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Trump’s Appointments Reflect a More Openly Hawkish Face of US Empire

In appointing Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth to his administration, Trump emboldens volatile warmongers.

By Sam Rosenthal , Truthout, November 14, 2024

After mounting his comeback win against Kamala Harris, Donald Trump has already announced a slew of administration appointments. Compared to other presidents-elect, and to his own first term, Trump is ahead of the typical timeline in announcing these appointments, giving observers an earlier-than-usual view into how the second Trump administration could function, both in the domestic and foreign policy arenas.

On the foreign policy front, Trump will inherit several major international crises and tensions that Joe Biden has been unable to resolve during his time in office, chief among them Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, Russia’s war in Ukraine and escalating U.S. rivalry with China over Taiwan. Trump has already named several high-profile cabinet members who will shape much of his foreign policy and could oversee the consequential conclusions of those conflicts.

Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, has been tapped for the coveted secretary of state position. Rubio is a well-known China hawk who has recently led the charge against TikTok and other Chinese-based tech companies, a stance that dovetails well with Trump’s promise to impose a 60 percent tariff on all goods exported from China. Beyond economic warfare, Rubio has called China the “threat that will define this century” and pushed repeatedly on known pressure points in U.S.-China relations, including the status of Taiwan.

Rubio — the grandson of Cuban immigrants who moved to the U.S. before the Cuban revolution but hated Fidel Castro from afar — is an ardent anti-communist who has argued vociferously against the legitimacy of the sitting governments in Cuba and Venezuela and supported devastating sanctions on both……………………

Rubio’s aggressive stance toward China will no doubt be compounded by Trump’s newly announced pick for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, currently a House representative from Florida. Waltz has pushed his anti-China rhetoric even farther than Rubio, …………………………………….

Arguably Trump’s most surprising pick so far has been his choice for secretary of defense. …………………………….. For his second term, in an apparent attempt to institute more accommodating leadership at the Pentagon, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who served in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, to lead the Department of Defense.

During his time at Fox News, Hegseth has become known for advocating for leniency for military personnel found to have committed war crimes abroad while serving. Hegseth has no governmental experience whatsoever, nor has he served in any command role within the U.S. military…………………………..

During Trump’s last term, he encouraged the then-president to bomb cultural sites in Iran. As head of the Department of Defense, he might focus on internal house cleaning, seeking to remake the military into a more homogenous, more overtly male-dominated entity, with even less care for international law and a firmer belief in U.S. supremacy.

…………………………………………….Tulsi Gabbard, chosen as director of national intelligence……….. has also frequently trafficked in anti-Muslim rhetoric, repeating right-wing talking points about “radical Islamic ideology” that are often used to justify the criminalization and surveillance of Muslim communities…

………………………….Trump has also begun to announce high-profile ambassadorships. Among these early picks, the most consequential is likely to be his selection of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, whose daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, served as Trump’s press secretary in his last term, is well-known for his Christian evangelicism. …..

Huckabee’s pick as ambassador to Israel likely portends an even more openly hostile stance toward Palestinian human rights and comes with possibly apocalyptic consequences for the West Bank. Huckabee, an avowed Zionist (like President Biden), has long supported Benjamin Netanyahu. ……………………………………..  He has said that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not illegal, contradicting the overwhelming consensus of international law experts…………………………..

Beyond that, though, Huckabee ascribes to a particular brand of Christian evangelical thought, rooted in the belief that the existence of modern Israel is ordained by God. Huckabee has close ties to Christian Zionist organizations, including Christians United for Israel (CUFI), one of the largest of its type in the U.S., which is already celebrating his nomination.

But Huckabee’s connection with Hagee and CUFI isn’t just alarming because of its founder’s overt antisemitism; Hagee is part of an extreme segment of the Christian Zionist tradition that believes that a cataclysmic war in Israel and Palestine will be the precipitating event for the second coming of the Christian messiah. Hagee and others in this line of thinking, therefore, encourage the hastening of violent conflict between Israel and its neighbors as much as possible.   Whether Huckabee himself is aligned with this particular strain of Christian Zionism is not clear, but his close connection with the broader movement, and with Hagee in particular, should be enough to raise the highest level of alarm about what policies Huckabee intends to support toward an Israeli state that is already deeply enmeshed in the bloodiest campaign of its entire existence.

It is not a foregone conclusion that all of these nominees will make it through the Senate confirmation process. Although Republicans now control the chamber, more moderate caucus members, or those with more traditional views of how the federal government should be run, might be hesitant to confirm some of Trump’s most unorthodox picks. Hegseth and Gabbard, in particular, could face strong headwinds. However, that is dependent on whether Republicans are willing to risk antagonizing Trump, who is infamous for his ability to hold and prosecute personal vendettas, at the outset of his second term. If these nominees are confirmed, they will comprise among the most unusual, and unpredictable, stewards of U.S. foreign policy that the country has ever had.

November 16, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA