Ron DeSantis vows to ‘reorient’ U.S. foreign policy to counter China

Ron DeSantis is rolling out his foreign policy vision, and part of that for the first-time presidential candidate is highlighting his previous policy positions during his early political career.

In a speech to the Heritage Foundation, the 2024 presidential candidate positioned his own approach, going back to his election to Congress in 2012, as a deviation from “post-9/11 neoconservatism” and the “feckless” approach to statesmanship under the Barack Obama administration, including the former President’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Fast forward to today, with a dynamic situation in the Middle East backdropped by conflict with China — often depicted by DeSantis as America’s one true geopolitical rival — and the Governor has a number of pitches related to today’s situation.

“They are the first truly peer competitor that we have dealt with in our lifetimes,” DeSantis claimed, vowing to “reorient” American foreign policy to the Indo-Pacific region, so that “we win and they lose.”

To that end, DeSantis wants a bolstered military to “deter China” with “adequate hard power,” including what he calls a “four-ocean Navy.” Additionally, he wants to make the defense bureaucracy more “agile.”

Moves to “unleash” American energy production are also key, as well as expanded mining domestically of “rare earth minerals.” Additionally, a “strategic decoupling” of the American economy from China is also necessary in DeSantis’ eyes, one that could be helped by having “the entire Free World on our side.”

Beyond plans for the future, the Governor offered ample denunciation of the present.

“We are a nation adrift,” DeSantis said Friday, beset by a “rudderless” and “weak” foreign policy under the Joe Biden administration.

DeSantis cited the Afghanistan withdrawal, the empowerment of Iran with sanctions relief, and Biden’s invitation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine through allegedly protecting weakness as just some of the ways the President’s statesmanship is failing.

“American power is under decline,” DeSantis said, saying the decline is “accelerating under the Biden administration.”

DeSantis denounced “military adventurism” and “exporting democracy” as failed approaches that have borne bitter fruit in the current era, while also citing a “disastrous” response to a Chinese lab export: COVID-19.

The Governor referenced the naïve, once ubiquitous claim that the Cold War signaled “the end of history,” a phrase popularized by author Francis Fukuyama, noting that “wiser heads” knew better.

He also noted that 9/11 brought the advent of “non-state actors” and a Global War on Terror with “some successes and some failures,” an era which gave way to the “looming China threat” and an American “failure to articulate” a clear national security vision.

“You’ve got to put the American people first,” DeSantis said, contending that an “America First” policy should be the baseline, a “fundamental duty” of the federal government.

Protecting the well-being of Americans and countering foreign and domestic threats are also key, DeSantis said, with “power … rooted in concrete objectives” devoid of “Wilsonian abstractions.”

“When we act, we will act decisively,” DeSantis promised, in the event he is elected President.

He also vowed a “clear, no-nonsense approach to America’s enemies” with an eye toward “the ability to carry it out” and a full commitment to “winning.”

DeSantis noted the Hamas terror attacks and Iran’s role in bankrolling the operation, referring to history in noting that 40 years ago, Iranian-backed Hezbollah successfully attacked U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon. To that end, America must back Israel in its obliteration of Hamas, he said.

Regarding Ukraine, DeSantis said the Biden policy had “no identifiable endgame,” in remarks consistent with his desire to “bring this conflict to an acceptable conclusion” (a position shared by Heritage).

The Governor contends that China is driving both conflicts to its own benefit and American detriment and “depletion” of munitions.