Trump appoints China skeptics Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio to top jobs

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to select Florida Senator Marco Rubio as his nominee for America's next top diplomat, according to reports – a selection that is likely to set a tough tone for relations with China from the start.

The New York Times quoted three sources familiar with Trump's thinking as expressing confidence that the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president had chosen Rubio.

The two were rivals during the contentious 2016 Republican presidential primary, in which Trump nicknamed Rubio “Little Marco.” Trump considered him for the role of vice president, a position ultimately filled by JD Vance, Rubio's Senate colleague from Ohio.

Newsweek emailed the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Trump campaign seeking a response.

Rubio was an outspoken critic of China during his time in the Senate.

He co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to support the international standing of Taiwan, the self-governing island with which China has sought to unify by force if necessary.

He also co-sponsored a law banning imports allegedly made using forced labor in China's Xinjiang and a bill requiring the U.S. government to report on human rights abuses in the Muslim-majority region. Chinese officials there have been accused of detaining up to a million people in internment camps, which Beijing says are re-education camps.

Rubio was among the U.S. lawmakers Beijing imposed sanctions on in 2020 over his criticism of the situation in Xinjiang and China's crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong.

In September, Rubio introduced legislation to close loopholes to prevent China, Russia and other U.S. adversaries from dodging tariffs.

Trump has already asked Rep. Michael Waltz, a retired Green Beret and National Guard colonel who represents Florida's Sixth District, to replace outgoing national security adviser Jake Sullivan if confirmed by the upper house.

Michael Waltz is also a well-known China hawk who sounded the alarm about China's growing influence in the Western Hemisphere earlier this year.

He also supports speeding up arms exports to Taiwan to help the country better defend itself against possible Chinese aggression. “We must learn from Ukraine by confronting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) threat and arming Taiwan NOW before it is too late,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in May.

Although the US, like most countries, does not officially recognize Taiwan diplomatically, it is the island democracy's main arms supplier, which Washington has sold for decades under the Taiwan Relations Act. These arms sales anger China, which sees them as a violation of its sovereignty.

“Senator Rubio is one of Washington's most level-headed and strategic thinkers in the fight against the Chinese Communist Party,” said Michael Sobolik, senior fellow for Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and author of Countering China's Big Game: A Strategy for American Dominancein an interview with Newsweek.

As for Waltz, Sobolik called him one of the “most focused House members on this issue” and noted that he has “consistently” advocated for the country's political prisoners.

“President-elect Trump's pick for the Treasury and Commerce Departments will be telling, but early signs suggest difficult days lie ahead for Beijing,” Sobolik added.

Eric Hontz of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-affiliated Center for International Private Enterprise in Washington, D.C., said he expected both appointments to mark a new approach to relations with China.

“I think their legislative track record of viewing the Chinese Communist Party as a hybrid political-economic power will enable horizontal thinking about new tools of economic statecraft,” he said Newsweek. “Her leadership in drawing attention to supply chain resilience and pursuing bipartisan legislation in coordination with a variety of stakeholders, including primarily the private sector, bodes well for innovative approaches to solving complex problems.”

State-backed private Chinese media company Guancha wrote that Rubio was “arguably the most combative” of the candidates being considered for secretary of state and called him the “anti-China vanguard.”

Trump also picked Elise Stefanik of New York's 21st Congressional District as his choice to be the next ambassador to the United Nations, a post soon to be vacated by Linda Thomas-Greenfield.