With Donald Trump elected as the next US president, a top analyst has made some projections for the key national security figures – all China hawks – set to shape his administration’s approach to world affairs.
Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the New York-based Eurasia Group, said on Wednesday that US Senator Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, has the “inside track” to become secretary of state.
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Hagerty, who previously worked in private equity, was part of Trump’s presidential transition team in 2016 and served as his ambassador to Japan before making a Senate run in 2020. In April, he was one of 15 senators who voted against a national security package to send funding to Ukraine.
As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hagerty has maintained a hardline approach on China, targeting everything from China’s cloud service providers and biotech companies to Chinese batteries being used at US military bases.
Bremmer said Richard Grenell, former acting director of the National Intelligence Council, also has a chance at the post. Grenell, also a former ambassador to Germany whom Trump once referred to as “my envoy”, was known for his confrontational diplomacy that tested Washington’s relationship with Berlin.
Grenell has been outspoken about Chinese influence in the US, calling China a “crisis” for American “business, academia and the public”. When Vice-President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Grenell remarked that “Communist China is very happy”. Grenell also currently serves as a senior adviser to the Protecting America Initiative, an advocacy group focused on stopping “the threat of Communist China at the state level”.
Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser from 2019 to 2021, was named as a top candidate to return to that role. He is “liked by Trump and those around him”, Bremmer said.
O’Brien is viewed as a supporter of Nato and Ukraine within the Republican Party, which could make him a welcome presence in Brussels. This may align with a broader trend of hardline views on Russia in Congress and the incoming administration, where according to Bremmer figures who are “quite hawkish towards Russia” are likely to overpower Trump’s “personal willingness to reach out to [Vladimir] Putin”.
O’Brien’s support for alliances and partnerships is also seen in the context of the Indo-Pacific. Writing for Foreign Affairs magazine earlier this year, O’Brien argued for the US to help expand the militaries of Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam as well as clearly commit to defending Taiwan. On mainland China specifically, he has said the country posed a “far more serious” threat “than we faced against the Soviet Union in the Cold War”.
An obstacle for O’Brien taking that position quickly, however, is that he has “a company that he would like to sell”, Bremmer said. O’Brien is currently the chairman of American Global Strategies, which advises companies on international politics and the US government.
Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas since 2015 and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was mentioned as someone who has “gotten a lot of play” as a possible secretary of defence. A veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and former US Army infantry officer, Cotton has built a reputation for being a steadfast China hawk, introducing legislation to curb imports of various Chinese goods and end China’s preferential trade status with the US.
For ambassador to the United Nations, Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump was named as a potential pick. Bremmer described her as having an “affinity towards the multilaterals” and noted that she built “a really good” relationship with Christine Lagarde when Lagarde was managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 2011 to 2019.
Bremmer stressed on Wednesday that Trump would value loyalty “at a higher premium” than before.
“He really despises the people he brought in that then spilled tea and came out against Trump afterwards,” Bremmer said.
As such, Trump loyalists like Hagerty are being considered for a variety of cabinet posts.
Hagerty, according to Politico, is also in contention for the departments of Commerce and Treasury and the Office of the US Trade Representative. Another Trump loyalist, former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, is also being floated for those roles.
US Representative Mike Waltz of Florida, who has advised Trump on foreign policy, also appears on more than one list compiled by Politico. The former Green Beret is considered a contender for both the secretary of defence and state.
The president-elect is expected to have a fairly smooth path with his appointments as Republicans will take control of the Senate, which is responsible for confirming nominees.
Control of the House of Representatives has not yet been determined, and may not be known for days or weeks, in part because of close races in states like Arizona and California that take longer to count their ballots.
Jon Lieber, managing director for the United States at the Eurasia Group, said that Trump’s cabinet choices would likely start being announced before US Thanksgiving, which is November 28 this year.
Bremmer noted that “complete surprises” should be expected.
“Trump has not made any of these decisions, and he is very quixotic in the way he makes them,” Bremmer said, citing how the former president went against his advisers in selecting oil executive Rex Tillerson as his first secretary of state.
“Don’t underestimate the fact that there will be some complete surprises from people that have not been participating in the Trump team,” Bremmer said.
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