Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is calling on President-elect Trump to reject isolationists in the Republican Party who will argue for the United States to focus on China at the expense of Ukraine and other areas of the world.
McConnell laid out his advice to the incoming president in a 4,500-word piece in Foreign Affairs, warning that “Trump will inherit a world far more hostile to U.S. interests than the one he left behind four years ago.”
“China has intensified its efforts to expand its military, political, and economic influence worldwide. Russia is fighting a brutal and unjustified war in Ukraine. Iran remains undeterred in its campaign to destroy Israel, dominate the Middle East, and develop a nuclear weapons capability,” McConnell wrote.
The GOP leader criticized the Biden administration for trying to manage these threats “through engagement and accommodation” but argued that America’s “revanchist” adversaries “do not seek deeper integration with the existing order” because they “reject its very basis” and “draw strength from American weakness.”
“The response to four years of weakness must not be four years of isolation,” he warned the new administration and colleagues in Congress.
“Even though the competition with China and Russia is a global challenge, Trump will no doubt hear from some that he should prioritize a........