In picking figures such as Marco Rubio and Fox News host Pete Hegseth for his administration, Trump may be signaling his foreign policy goals — or foreshadowing four years of chaos.

President-elect Donald Trump with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) during a campaign rally on Oct. 29. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It’s still early, but President-elect Donald Trump’s roster of top foreign policy officials is starting to take shape. This week, reports suggested Trump would tap two Florida Republicans — Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Michael Waltz — as secretary of state and White House national security adviser, respectively. Trump also announced Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) as his pick for the high-profile role of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; John Ratcliffe, a former director of national intelligence under Trump, as the next head of the Central Intelligence Agency; and former veteran and Fox News broadcaster Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

The drumbeat of news surrounding the incoming administration’s staffing has already led to a surge in speculation over what these selections may mean for Trump’s second-term foreign policy. Both Rubio and Waltz are hawkish lawmakers who, on paper, aren’t wholly aligned with Trump’s “America First” brand. Their anticipated ascension spurred disquiet in some corners of Trumpworld, where many want to turn the page on an era of Republican foreign policy dominated by trigger-happy neoconservatives.

Within Republican circles, there are pronounced disagreements over a range of issues. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have been bluntly skeptical about the need to support Ukraine’s ongoing war effort, while many Republicans in Congress are more aligned with the Biden administration’s project in buttressing NATO and Western efforts to back Kyiv. There are divisions over how and where to prioritize U.S. power, whether to view the challenge of China in principally economic or military terms, and over Trump’s protectionist zeal, which flies in the face of decades of pro-free trade Republican orthodoxy.

Still, Trump’s allies and advisers see their work as an antidote to the struggles of the Biden administration. “It’s going to be a return to peace through strength. Deterrence is going to be restored,” Trump’s former national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien, who may also win a senior post in the incoming administration, told the Wall Street Journal. “American adversaries understand that the things they’ve gotten away with over the last four years will not be tolerated any further.”

If he’s confirmed as the United States’ next top diplomat, Rubio will have taken a rather conspicuous journey. His 2016 presidential primary challenge was batted aside by Trump, who mocked the senator as “lightweight” and “Lil’ Marco.” During that failed bid, Rubio penned a manifesto on foreign policy where he championed “the protection of an open international economy in an increasingly globalized world.” He also cast the struggle with China in overtly ideological terms: “Our devotion to the spread of human rights and liberal democratic principles has been a part of the fabric of our country since its founding and a beacon of hope for so many oppressed peoples around the globe,” Rubio wrote then in Foreign Affairs.

A decade of Trumpism has bent the Republican Party in a different direction, and compelled Rubio to adjust his own political posturing. He may find himself parading around the world next year as Trump’s envoy, justifying the application of tariffs on exports from U.S. allies and pursuing an agenda that sees Trump hatch deals with a host of human rights-abusing strongmen, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to Chinese President Xi Jinping himself.

Both Rubio and Waltz are seen as particularly strident anti-China hawks, and their ascension may signal Trump’s determination to focus on the contest with Beijing. In an op-ed that he co-wrote in the Economist, Waltz said the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine and entanglements in the Middle East have distracted from the imperatives of countering China.

But he doesn’t share the same squeamishness about battling Russia that some advocates of restraint in Washington do: If Putin doesn’t enter talks with Trump over peace in Ukraine, Waltz wrote, then the United States should be rushing new weapons with fewer restrictions on their use to Kyiv to bring Russia to the table. Rubio and Waltz would probably want to build on the Indo-Pacific strategy set in motion by the Biden administration; they also are unlikely to be proponents of radical, disruptive measures like withdrawing from NATO.

“This is the biggest, clearest indicator we’ve had so far of the possible direction of Trump’s foreign policy,” Rush Doshi, a former Biden administration national security official now at Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations, told my colleagues in reaction to the news of Rubio’s and Waltz’s potential appointments. “These [apparent] choices suggest there’s more likely to be pushback on President Trump’s impulses than many people would have expected had he picked pure loyalists or ideological fellow travelers.”

Still it may also show that Trump’s priorities are not political, but personal. He earlier announced that neither Nikki Haley nor Mike Pompeo — prominent members of his first Cabinet — would be given positions in his new administration. This may have been less a repudiation of their neoconservative hawkishness than a punishment for Haley, who ran a doomed primary challenge against Trump this cycle, and Pompeo, who flirted with a run of his own.

“The picks may foreshadow the kind of clashes between Trump and his aides that dominated his first term in office when he sought to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and negotiate a nuclear arms deal with North Korea, moves that were ardently opposed by some of his more hawkish aides, such as national security adviser John Bolton and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis,” my colleagues wrote. “But Trump has prioritized loyalty as a prerequisite for joining his administration, an attempt to stamp out challenges to his decisions.”

That’s clearly the case in the tapping of Ratcliffe for the CIA. In his statement Tuesday evening announcing his pick, Trump hailed Ratcliffe for his efforts to debunk “fake Russian collusion” — the allegations widely supported by the U.S. intelligence community that the Kremlin worked to spread disinformation to help Trump win the 2016 election.

Trump also seems to value sharp elbows. The selection of Stefanik to be the U.S. envoy at the United Nations is conspicuous: The congresswoman made waves in her grilling of university presidents over pro-Palestinian student protests on American campuses. It’s quite likely she will use her position at the United Nations to assail U.N. agencies and diplomats over any criticism of Israel, and air long-standing Republican grievances over the workings of the world’s most important multilateral institution.

Showmanship is also a calling card for Hegseth, a photogenic Fox host who once led a group of veterans that called for extending the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and later used his perch on cable television to lobby Trump during his first term to stymie war crimes investigations into a handful of U.S. soldiers. If confirmed to helm the Pentagon, Hegseth will play to Trump’s vision of a more muscular and emboldened U.S. military.

What Trump’s emerging foreign policy team tells us about his agenda
In picking figures such as Marco Rubio and Fox News host Pete Hegseth for his administration, Trump may be signaling his foreign policy goals — or foreshadowing four years of

President-elect Donald Trump with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) during a campaign rally on Oct. 29. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It’s still early, but President-elect Donald Trump’s roster of top foreign policy officials is starting to take shape. This week, reports suggested Trump would tap two Florida Republicans — Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Michael Waltz — as secretary of state and White House national security adviser, respectively. Trump also announced Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) as his pick for the high-profile role of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; John Ratcliffe, a former director of national intelligence under Trump, as the next head of the Central Intelligence Agency; and former veteran and Fox News broadcaster Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

The drumbeat of news surrounding the incoming administration’s staffing has already led to a surge in speculation over what these selections may mean for Trump’s second-term foreign policy. Both Rubio and Waltz are hawkish lawmakers who, on paper, aren’t wholly aligned with Trump’s “America First” brand. Their anticipated ascension spurred disquiet in some corners of Trumpworld, where many want to turn the page on an era of Republican foreign policy dominated by trigger-happy neoconservatives.

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Within Republican circles, there are pronounced disagreements over a range of issues. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have been bluntly skeptical about the need to support Ukraine’s ongoing war effort, while many Republicans in Congress are more aligned with the Biden administration’s project in buttressing NATO and Western efforts to back Kyiv. There are divisions over how and where to prioritize U.S. power, whether to view the challenge of China in principally economic or military terms, and over Trump’s protectionist zeal, which flies in the face of decades of pro-free trade Republican orthodoxy.

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Still, Trump’s allies and advisers see their work as an antidote to the struggles of the Biden administration. “It’s going to be a return to peace through strength. Deterrence is going to be restored,” Trump’s former national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien, who may also win a senior post in the incoming administration, told the Wall Street Journal. “American adversaries understand that the things they’ve gotten away with over the last four years will not be tolerated any further.”

(Video: TWP)
If he’s confirmed as the United States’ next top diplomat, Rubio will have taken a rather conspicuous journey. His 2016 presidential primary challenge was batted aside by Trump, who mocked the senator as “lightweight” and “Lil’ Marco.” During that failed bid, Rubio penned a manifesto on foreign policy where he championed “the protection of an open international economy in an increasingly globalized world.” He also cast the struggle with China in overtly ideological terms: “Our devotion to the spread of human rights and liberal democratic principles has been a part of the fabric of our country since its founding and a beacon of hope for so many oppressed peoples around the globe,” Rubio wrote then in Foreign Affairs.

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A decade of Trumpism has bent the Republican Party in a different direction, and compelled Rubio to adjust his own political posturing. He may find himself parading around the world next year as Trump’s envoy, justifying the application of tariffs on exports from U.S. allies and pursuing an agenda that sees Trump hatch deals with a host of human rights-abusing strongmen, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to Chinese President Xi Jinping himself.

Both Rubio and Waltz are seen as particularly strident anti-China hawks, and their ascension may signal Trump’s determination to focus on the contest with Beijing. In an op-ed that he co-wrote in the Economist, Waltz said the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine and entanglements in the Middle East have distracted from the imperatives of countering China.

But he doesn’t share the same squeamishness about battling Russia that some advocates of restraint in Washington do: If Putin doesn’t enter talks with Trump over peace in Ukraine, Waltz wrote, then the United States should be rushing new weapons with fewer restrictions on their use to Kyiv to bring Russia to the table. Rubio and Waltz would probably want to build on the Indo-Pacific strategy set in motion by the Biden administration; they also are unlikely to be proponents of radical, disruptive measures like withdrawing from NATO.

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“This is the biggest, clearest indicator we’ve had so far of the possible direction of Trump’s foreign policy,” Rush Doshi, a former Biden administration national security official now at Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations, told my colleagues in reaction to the news of Rubio’s and Waltz’s potential appointments. “These [apparent] choices suggest there’s more likely to be pushback on President Trump’s impulses than many people would have expected had he picked pure loyalists or ideological fellow travelers.”

Still it may also show that Trump’s priorities are not political, but personal. He earlier announced that neither Nikki Haley nor Mike Pompeo — prominent members of his first Cabinet — would be given positions in his new administration. This may have been less a repudiation of their neoconservative hawkishness than a punishment for Haley, who ran a doomed primary challenge against Trump this cycle, and Pompeo, who flirted with a run of his own.

“The picks may foreshadow the kind of clashes between Trump and his aides that dominated his first term in office when he sought to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and negotiate a nuclear arms deal with North Korea, moves that were ardently opposed by some of his more hawkish aides, such as national security adviser John Bolton and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis,” my colleagues wrote. “But Trump has prioritized loyalty as a prerequisite for joining his administration, an attempt to stamp out challenges to his decisions.”

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That’s clearly the case in the tapping of Ratcliffe for the CIA. In his statement Tuesday evening announcing his pick, Trump hailed Ratcliffe for his efforts to debunk “fake Russian collusion” — the allegations widely supported by the U.S. intelligence community that the Kremlin worked to spread disinformation to help Trump win the 2016 election.

Trump also seems to value sharp elbows. The selection of Stefanik to be the U.S. envoy at the United Nations is conspicuous: The congresswoman made waves in her grilling of university presidents over pro-Palestinian student protests on American campuses. It’s quite likely she will use her position at the United Nations to assail U.N. agencies and diplomats over any criticism of Israel, and air long-standing Republican grievances over the workings of the world’s most important multilateral institution.

Showmanship is also a calling card for Hegseth, a photogenic Fox host who once led a group of veterans that called for extending the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and later used his perch on cable television to lobby Trump during his first term to stymie war crimes investigations into a handful of U.S. soldiers. If confirmed to helm the Pentagon, Hegseth will play to Trump’s vision of a more muscular and emboldened U.S. military.

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This is just a tiny glimpse of what’s to come. But, as foreign observers of Washington already know, Trump’s erratic nature and temperament may once more be a defining theme of his presidency, no matter what his lieutenants say or do.

In Beijing, Moscow and myriad other capitals, diplomats are in “wait and see” mode. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, my colleagues reported, “told Russian state TV journalist Pavel Zarubin earlier that Moscow was encouraged by Trump’s campaign talk about seeking peace instead of confrontation with Russia, but he added that Trump was unpredictable and that it was not clear whether he would stick to his statements.”

Source The Washington Post