Washington:

By leaning on hawks Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, Donald Trump is setting the stage for an existential battle against China, although, as always, the president-elect’s ability to make deals may intervene.

Trump, who at least rhetorically has long broken with the historic bipartisan consensus in Washington in favor of an assertive U.S. global role, turned to two Florida politicians who still believe in America’s traditional commitment to the world.

But Rubio, a senator said to be named secretary of state, and Waltz, a congressman named national security adviser, differ sharply from President Joe Biden’s vision of internationalism.

Rubio, in a speech last year, said the United States was already in a broad global conflict with China, which “not only seeks to be the most powerful nation in the world, but seeks to reorient the world.”

The Biden administration also described China as the United States’ main long-term adversary and increased sanctions, but tensions have eased markedly recently, with Biden’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, focusing on dialogue to avoid inadvertent conflict.

The Biden administration believed that the United States “should compete with China as effectively as possible on every issue in a way that can be to China’s detriment,” said Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute at the Wilson Center on China and the United States.

“We now see people who have long espoused the view that the Chinese Communist Party is an existential threat to the United States.”

Chinese officials “will tend to see these appointments as proof of what they see anyway: that no matter what they do (make a trade deal) they are faced with a United States committed to the destruction of the Communist Party,” Daly said. saying. “And that will change the nature of the competition.”

Trump frequently speaks in terms of negotiations and has boasted about his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But it will ultimately be up to Rubio and Waltz, not Trump, to set the day-to-day “strategic scheme” of American politics, Daly said.

‘The best choice’ for traditionalists?

Rubio, like Waltz, is an ardent supporter of Israel, as is Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Israel, former evangelical governor Mike Huckabee.

The son of working-class Cuban immigrants, Rubio is also a vocal critic of Latin American leftists.

But the senator, unlike many Trump allies, has also backed international causes alongside Democrats, including support for development assistance for Africa and U.S. global funding to fight HIV/AIDS.

“Trump doesn’t pick anyone who hasn’t pledged loyalty to him. That said, Rubio is probably the best choice conservative internationalists could have realistically hoped for,” said Matthew Waxman, a senior State Department official during the former Trump administration. President George W. Bush.

Waxman, now a professor at Columbia Law School, said Rubio “doesn’t suck up to autocrats like some in his party, especially the president-elect.”

“Republicans are divided between internationalists, who believe in exercising American leadership around the world, and isolationists who want to abandon that role,” Waxman said.

“Rubio is much more the former, and his choice will probably disappoint the latter, who call him too aggressive.”

The attractiveness of the deal

In a preemptive nod to Trump, Rubio, a longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has said Ukraine is at a stalemate over Moscow’s invasion and supports a negotiated solution.

Trump changed advisers in his first term, naming four national security advisers and two secretaries of state while growing irritated with his team.

His new appointees will surely know where they stand and how they risk being sidelined if they disagree, said Allison McManus, managing director of national security and foreign policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

Trump, he said, is probably less concerned with ideology than with reaching agreements, including two priorities that eluded Biden: ending the Gaza war and achieving Saudi recognition of Israel.

Trump has even talked about reaching a deal with Israel’s archenemy, Iran, despite withdrawing from a major diplomatic agreement with the country during his first term, which had been negotiated under Barack Obama.

Trump would probably sideline his advisers if he believed he could “outperform Biden,” McManus said.

“We know that for Trump, his north star is to get a deal, especially a better deal than whoever was the president before him,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated channel.)