Trump’s cabinet may be ‘China hawk’ in name only, analysts say

The prospect of a new foreign policy has attracted some relatively newer think tanks to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Florida, where the transition team is working in full gear. Defense Priorities, a Washington group that advocates for restrained U.S. foreign policy, has deployed representatives to discuss policies with the Trump team and pitch its members as potential candidates for government jobs.

A member told Nikkei Asia the scale of engagement is incomparable to 2020, when the group merely submitted policy papers to the incoming Biden administration.

Reid Smith, vice president of foreign policy at the American billionaire Charles Koch-backed group Stand Together, which also advocates for restraint, said he was optimistic that Trump could move relations with China to “a more stable, modus vivendi” despite his appointments.

If Trump wants a deal with China, “his staff will work in furtherance of the principle’s policy-preference, as opposed to offering the sort of outright staff insubordination witnessed in the last administration,” Smith said.

Unlike in Trump’s first term, when national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo worked around the president to steer policy into certain directions, “the ideological determination is probably lower” with the hawks in Trump’s second administration, Smith said.

Read at Nikkei Asia