DeSantis Is Out to Prove He’s the GOP’s Top China Hawk

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is planning to make a major campaign speech on China in the coming days, three people familiar with the planned address told Foreign Policy, in an effort to burnish the would-be Republican presidential candidate’s policy bona fides and inject life into his flagging presidential campaign.

The speech, which follows a significant plunge in the polls for the Florida governor and the firing of his campaign manager and about one-third of his staff, is DeSantis’s effort to lay out a comprehensive economic and defense strategy to counter China. On the heels of bringing on several high-profile former Republican administration officials to advise his campaign on foreign policy, it’s an effort to outline the threat that China poses through its Belt and Road infrastructure project—but also on the home front, with Beijing attempting to expand its influence into American classrooms and buying up reams of land near U.S. military bases.

“It’s supposed to be the magnum opus of how everything else is interrelated to China policy,” said one DeSantis surrogate, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. “This is going to be, ‘We’re in a very broad-based, whole-of-society context with China.’” The Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Southern California was considered at one point as a venue.

By sending a message on China early in the campaign, DeSantis appears to be further aligning himself with a wing of GOP hawks that have sought to consolidate the focus of U.S. foreign policy around countering Beijing and deprioritizing the defense of Ukraine, a contrast with the Biden administration and 2024 Republican presidential candidates such as Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Mike Pence, who have called for the United States to continue supporting Kyiv’s counterattack against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Though it’s not clear when the speech will be given—or where—sources familiar with the plan said it is likely to be moved up in an effort to deflect negative press that DeSantis has gotten after swapping out his campaign manager, Generra Peck, for James Uthmeier, his chief of staff in the Florida governor’s office. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who was indicted for the fourth time on Monday, continues to enjoy a large lead over the Republican presidential field, with 57 percent of potential primary voters saying they would support Trump in a primary in a Morning Consult poll released this month, to just 16 percent for DeSantis.

The China speech is being drafted by Dustin Carmack, the campaign’s policy director, who was an aide to DeSantis in the House and served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence during the Trump administration. He is a China hawk who has called on the U.S. government to crack down on Chinese espionage and land purchases. (DeSantis signed a bill banning Chinese citizens from purchasing land in Florida in May.)

The campaign has been asking for inputs on the speech since the beginning of May, which is now in draft form, said one source familiar with the planning. The speech is also expected to have a focus on how the United States will uphold its alliance with Taiwan and touch on the strategy for deterring a possible Chinese invasion of the island.

Some people involved with the speech have pushed for DeSantis to decisively state that the United States will defend Taiwan in the event of an attack and address the so-called Chinese Volt Typhoon cyberattack that targeted American critical infrastructure.

“It’s basically going to be a very hawkish speech,” the person said. “They are shifting everything toward winning the first debate.” The Republican candidates are set to tussle at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, next week in a debate hosted by Fox News.

DeSantis has already tried to establish his bona fides as a China hawk over the summer. In a campaign speech in New Hampshire in late July that the candidate touted as a “Declaration of Economic Independence,” the Florida governor also called for the United States to curb trade with China, echoing many of the arguments his former ally Trump used during his own presidential bid.

“The abusive relationship, the asymmetric relationship between our two countries must come to an end,” DeSantis said. “No more massive trade deficits, no more importing of goods with stolen intellectual property, no more preferential trade status.”

While the upcoming speech is still being assembled, it is expected to include trade, defense, and diplomatic components. China could provide an opening for the rest of the field to attack Trump, who has consistently praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“Everyone in the Republican field is talking tough on China, which could put Trump in a tough position given some of his past statements on Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Xi Jinping,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

And even as the DeSantis campaign has burned through cash and run a distant second to Trump, it has become a go-to spot for a coterie of top China hawks who have helped move the status quo in Washington toward a more confrontational policy with Beijing.

“The rationale [is] the best place for national security hawks who are ‘never Trump’ or who just aren’t interested in Trump this time around is DeSantis, because he’s the only person who has a possibility of winning,” one of the sources said. That person said that DeSantis’s advisors had begun reaching out informally to D.C. foreign-policy experts about joining the campaign in advisory roles.

One China hawk DeSantis is keeping on speed dial is House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, the campaign surrogate said. Gallagher, who is five years younger than DeSantis, overlapped with the Florida governor for a little over a year and a half in Congress. DeSantis is also said to be an avid reader of the classicist Victor Davis Hanson, who has called out U.S. policymakers for being too soft on China.

Advising the DeSantis team in a more frequent capacity is Elbridge Colby, the architect of the Trump administration’s 2018 national defense strategy that helped reorient U.S. foreign policy around countering China’s rise. In the five years since leaving the Trump administration, Colby, the grandson of a former CIA director who holds degrees from Harvard and Yale, has pushed for U.S. foreign policy to have a near-singular focus on the Indo-Pacific, more specifically preventing a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. Colby did not respond to multiple inquiries from Foreign Policy.

Colby has embraced DeSantis, cheering the Florida governor’s comments in March questioning the wisdom of sending weapons to Ukraine amid a “stalemate” on the battlefield. (Colby has publicly expressed wariness about sending more U.S. military aid to Ukraine in lieu of Taiwan.) Politico previously reported that Colby had provided foreign policy advice to the DeSantis campaign.

DeSantis is not the only Republican candidate to turn to outside foreign-policy advisors to polish his policy bona fides on China. But there are red lines even China hawks are leery of crossing. Former U.S. Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo made trips to Ukraine and Taiwan and has formally called on the United States to abrogate its 50-year-old “One China” policy and recognize Taipei as an independent country, but he is not making a run for the Republican nomination. The rest of the field has often risked embarrassment trying to thread the needle.

Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the first entrant into the Republican presidential race, pointedly demurred on answering whether the United States should defend Taiwan in the event of an attack. DeSantis has also stopped short of answering the question by insisting he would “deter” a Chinese invasion as president. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has also declined to say where he stands on responding to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, other than stating that the U.S. should stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the island on its defense.

“That position may not last longer than the first debates, because moderators can be expected to put the question to the candidate,” said David Feith, the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the Trump administration.

“President Biden has repeatedly said that he would commit U.S. troops to the military defense of Taiwan in the case of a Beijing assault. Would you?”