Mike Waltz: 10 Times Trump's National Security Adviser Pick Hit Out at China

Florida congressman Mike Waltz, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for national security adviser, is among the most vocal China critics on Capitol Hill.

The former defense policy director in the George W. Bush administration has taken aim at China on a range of issues, from intellectual property theft to aggression toward Taiwan, the island nation claimed by Beijing.

Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, previously told Newsweek the appointment of Waltz, in addition to fellow China hawk Senator Marco Rubio as Trump's nominee for secretary of state, could signal "tough days ahead" for U.S.-China relations.

The following are some of Waltz's criticisms of the U.S.'s top strategic rival over the years, pulled from Fox News interview clips shared to X (formerly Twitter) by the House of Representatives' bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry with a written request for comment.

'Cold War' With China

"...we are in a cold war... the Chinese Communist Party has entered a Cold War with us, seeks to supplant us, and seeks to defeat us.

"And what makes it so dangerous is that they control so many of our supply chains. So again, when you see 'Made in China' folks, put it down. This is a national security issue, to bring those supply chains home."

Rep. Mike Waltz on September 23, 2024. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Waltz as his next national security adviser, a selection widely viewed as signaling a tough approach toward China. Leigh Vogel/Getty Images

China's Dominance of Global Supply Chains

"But then also creating global dependence, whether it's on lithium, pharmaceuticals, even rail cars, and that's where I think Wall Street in this city needs to wake up. There is a very serious potential conflict coming, and a key part of the Chinese strategy is to use our supply chains against us.

"Will the United States public support a defense of Taiwan, if the Chinese Communist Party cuts off our antibiotics, which we no longer produce here? If they cut off lithium to our batteries for this green, new economy.

"We've gotta get our supply chains out of there, we've gotta bring them back here, or at least get them to an allied country where they're not going to be used against us."

Taiwan

"We need to make it very clear to China that invading Taiwan, which will then allow China to control about 50 percent of global trade and GDP, isn't acceptable. And we need to move away from that policy of strategic ambiguity that we've had for years and make it very clear because... deterrence failed.

"Let's be clear, deterrence failed in Ukraine. We did not deter Putin from invading his neighbor and leveling whole cities... We can't wait until Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan is leveled, much like Mariupol is, to then have a tough response."

Intellectual Property Theft

"The Chinese are stealing their way to the top. They're forcing companies who want to do business in China to share their IP, they're investing wholesale in Silicon Valley and then stealing the technology.

"This isn't just about copying some iPhones or stealing some CDs. This is about China, as a matter of state policy, stealing America's technological edge and trying to usurp us as a global leader."

China's Rapid Military Buildup

"...the Chinese are on the march. We need to understand that within the next few years, they may make a move the likes of which we have never seen in the world.

"Their navy is now larger than ours. Biden's budget... would send our navy backwards. We would retire more ships than we build. The average age of our ships are double the age of the Chinese navy. They are tripling their nuclear arsenal.

"And then finally, in space, they are tripling what they're doing in space. So they have a major Reagan-style arms buildup going on, and we're going backwards."

'Buying Up' the U.S.

"You are seeing the Chinese buy up America. They are buying up major tracts of land, not just in North Dakota but also in Texas—also near an Air Force base and other locations.

"They're buying up our food supply—major chicken and pork producers. They're buying up key energy producers, and then of course they're pouring that money into their massive military buildup."

Chinese Espionage

"We've talked a lot about the tidal wave of espionage from the Chinese Communist Party—in our Confucius Institutes, in our universities, our research labs, on Wall Street, even in the Fed (Federal Reserve), and really, truly, across the board."

Human Rights and Chinese Foreign Policy

"[Chinese President Xi Jinping] has essentially gotten himself elected for life. And at this point, between the crackdown on the Muslim Uyghurs, on the Tibetan Buddhists, on Christians all over, on Hong Kong, on Taiwan, what they've done to cover up COVID, the march in the South China Sea, taking on India...

"This is the most dangerous adversary we have ever faced in the history of America."

China's Alliance with Russia

"The increasing China-Russia cooperation across a number of fronts... that's everything— from a joint agreement between China and Russia to put a manned space station on the Moon by the end of this decade to this type of naval cooperation, and then everything along economic lines. China's increase of Russian oil and gas and coal is up over 50 percent just in the last year.

Environment and Forced Labor

"The Chinese are opening more coal-fired powerplants than us and the rest of the world combined. And the world's largest solar panel factory, in western China—staffed with forced slave labor—the solar panel factory is powered by coal plants.

"So everyone who feels sanctimonious driving around their Prius needs to look themselves in the mirror for the human rights abuses that they're supporting, and actually the emissions that they're supporting coming out of China."