President-elect Donald Trump is lining up his China hawks.
Just days after he won a return to the White House, the outlines of Donald Trump’s foreign policy are becoming clear: squeeze Iran, support Israel, confront China.
The expected appointment of Marco Rubio as secretary of state and the naming of combat veteran Mike Waltz to the post of national security adviser and Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the United Nations leave little room for doubt.
All three, along with Vice President-elect JD Vance, are sharp critics of Xi Jinping’s government in China — Rubio has been sanctioned twice by Beijing — with Waltz calling it the top threat to the US. Trump has vowed to impose tariffs as high as 60% on Chinese goods that could decimate trade between the world’s two biggest economies.
How will the Trump administration trust Kevin Rudd when he attacked his own countrymen as China launched a trade and cyber war upon his home country?
I continue to be worried about the ease (or, in some cases, excitement) with which some public figures talk loosely about the possibility of war. I include in this our alternative prime minister, Peter Dutton, who as defence minister declared it “inconceivable” that Australia would not join such a war — as though we are discussing some minor re-run of Margaret Thatcher in the Falklands, rather than a conflagration that could lead to World War III.
…It is to all our benefit that Prime Minister Albanese has taken the temperature down in Australia-China relations in his recent meeting with President Xi Jinping. Just as it is good that presidents Biden and Xi had done likewise for the US-China relationship for the immediate period ahead.
…the core strategic challenge for medium- to long-term US-China and Australia-China relations outlined above should no longer be kicked around as a domestic political football — either to win favour within the internal politics of the tawdry conservative political ecosystems of the Liberal and National parties, or as an attempted electoral wedge against Labor for being allegedly soft on China, as Dutton and Morrison sought to do during the last election, and spectacularly failed.
Ironically, the ALP was soft on China precisely because it tried to politicise the Morrison government’s fight against cyber attacks, a trade war, and the 14 conditions to end democracy.
I simply cannot see how a Trump Washington can take Kevin Rudd seriously.
More importantly, neither can it.
A leading figure in Donald Trump’s former administration has delivered a bold call on Australia’s US Ambassador Kevin Rudd over his previous comments lashing the President-elect.
On Monday, Sky News Australia unveiled newly unearthed footage showing Mr Rudd calling the now President-elect a “village idiot” and “incoherent” in January 2021.
This comes after the former Australian prime minister scrubbed his social media of posts calling Trump a “political liability”, a “problem for the world” and a “traitor to the west”.
Mr Rudd’s comments came under the microscope by Trump’s former White House press secretary Sean Spicer who issued a stern warning for the two-time Labor prime minister.
“Donald Trump doesn’t forget these comments,” Mr Spicer told Sky News’ Andrew Bolt on Tuesday.
He continued to draw a parallel between Mr Rudd’s remarks and Trump’s move to leave former cabinet members Nikki Haley, who ran against the president-elect during the Republican primaries earlier this year, and Mike Pompeo out of his new administration.
More.
https://t.co/gZgn50AWYi pic.twitter.com/ieUTiYW6bG
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) November 12, 2024
Even more:
Donald Trump is expected to press Australia to take more action to curb China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, after appointing two China hawks to top foreign policy roles.
The president-elect this week chose Congressman Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret who has called China an “existential” threat, as national security adviser. Senator Marco Rubio, who has served on both the Senate Intelligence Committee and Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to be secretary of state.
Mr Waltz, who has urged the US to boost its deterrence against China, issued a warning on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) that the incoming Trump administration “will not be afraid to confront our adversaries”.
“America will keep its allies close, we will not be afraid to confront our adversaries, and we will invest in the technologies that keep our country strong,” Mr Waltz said in a statement, after previously indicating that he wants more US military presence in the Pacific.
If Kevin Rudd can’t read the room and Albo’s cowards don’t have the cajones to pull him, slipping a month’s worth of dysentery into his prune juice should do the trick.
Just kidding.
