastrous and hasty mistakes that characterized this government’s catastrophic foreign policy from day one.”