President-elect Joe Biden’s transition is officially a go.
Three weeks after Election Day, President Donald Trump has relented and allowed the head of the General Services Administration to acknowledge that Biden is the “apparent winner.”
That means Biden and his team can begin to delve into Trump’s coronavirus vaccine planning and assess the condition of federal agencies.
As Jennifer A. Dlouhy reports, the shift came after the key swing state of Michigan certified Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 vote, at least nine Republican senators called for the transition to begin and the Trump legal team suffered fresh setbacks.
While Trump made clear that he wasn’t ready to concede, the declaration gives Biden and his team access to agency officials, briefing books and about $6 million in funding.
Biden continued building his administration yesterday, selecting Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary, a sign that he plans to act aggressively to revive the world’s biggest economy.
He also delivered a not-so-subtle rebuke to Trump with his choices to lead two key national-security agencies: Avril Haines as his director of national intelligence and Alejandro Mayorkas as homeland security secretary.
Haines, a former top CIA official with years of experience in the espionage community, would fill a job that Trump had largely reserved for people better known for their loyalty to him, while Mayorkas would become the first Latino and immigrant to lead an agency that has played a central role in Trump’s widely criticized border crackdown.
Increasingly, Trump’s unwillingness to concede defeat is seeming less and less relevant.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry will be named as special presidential envoy for climate, a signal that Biden plans to elevate the issue of global warming.
Tell us how we’re doing or what we’re missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.
Global Headlines
Avoiding a rebellion | The U.K. is considering a ban on Huawei 5G equipment as soon as next year to appease lawmakers pushing for tighter restrictions on the Chinese tech giant, Kitty Donaldson and Thomas Seal report. Members of Parliament from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party want stricter rules on companies using Huawei’s gear in return for backing telecommunications security legislation due in parliament next week.
- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned that intensifying competition between the U.S. and China is pressuring other nations to choose sides, saying stark choices are in “no one’s interests.”
Getting ready | As the world positions for Biden’s move into the White House, few leaders are moving as quickly as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the next four years set to be more difficult to navigate than the last. Turkey’s president and his advisers know the former U.S. vice president well, but, as Marc Champion and Nick Wadhams explain, that isn’t necessarily a plus.
Keeping track | As we near the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus outbreak, millions of people are living largely normal lives, even as millions of others are in lockdown and bracing for a holiday season without social gatherings. To better understand that dichotomy, Bloomberg created the Covid Resilience Ranking. It scores 53 major economies on 10 metrics, from infection levels and fatalities to people’s mobility and access to front-runner vaccines.
- Read about the growing concern that new waves of Covid-19 could yet devastate South Asia, after India’s neighbors Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka managed to beat the first surge.
- Hong Kong will shutter bars, nightclubs and bathhouses until Dec. 2 as cases jump again in the Asian financial hub.
Deja vu | Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s prolonged absence since flying to Germany last month for treatment of Covid-19 has trumped a vote on the constitution and potential war in the Western Sahara as the hot topic for political discussion. It’s stirring uncomfortable echoes of his veteran predecessor, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was hospitalized abroad for months before his re-election bid sparked mass unrest and his downfall last year.
Middle East attack | Saudi Arabia said Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked an oil facility in the kingdom’s second-biggest city of Jeddah in a missile strike similar to one in 2019 that caused a brief spike in crude prices. The Houthis, Shiites who’ve been fighting in a civil war for half a decade against Yemen’s United Nations-backed government, have support from Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran in what the UN has called the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis.
What to Watch
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to visit Bahrain soon at the invitation of the country’s crown prince and prime minister, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, after the two leaders spoke by phone today.
- French President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation tonight to set out his plans for a gradual easing of coronavirus restrictions.
- Thierry Baudet, leader of the Dutch populist Forum for Democracy, resigned from his role in the party last night, the latest in a series of departures following allegations of anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric.
And finally … Uniformed security at the gates, no visitors without permission and a censored “democracy wall”: A year after a violent standoff between student protesters and police, Hong Kong Polytechnic University is locked down. As Shawna Kwan and Felix Tam report, the protest movement has been extinguished, and concerns are growing about freedom in an education system that has lured international professors and students and enticed local high achievers to stay home.
— With assistance by Michael Winfrey, Karl Maier, Rosalind Mathieson, and Karen Leigh