President-elect Donald Trump is continuing to appoint officials to his administration, with reports he's tapped his environment and domestic security picks as well as his envoy to China.
Trump plans to nominate retired Marine General John Kelly, the former head of the US Southern Command, to lead the Department of Homeland Security, the CBS said on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.
Kelly would be the third general Trump has tapped for a high-level position in his administration.
Trump also picked an ardent opponent of President Barack Obama's measures to stem climate change to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a Trump transition team source said.
Trump's choice, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has enraged environmental activists, but he fits with the Republican president-elect's promise to cut the agency back and eliminate regulation that he says is stifling oil and gas drilling.
Pruitt became the top prosecutor for Oklahoma, which has extensive oil reserves, in 2011, and has challenged the EPA multiple times since, including in a pending lawsuit to throw out the EPA's Clean Power Plan.
The plan is the centrepiece of Obama's climate change strategy and requires states to curb carbon output.
Trump will nominate Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the next US ambassador to China, a transition official said, choosing a longstanding friend of Beijing after rattling the world's second-largest economy by speaking to Taiwan's president.
The appointment of Branstad may help to ease trade tensions between the two countries, the world's two biggest agricultural producers, diplomats and trade experts said.
It also suggests that Trump may be ready to take a less combative stance towards China than many expected, the experts said.
Trump's unusual call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen last week prompted a diplomatic protest on Saturday from Beijing, which considers Taiwan a renegade province.
The Trump transition official confirmed the choice of Branstad, first reported by Bloomberg, which said he has accepted the job.
