(Image source from: REUTERS)

Donald Trump is helping aggressive politicians Marco Rubio and Mike Walls set the stage for an existential battle with China, but as always, the president-elect's deal-making talent could get in the way. Mr. Trump, who has long broken Washington's historic bipartisan consensus to actively pursue an American global role, still believes in traditional American global engagement. But Rubio, the senator reportedly running for secretary of state, and Walls, the congressman running for national security adviser, are far from President Joe Biden's vision of internationalism. In a speech last year, Rubio said that the United States was already embroiled in a massive global conflict with China and that China "not only intends to become the most powerful country in the world, but is also trying to change its course." "There is," he said. The Biden administration has also called China the United States' biggest long-term adversary and has tightened sanctions, but tensions have eased significantly in recent days and Biden's top diplomat, Anthony Blinken, has stepped up Conversations focused to avoid unwanted conflicts.

Robert Daley, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, said the Biden administration should ensure that the United States "competes with China as effectively as possible on all issues that could be detrimental to China." . he said "Now there are people who have long held the view that the Chinese Communist Party poses an existential threat to the United States." No matter what China does, no matter what trade deals it signs, it will face the United States, who are committed to the destruction of the Communist Party. said And that will change the nature of competition. But Mr Daley said it was ultimately up to Mr Rubio and Mr Walls, not Mr Trump, to decide the day-to-day "strategic planning" of US policy.

Mr. Rubio, like Mr. Walls, is a staunch supporter of Israel, as is former Gov. Mike Huckabee, an evangelical whom President Trump appointed as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Rubio, the son of working-class Cuban immigrants, is an outspoken critic of the Latin American left. But unlike many of Trump's allies, the senator has sided with Democrats and supported international causes, including development aid to Africa and supporting U.S. global funding to combat HIV/AIDS. Matthew Waxman, a senior State Department official under George W. Bush, said: "President Trump did not elect anyone who was not loyal to him." Mr. Bush Mr. Waxman, now a professor at Columbia Law School, said Mr. Rubio "is giving himself up not toward dictators and, more importantly, toward the president-elect, like some people in his party." "The Republican Party is divided between internationalists who believe in American leadership around the world and isolationists who distance themselves from it role want to withdraw,” Waxman said. Mr. Rubio is more of the former, and his decisions are likely to disappoint the latter, who describe him as too bellicose.

Rubio, a long-time critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was the first to pay tribute to Trump, saying Ukraine was deadlocked against Moscow's invasion and supporting a negotiated settlement of the conflict. During Trump's first term, he changed advisers, leaving four national security advisers and two secretaries of state on his team. Alison McManus, executive director of national security and foreign policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said her new nominees will likely know where they stand and how they will be marginalized if they don't pass. Trump is less about ideology and more about bargaining, including two priorities that eluded Biden: ending the war in Gaza and Saudi recognition of Israel. Trump talked about a deal with Iran, Israel's archenemy, even as he distanced himself from a key diplomatic deal with the country that he negotiated during Barack Obama's first term. McManus said Trump would put his aides aside if he thought he could "outdo Biden." "As for Trump, we know his North Star is negotiating a deal — especially a better deal than previous presidents," he said.