The Dispatch Podcast - Can We Beat China? | Interview: Sen. Tom Cotton

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

GOP Sen. Tom Cotton joins Jamie Weinstein to discuss his news book, Seven Things You Can't Say About China, as well as the looming military threats against Taiwan and the Republican Party’s divided foreign policy views. The Agenda: —Tariff trouble —The China threat is more severe than most Americans realize —Taiwan’s defense spending needs to increase significantly —The foreign-policy divide within the GOP —China’s influence in global trade The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and regular livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web.

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My guest today is Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. He is out with a new book, Seven Things You Can't Say About China. And we get in very deeply to what he wrote in that book, what threat he thinks China poses to the U.S., what the U.S. should do about it. We also get into some news of the day items and the nature of what some see as a foreign policy fight

within the Republican Party between those who are more isolationist and those who are more interventionist. So without further ado, I give you Senator Tom Cotton. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for having me on. Senator, I'm going to the Dispatch Podcast. Senator, I want to focus most of the interview on. Senator, I want to focus most of the interview on. on your book, which I read and enjoyed, but I thought I'd open with two news of the day items for you. Trade, we had Liberation Day on Tuesday. Obviously, a lot of market turmoil. Do you believe what we was announced on Tuesday was a beginning of a negotiation on trade, or was this intended to be a permanent fixture? Well, I think the president's long-term goals, goals that I share

is try to bring more manufacturing back to the United States, provide high-paying jobs here, to make sure that we can make the stuff that our country needs, needs for our safety, needs for our prosperity and well-being. I particularly am pleased with the actions they talk about China. I know we're going to talk about that a little bit more when we discuss my new book, but trying to level the playing field with China, which has been cheating the American worker and American businesses for decades, closing the de minimis loophole, which has been hurting small businesses here in America by allowing companies like Timu and Shine to gain more and more market access in the United States are especially important actions to take. As the President has said,

since last Wednesday, many companies are coming to him asking to negotiate new trade agreements. Hopefully that's their recognition that they've been giving the American worker and businesses a raw deal for some time. And it seems like the President is open to that. So I think we'll have to see how things play out in the days and the weeks ahead on each of the individual tariffs in the countries that the President announced last week. As you said, we're getting to more of this specifically when we talk about China, specifically the China tariffs when we get to your book. But would you rule out in any circumstances or would you consider there's a bill circulating, I guess, in the Senate, the Grassley-Kentwell bill that would take some of the power from the

president on putting on tariffs, making Congress involved with 60 days after instituting the tariffs? Would you consider signing on to that or have you foreclose that possibility? Jamie, I haven't seen the legislation, so I probably shouldn't comment on it. Obviously, I can review any piece of legislation, make that decision in an informed fashion, but I wouldn't want to comment on a bill I haven't reviewed yet. Final news of the day item before getting to your book, earlier this week, President Trump met with Laura Lumer and reportedly on his advice, on her advice, fired some national security staffers. Laura Lumer is a well-known conspiracy theorist.

She has recently attacked you and a former staffer you had as a Chinese spy. She's also known for making racist comments about Indians during the campaign. Are you concerned at all that president would be meeting with someone like this and potentially worse, taking her advice on what staffers in the national security realm to fire? Well, Jamie, I can't comment on who the president meets with and how he makes the decisions based on which advisors counsel him. Obviously, he meets with his team all day long. I'm not privy to those meetings as a member of the Senate.

I will say that I agree with the president that I think Mike Walts and Pete Hexeth are doing great jobs. My former aide, who worked with me for three years, worked for the president for three years in the first term. Alex Wong is also doing a great job, and the president has expressed his confidence in Alex Wong to me and encourage me to speak out to show my confidence in Alice Wong, and for that matter, his wife, Candace Wong, one of the Republican members of the United States sentencing commissions. So I don't know how the president makes his decisions, who he listens to on this, that, or the other decision. I try to evaluate the actual merits of the decision itself. I will agree that Laura Lumer has said some things in the past that obviously I would not associate myself with.

Let's get to your book, Senator. Your book, Seven Things You Can't Say About China. I've read it. Give our audience, to begin with, a brief summary of why you wrote the book and maybe some of the key points that are within it. Sure, Jamie. I mean, whenever I travel around Arkansas or around the nation for that matter, a lot of people ask me because of my positions on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee and now the chair of the Intelligence Committee, if the threat from China is as bad as it seems. And I tell them that, no, it's not. It's actually much worse. Americans have a very low opinion of China, rightly so. But the threat is more severe. It's more pervasive. It's more immediate than many of them might imagine. One of the reasons why this captures the censorship. undertone of the title of this book is that China has amassed great wealth and power,

in part because America has helped it to do so over the last several decades. And China uses that wealth and that power and influence to silence and even censor many Americans, sometimes whole industries in America to try to conceal the power and the influence that China has gained in our country and the threat they pose to the United States and to our future. The seven things you use as chapters that you can't say, just so the listeners know, the seven things are China is an evil empire. China is preparing for war. China is waging economic world war. China has infiltrated our society. China has infiltrated our government. China is coming for our kids and China could win. Are any of these more concerning to you than the

others? I guess with that we accepted of China could win because obviously that probably would be the most concerning. Well, yeah, that's the most concerning. When I say they could win, I don't mean they could win a battle over a few tariffs or even a conflict over Taiwan, although that really is the focus of the chapter China could win, is that by winning that battle and continuing the malign practices they've used for decades, China could win the competition to replace the United States as the world's dominant economic and military superpower. I'm not saying they will. I'm not saying that it's inevitable, but I'm saying they can. And America needs. to be very, very focused on that threat.

I think the first chapter is really important for anyone to understand. That's why it's first, after all, is that China is an evil empire. This is an echo, obviously, of what Ronald Reagan said about communist Russia in 1983 when he said that Russia was an evil empire. And that's because these nations are communist nations with implacable demands. They're not traditional democratic governments who might have reconcilable differences with their neighbors. And you could see the kind of evil at the heart of the Chinese communist regime by looking at what it does to its own people. At the genocide, it's committed against Tibet going back

70, 80 years, at the ongoing genocide today against the Uighur people, a religious and ethnic minority in northwest China. The way it cracked down on Hong Kong and ended Hong Kong's traditional and its promised autonomy and civil liberty, what it does to Christians. Americans are surprised, know that China is one of the largest Christian nations in the world, maybe as up to 100 million Christians in the country. Yet China cracks down on Christianity. It requires churches to register. If you don't register and try to have a private church, it might arrest you, it might disappear you or might torture you. China is even rewriting the Bible, not translating it, but rewriting it, the Bible, turning the Word of God

into the Word of Mal. So what you see from China internationally, it's aggression towards its neighbors, it's cheating and stealing of America's wealth and prosperity is of a piece of what you see with what it does to its own people. I really don't think you can understand the way a nation acts internationally unless you understand what drives that nation in its own domestic politics. Well, you definitely don't mince words about your thoughts of the communist regime in the book, just like you didn't in that answer. I wrote down a few things you called them mass murderers, invaders, liars, and drug dealers. Is China an enemy of the United States? And if So how should we treat it? China is an enemy. It's the most dangerous enemy we've ever faced more so than

communist Russia because communist Russia was not entangled in our economy the way China is. Russia didn't have the same kind of influence that China does. Sure, Russia had spies in the United States and other Western nations. It ran influence campaigns like the nuclear freeze movement in the 1980s to try to achieve its strategic ends, but it didn't have the vast economic influence that China has in our country, which makes it so much more dangerous in addition to its size and its wealth, which funds the largest military buildup in peacetime history. So I think we need to be very clear-eyed, and this is what I try to do in seven things you can't say about China, about the nature of this threat, that China is not a nation that has splitable differences with the United

States. The only way we can confront this threat is through strength and competence and resolution in our relationship with China on trade, on financial flows, on the military, in every domain, we have to make it clear that we are going to fight for working Americans, we're going to stand up for the rights of Americans, and we're going to protect our national interest. We don't want a conflict with China, but we have to be strong to defer, deter that conflict from happening. The language, I mean, there's a zeitgeist within the Republican Party now, or at least I see it, at least at the presidential level, which is the best case scenario, that you can't say bad things about bad.

countries that you're trying to deal with, that if you called Putin a war criminal, that he wouldn't sit down and deal with you. Do you believe that, or do you think that at the presidential level, you should be as forthright as you are in this book and in this interview about what the Chinese communist regime is? Look, I don't think Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping or men like that have their feelings hurt too badly. So they're going to act on what they think is in their nation's best interest, which is really what they think is in their own personal best interest. What is going to perpetuate them in power and consolidate their grip on power for their nation? Now, even Ronald Reagan said there's a time and a place for tough rhetoric and there's a

time in a place for less tough rhetoric. He called Soviet Russia an evil empire. He was once asked to repeat that in front of Mikhail Gorbachev at one of the four summits he did in just three years Gorbachev. And he deflected because he recognized we're trying to get to an agreement here. But I don't think anyone doubted the spine and the toughness and the resolution. of Ronald Reagan. I think the same thing is true of Donald Trump. And you've already seen in his first term and sometimes in his second term that nations that pushed around Barack Obama and Joe Biden are measuring their steps much more carefully with Donald Trump in the White House. You know, how should we actually interact with China? I mean, you mentioned you believe that they

did commit or committing a genocide of the Uighurs. I've read some of the other names that you refer to them as. If they are doing the genocide, if they are doing this, should we even have a relationship with them? Or if not, how do we disentangle from them when there are companies that, you know, I think the average is 20% of maybe our trade is done with China? I might be wrong at that number, but it is very, very high and we're very entangled economically. Well, as Reagan recognized with communist Russia, we have to accept the world as it is. It's a world that we inherited. No one makes the world into which he or she is born or arrives politically to make these decisions. We have to accept the world that we received from our forebears with China.

They made terrible mistakes 30, 40 years ago that granted us this world, but we can try to make change. We have to be mindful, though, of the world we live in. If we simply cut off all trade of all kinds with China immediately, we would be in some ways cutting off our nose to spite our face. I have repeatedly called for years, which you might characterize as strategic decoupling, identifying those areas of trade and financial flows between our nations that are most dangerous to the United States that pose the biggest threat to our health, our safety, and our prosperity. The other areas, it'd be nice that if we didn't depend on China for them, but it's not as vital. So I'll give you some examples of areas that are vital

where we have to break our dependence on China. We have to eliminate the leverage that China has over the United States. Many of our basic pharmaceuticals or pharmaceutical ingredients come from China, things like aspirin and ibuprofen and its precursors or antibiotics or heparin or what have you. We learned this the hard way during the pandemic where China starting to cut those off. Likewise, many of the critical minerals that we need in a modern electronic digital economy also come from China. They don't come from China because China has the market cornered from a geographic standpoint, those minerals are really able to be mined almost anywhere in the world, to include the United States. But China's cornered the market on the processing and manufacturing

of it. We have to eliminate that dependency or that leverage as well. Some other examples of where we might not face as much risk, you know, if celebrate Christmas, you have an artificial Christmas tree, that tree almost certainly came from China. I wish that wasn't the case. I wish those jobs never left America. But it's probably not going to impair our safety, our health, and our prosperity if we don't get Christmas trees manufactured out of China and back to the United States or some other friendly countries. So there's a contrast there between different types of products and industries where I think we need to focus more and where we can focus a little bit less.

The donors of all sorts, obviously, of both parties are entangled with China in some ways because they're so big economically. But there are always examples of, you know, you read about. donors when a Republican administration is coming, trying to temper the, try to negotiate between them and bring the two sides together. I wonder if you have gotten calls from any donors saying, you know, Senator, thrown down your rhetoric here, we can, you can work with China. China is not the enemy that you see it is. I think they know that I'm a pretty hard case on that one. So I can't say that I actually have received such calls. I've received other kinds of calls. I mean, the most common call, Jamie, that I got, especially in the first term. is from small family-owned businesses, maybe not politically active, maybe not political contributors to Republicans or to Democrats, but they have over the years developed a sole source or a limited source for some critical input. I mean, you could reduce it to say like, you know, a nut or a screw or a valve or what have you, and they only get it from China. And they're very worried about what

it means for the businesses and, you know, 75 or 100 employees they employ in rural Arkansas. That's a more common kind of call I get just from normal constituents who recognize the threat to China poses, but at the same time, in a rational response, the bad policies of the past have become dependent on China, either in a limited sourcing or even sole sourcing for important imports for their operations. Now, I also have heard from politicians who, you know, are chasing after Chinese investment in their communities or want more job announcements in their communities. And they asked me to go easy on time. And I write about that later in the book as well. That's just another example of pervasive Chinese influence you see throughout our country. One of the things you can't say

you write in the book is how China's infiltrating our government. And the example I'm going to present you here is not, I think, infiltration or a Chinese plot. But I wonder if it does concern you. It ties to the donor question. Someone like Elon Musk, who is the number one now donor to Republicans, having such an influential role. He also runs a company that does very significant business in China has mentioned that there should be a deal between China and Taiwan. Are you concerned at all of someone with those deep business ties to China having such an influential role in this administration? Well, I think it'd be great if Elon Musk can make all Tesla's in America, like he makes a lot of Tesla's in America. But the story of Tesla having production sites in China

is really just, again, the story of corporate America creating so many manufacturing sites in China. you know, it happens with Ford and Caterpillar and Apple and Coca-Cola, I wish that never would have happened. As it relates to Elon Musk's influence of the administration, as you're talking about earlier, I can't comment on how the president makes every single decision that he makes. Obviously, that's for him and his counselors. But in the end, they are all counselors or advisors. And advisors, whoever they are, wherever they sit, advise, only the president decides. One of the, obviously, cuts that Doge made was to USAID. I read yesterday. I read yesterday, Yesterday that the Afri-Com commander came to the Senate and told senators, I don't know if you were at the meeting, that China is now trying to replicate USAID programs in Africa after the U.S. scales back in order to give favor of African countries. Are those the type of cuts? Are you worried at all that those cuts are hurting America's soft power and giving China an opening into some parts of the world where America had aid programs that were beneficial, not crazy ones,

like studying transgender rabbits or something like that? No, Jamie, not really. In part because Secretary Rubio's directive does say that we're going to continue a lot of the tradition, what people think about of traditional foreign aid mission, say, you know, basic foodstuffs and medicines and vaccines, that those are continuing under Secretary Rubio's guidance. The stuff you cited, things like, you know, transgendered comics and operas or Sesame Street and Iraq, or what have you. I mean, I think of anything, those are more likely to hurt our national interests than they are to help us. I have not seen evidence yet that China plans to fill that

gap. I mean, after all, who else would want to fund transgender operas and comic books in other countries? And that China doesn't do a lot of traditional, again, traditional foreign aid of the kind we think, like foodstuffs or medicines. Now, what China does have, and I write about this and seven things you can't say about China is the Belt and Road Initiative, which is a massive infrastructure project around the world that is designed to export a lot of China's excess capacity. It's steel and cement and so forth. Also, export as workers. They don't even oftentimes employ local workers in nations when they're building a power plant or a dam or a big road or a railroad or something. We still have other ways to do that in our government through things like the

export-import bank or the overseas private investment corporation or the development finance corporation. Of course, we are a little more measured in those investments because we're not going to their tax dollars after total boondoggles that have no chance of paying out in the long run or they're simply designed to curry favor with small nations. So they'll do you a favor in return at, say, the United Nations or the Work Health Organization. I have not, though, seen evidence of China rushing in to fill the gap that has been created in some of the really foolish things that AID was funding. Taiwan, it has been one of the focuses of this podcast to look into what we see as the biggest flashpoint in the world, the Taiwan straight between China and Taiwan. Earlier this year,

we had one scholar come on to talk about why it's very important to not allow China to take over Taiwan, and we had a more restrained scholar to come on to give the other side of that. A lot of it boils down to what you believe the ambitions of China are. What do you believe China's ambitions are? Is it regional? Is it worldwide? Is it to control all of Asia if it's regional? What do you think their ultimate ambitions are?

I mean, I think their ambitions, as I said earlier, is to replace the United States as the world's dominant superpower, economic and military. I mean, remember, China is sometimes traditionally known as the Middle Kingdom or the Central Kingdom. That was their self-conception for most of modern times. that they were the middle kingdom around which every other nation revolved. Every other nation had to come and pay tribute to China as a kind of vassal or quasi vassal state. It hasn't been the case for about 200 years. That's one reason why this is such a tense historical moment is the United States and China have never been strong together at the same time.

When China was the world's largest, wealthiest nation for most of history up until about probably 1700 or 1800, the United States really didn't even exist or was just getting off the ground. And as we've gained strength of the last 200 years, China had been in decline until about 50 or 60 years ago. So that's why one reason why this is such a tense moment in the history of mankind. But I think China wants to reclaim that ground. They want to reclaim the status of the Middle Kingdom that has the mandate of heaven. And they want other nations to dance to the tune they call. They want other nations to think, not what would Washington do here, how would Washington react, but how would Beijing react?

And Taiwan is really the linchpin in those ambitions, as Douglas MacArthur said at the outbreak of the Korean War, that Taiwan was the unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender off the coast of China. And if it fell into the hands of a hostile power, then communist China like now, it would be a disaster of utmost importance for the United States. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change. and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain, on top of everything else, is why life insurance indeed matters.

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Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's ETHOS.com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick, intuitive, and requires zero coding experience.

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What would this world where China is the ultimate power and, I don't know, we're a secondary power, I guess, in this vision? What does that world look like? Not in exactly the same way that the United States has done. The United States has done it not just for ourselves, but for our friends and partners around the world. for the sake of global peace and stability from which we benefit. I think China recognizes that most nations wouldn't dare threaten them in their trade lanes and their Navy if they become a true global blue-watered navy that's traversing through, say, the Red Sea. The Houthi rebels that have been shooting at our ships since the October 7th attacks in Israel

would never in their right mind do that to a Chinese ship. Likewise, that Iran would not threaten through aggressive naval maneuvers, a Chinese ship in the Persian Gulf, because they understand how brutal and ruthless the Chinese regime is. So they would play a role in protecting their own interests around the world, but it would not be the same kind of beneficent role that the United States has played at least for the last 80 years and probably a lot longer than that on behalf of not just the United States, but as we have said since the dawn of communism, the free world. world. The scholar, who was more, let's call a more restrained view of this, believe that you could, that we had on this podcast, believe that you could try to get some sort of deal between China and Taiwan. I guess it's hard to use Hong Kong as an example these days, considering that China took it over. But something along those lines, which would satisfy China and their ego and come to some sort of peaceful resolution. Why is that not a possibility? Well, if you just listen to what Xi Jinping and other communist leaders have said for decades, that's not what they want. They want total dominion and control over Taiwan, and Hong Kong is a great example. Hong Kong reverted to Chinese control in 1997 from Great Britain. China promised 50 years of the status quo in Hong Kong.

Hong Kongers would have their traditional autonomy, civil, and political liberties. That's what made Hong Kong such a vibrant hub of economic activity. for so many decades under British sovereignty. And in less than half of that time, by 2020, and the cover of the pandemic, China rolled in its troops and police and cracked down on Hong Kong. And now Hong Kong is a little more than an appendage of mainland China.

But although it took 23 years, they started almost immediately. There were efforts within just a few years of taking back sovereignty over Hong Kong where they tried to crush the Hong Kong freedom movement. They tried to curdle Hong Kong's traditional autonomy and civil and political liberties. They kept failing because of brave Hong Kongers speaking out. But for 23 years, they would periodically try to do this until finally, in 2020, under the cover of the pandemic, Xi brought the communist boot heel down on Hong Kong. Now, it was easier to do from an operational standpoint because Hong Kong is connected to the mainland China.

Taiwan would be a much more challenging operation. but I think Taiwanese can look at what's happened in Hong Kong and think we don't really to be a part of the so-called one-country two systems model because we recognize that pretty quickly it's going to become one country and one system. You describe in the book what the consequences would be if China ultimately makes a decision to try to take back Taiwan and America comes to Taiwan's defense. Some of them I listed, I wrote down a $10 trillion cut to the economy, immediate Great Depression, empty shelves, cut off metal equipment and medicines. Obviously, our semiconductors, which we depend on,

would be in peril. We just had a previous Democratic administration, Joe Biden's administration, pull out of Afghanistan at a time when our troops were not really threatened with loss of life in the way they were during the heightened days of the war. We have the zeitgeist in the Republican Party seems to be more isolationist than it used to be. I guess my question is, even if it is the right decision to come to the aid of Taiwan. Do you think the American people at this point are willing to bear those costs to defend Taiwan given kind of the zeitguise of both parties?

First, Jamie, as you say, as I write in the book, Taiwan is the hottest splash point in the world. And that's true today, even when there are two serious wars waging, being waged in Gaza and Ukraine, and that's because the nature of the conflict between the United States and Communist China. The only way for us to prevail in that conflict is to deter it from happening in the first place.

Churchill said about modern warfare about 100 years ago that it was so devastating, the victors would be suffered nearly as much as the vanquished. And I think we need to remember that, that the threat of a war over Taiwan, whatever its outcome is so devastating. It is incumbent upon us to have the military strength, to have the resolve and the confidence to deter communist China from going for the jugular in the very first place. And I do believe the American people recognize the seriousness of that risk. As you say, though, what would be the immediate consequences of a war over Taiwan?

And this, again, irrespective of what happens, whether China succeeds in invading and seizing Taiwan, whether we can fight China back, whether there's some kind of protracted stalemate, you'd all have an almost immediate great depression. You'd have probably a severing of all trade and financial flows between China and the rest of the free world, empty shelves in American stores. you'd have the stock market crash and you have the threat of those semiconductor manufacturing plants being destroyed as well. I can't stress how important that is. Not only is Taiwan still

the unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender off of China's coast, it's also the home of more than 60% of the world's semiconductor manufacturing, more than 90% of its high-end manufacturing. Those semiconductor chips are so vital and essential to a modern digital economy. I mean, maybe as much as oil.

The difference is if you use oil from one country, you can get it from another country. Those ships are highly customized, highly sensitive manufactured products that we just can't make anywhere else on the quick, as we kind of learned the hard way in America over the last two or three years. And if those facilities were destroyed, as would likely be the case or even damage, it would compound the economic harm. Maybe even worse is if they weren't damaged and China got a hold of them and then they held that over not only the United States, but the rest of the free world's head as leverage for more and more Chinese conquest and dominion. So that's why I say that I understand that a lot of people say Taiwan, it's a small island, it's so close to China, it's so far from us. Like, does it really matter? You know,

you didn't have a Great Depression in a World War when Hong Kong fell or Tibet fell or have you. And the answer is that Taiwan, because of its geography, because of its role in the modern economy, just is truly different than any place else that China has invaded. and annexed. And that's why the only sensible policy that we can have towards Taiwan is to prevent a conflict from happening in the first place. Can I press you again, though? You say you think the American people understand the importance of it. You know, I haven't seen presidents, Republican, or Democrat, lay out, you know, the importance of going through, and you just laid it out again, the costs of going to the defense of Taiwan. Do you think they quite understand, you know,

both what the cost would be and why it is important to defend. And if not, do you think that is a dereliction of both Republican and Democratic presidents considering how important this issue is and how devastating it could be? Well, maybe not in the level of detail that we've been discussing in this podcast, Jamie. But again, if you look at public opinion polls, the feedback I get from Arkansas traveling around my state or just all Americans traveling around the country, they understand that China is a genuine threat. And that's why we need to continue to increase our defense budgets, for instance. Why we need to continue to stand up to Chinese aggression.

They understand that China has cost American workers and businesses trillions and trillions of dollars of money as well. So they might not understand in the moment every single link in the chain of events that would follow from China going for the jugular in Taiwan. but I do think that they support a policy of strength and competence and resolution towards Taiwan. Now, if you were moving towards situation where it did look like conflict was more likely, then yes, it would be incumbent upon elected leaders, the president, senators like me, his cabinet members, national security council, to lay out in more detail why this is so important for the United States. You know, in the same way that, you know, probably in the late 1980s, most Americans understood that there was a genuine threat from, you know, aggressive dictators

and terrorists from the Middle East, probably not many Americans before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait would have appreciated the series of events that would have followed if we had allowed that to stand. That was incumbent upon people like George Bush at his National Security Council and Cabinet members and senators to explain to the American people why the Gulf War was a necessary war, to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, to protect our friends in places like Saudi Arabia. And I expect you've seen the same kind of explanations in public that would build upon the American people's natural, instinctive, common sense opposition to Chinese communist aggression. One group of people who should understand the threat the most is the Taiwanese people

themselves. But one statistic is stunning to me. That is that I know they're increasing it, but I think they've only spent 2.6 of their GDP on defense, which doesn't help with deterrence. Why do you think they have not spent more considering how serious the threat ends? Well, they should spend more, and I've long called for that. To be fair to them, they have been spending more on both a nominal and a real inflation-adjusted basis going back seven or eight years. Obviously, I'd like to see that accelerate even more. Right now, they have divided governments. they have a party controlling the legislature that I would say is more conciliatory and even

accommodationist towards mainland China. The administration there and the president wants to spend a lot more in defense, but it is something that Taiwan needs to do. Why have they not traditionally spent more? I think in part because like the rest of the world, they were somewhat lulled in the fairy tale that as China grew wealthy and powerful and prosperous, China would grow more peaceful and it would moderate. Remember, that's how the American people were sold the 1990s on things like giving China most permanent, most favored nation status or a mission in the World Trade Organization.

I think it was a fantasy then, but it was clearly proven to be a fantasy by 10 or 15 years ago when you saw what the so-called China shock had done to the American economy in terms of job losses and losing a whole factory, sometimes even whole industries. And really, once she took power

about 12 or 13 years ago, I think you can say the mask came off. Maybe Barack Obama didn't recognize it, but the mask came off, communist China. and the aggressiveness of Xi, which is only rivaled in modern Chinese history by Mao's regime became apparent. And that's also when Taiwan became increasing its defense spending. So do they need to do more? Yes. Can we help them do more? Yes. They have been moving in the right direction. And a lot of what you see, I think, in Chinese politics and culture, Taiwanese politics and

culture reflects a kind of complacent thinking in much of the West about communist China going back decades. Well, let's skew this question. When viable Putin invaded Ukraine, he seemed to think his army was much better and stronger and capable than it was, would take Kiev in seven days, and it turned out it was much less able than it was. China hasn't really fought a serious major conflict in decades, I think 40 years or more. How confident are you, despite their spending on defense, that that money has gone to defense and not to, you know, houses in London or the United States or somewhere else, and that their army is really as capable as we fear it may be. Well, I think the real question, James, what does Xi Jinping think?

So clearly, Vladimir Putin was misled about the capabilities of his army. Maybe it was his senior general staff that misled him and they knew the reality. Maybe as sometime the case, subordinate commanders were misleading their own higher headquarters. I've seen that happen in the army. But by the time I got to Xi Jinping, he obviously had an optimistic assessment about Russia's military. And I'm sure that Xi Jinping was looking at Vladimir Putin's experience in thinking, I wonder if my military is doing that to me. I wonder if they are giving me a rosy picture of what a potential Taiwan invasion scenario might look like. And as you point out, the Russian military has been extremely aggressive over the last 20 years.

in the first invasion of Ukraine and invasions of Georgia in operations in Syria and the Middle East. So they have a lot of battle-hardened troops and commanders. China does not. It's been probably 40-plus years since China had any kind of significant military conflict. That was against Vietnam, and they got their head handed to them by fighters and by commanders who were seasoned and toughened by the Vietnam War. So I think there's a real question in G's mind whether or not the People's Liberation Army can actually execute the operation that would be extraordinarily complex to perhaps quarantine or blockade Taiwan at first and then ultimately to subjugate it. That's the kind of uncertainty that we want to encourage by our own military strength in resolution. Do you believe that has delayed the date that he might even try this? And do you have a date in mind, the earliest date that you think this is possible that he could attempt a military takeover of Taiwan?

Well, I've long said, you shouldn't rule out it happening imminently. Now, there are certain factors, you know, in terms of weather conditions and sea conditions that make certain times of year more likely than less likely for an invasion. We're actually in one of the more likely periods now in the middle of spring, the middle of fall is another time. But I don't think we should be complacent by saying, like, oh, this is something that's not going to happen for two years or five years or have you. There have been indications that Gia said he wants the PLA to be ready no later than 2027. There's a lot more comforting six or seven years ago. Now, that's just right around the corner. But I don't think we should roll out imminent action now. And in fact, China has increasingly, year after year after year, conducted more and more military drills and training exercises across the Taiwan straight, east of Taiwan, any of which could become. camouflage or cover for an actual military invasion of Taiwan. So I think it's vital that we remain

extraordinarily vigilant every single day as I know our commanders in the Pacifics in the Pacific are. In the book, you say that the Chinese communists, quote, know that the fall of Taiwan while inflicting long-term pain on China would set the stage for a long-term victory over the U.S. Among other things, you say, would weaken our friends and fray U.S. alliances. I wonder if you're concerned at all that we are doing that to ourselves right now with the way that we're attacking Canada, with some of the trade barriers on some of our closest allies, the way we talk about our allies compared to some of our enemies, whether this is fraying our alliances without China having to do anything. No, Jamie, not really. I mean, a lot of what the president has talked about

the last few days on tariffs, those are what I was referring to earlier as splitable differences or compromises that can be made on, you know, what kind of tariffs Canada has on American dairy products, for instance, or what we have on Canadian products that come into our country. Those are disagreements. Those are policy differences that can be compromised and accommodated between friendly nations. Canada and other friendly nations still understand that communist China doesn't want the United States to have that kind of relationship with them. And they don't want to have that kind of relationship with China because they know that they will be in effect the vassal state of China because of its vast wealth and power. So I think a lot of what the friction

you've seen in trade policy over the last few days, really the last couple months, really is more about trying to get a more balanced playing field for America's workers and businesses. And sure, that can lead to some tensions between our friends, but there's still our friends. I mean, Great Britain, for instance. has been our long-standing ally gone back shortly after the war for independence and the war of 1812. I mean, we've been more closer

and closer over time. It doesn't mean we don't have disagreements. It doesn't mean that we don't have tariffs and end up going on each other. But it also doesn't mean that Great Britain wants to become a simple spoke in Chinese hub of a Chinese-run world. So you're not concerned.

You know, the new prime minister of Canada said, you know, Tuesday's announcement has changed the view of the world and what we've known since World War II between our integration with the United States is no longer the case. We're in a different world now. No, I don't. I mean, Canada has been our close ally for century plus. I mean, we have the longest peaceful, unguarded border in the world, probably in the history of the world. I think some of the rhetoric from the new prime minister is with an eye towards the elections that are coming up. Greenland,

whatever the importance of it is to our security, does it undermine our moral authority to speak about Taiwan when we raise the possibility that we might take this, it could be the territory by military force? Well, I think the president is being a bit tongue in cheek there and stressing the importance of it to the United States and our security, and it is bodily important. You know, when this first came up six or seven years ago, I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, back from the New York Times still published my op-eds before I caused a meltdown in their newsroom. about how significant Greenland is, for instance, for our radar systems and missile interceptors that would protect us against a missile attack from approaches to North America that China has been threatening to the mineral capacity that Greenland probably has. I do think it would be better off for everyone. The United States, Greenland, and Denmark if the United States was responsible for Greenland security.

I just don't mean, nothing against our Danish friends. You know, they're good allies, but they simply don't have the population and the wealth and the budget to support Greenland the way we could. So we'll see how that all plays out. How sure are you he's joking that he's being tongue-in-cheek about the takeover of Greenland military? Well, no, he's very serious. He's very serious. And I think he's right that it would be in everyone's collective interest. The United States, the people of Greenland, the Danes, and frankly, for that matter, Canada and the rest of European NATO, for the United States to have.

security lead for Greenland because China and Russia as well have tried to horn in there. And that is simply something that we are better able to deter and prevent while looking out for the well-being of Greenland than is Denmark, a very small nation of about 5 million people. So I know obviously some of the rhetoric over the last couple of months has caused some tension with our friends in Denmark and in Greenland. But it is a simple fact that I think everyone would be better off if the United States had responsibility for the security and foreign policy of Greenland, just as we do for many outlying islands in the Western Pacific. Let me close with two questions outside the scope of the book, or at least the first one is

tangentially tied to it. There is a fight within the Republican Party over foreign policy, a more isolationist wing and a more interventionist wing. What do you make of that fight? I mean, do you believe that your wing is going to win over, you know, what's called the Tucker Carlson wing of the GOP foreign policy, which arguably is the general. J.D. Vance Wing of a part of it. What do you make of this fight and how does it resolve itself? Well, I don't know about this wing or that wing or all the labels. I think a lot of those labels tend to be abstractions that most normal Americans don't think about or don't register with them. I just ask what is in America's national interest and where can we using the right means of strategy, which is just another way of saying reality economy because you've got to match means to ends achieve those national interests.

interests. I think both the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War took long detours into policies that were probably not viable for success. It is very hard to turn a nation like Afghanistan into a Western-style parliamentary democracy. At the same time, time and time again, the discriminant and powerful application of military force has proven essential to protect our national interests. Justice President Trump is demonstrating right now, by decimating these outlaw rebels in Yemen that have shut down the Red Sea and threaten our naval ships, just as he's threatening very clearly, as clear as he can, the Ayatollahs in Iran that he's not going to allow them to get a nuclear weapon, just like Ronald Reagan did in 1988 when he sunk half of Iran's Navy. So I think, obviously, we had some missteps over the years,

and we probably overestimated our ability to turn nations that had no history with Western-style democracies into constitutional self-governing democracies. But it's still the case that it's in our national interest to undertake some of the actions that President Trump has taken or that President Reagan has taken. And we also should look at places where we've had foolish action, like consider the case of Libya, for instance. Muammar Gaddafi had a lot of American blood on his hand, but by 2003 he was scared straight. He threw open the doors. He said, here, come take my nuclear weapons. While you're at it, get the chemical and biological weapons, too. He stopped supporting terrorism. He cracked down on terrorists that were in Libya. He wouldn't allow Libya to be a transit point into Europe. He was a de facto ally by the time Barack Obama made the foolish decision to join in a European effort to overthrow him in 2011. That was a bad decision then. It was a bad decision now because there's still a violent chaos. going on in Libya that's destabilizing the region. And it's bad because it's had a bad example that if you take the steps that Gaddafi did and try to come in from the cold, well, America might still undermine you in the future. So I think it's, again, important to recognize that

there are limits on our power, but we still have to employ that power at times to protect our vital national interests. And finally, Senator, I was listening to the podcast we last did, which was a long time ago right after Donald Trump was elected, but before he was inaugurated. I would be journalistically negligent if I didn't ask you one thing that that popped up that I forgot about. I asked you at the time if you hoped that Donald Trump would choose anybody to be Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense. And this is how you answered. So I will leave that to Donald Trump to make those decisions. There is one qualified American.

I will say there is one person who we should get back into government. And that is retired Marine John Kelly. You went on to say John Kelly is too talented and skilled in American who loves his country too much to not have him in a key position in the administration. Given what has transpired since then, do you regret suggesting John Kelly, given that he's now, you know, left administration said that Donald Trump is the,

I believe the most flawed human being he's ever met and a person that has no idea what America stands for, or do you still admire him? Well, John Kelly has sacrificed a lot for his country. As you know, Jamie, he's not just a highly decorated combat veteran, but he also lost a son in the Marine Corps, who's also a combat veteran. I think that was at the time, as Donald Trump was considering him to be his Secretary of Homeland Security and John Kelly had been the commander of our Southern Command, so he was very knowledgeable in the issues there. After about six months in office, the president moved John Kelly from Department of Homeland Security to the West Wing. I think it's fair to say it might have been better off for both of them if John Kelly had stayed at the Department of Homeland Security and focused on our border as opposed to moving to the West Wing.

Well, let me just follow one last part. I mean, he did say a lot after he left. Do you do you do? Do you do? take what he says seriously? I mean, calling someone the most flawed human being that he's ever met and some of the other things he told the Atlantic. I mean, are those things that we should take seriously? No, I mean, I respect John Kelly for his service to his nation, and especially he and his family sacrificed to our nation. But those are statements that I don't agree with. Senator Tom Cotton, thank you for joining the dispatch podcast. Thanks, Jamie. I'm going to be able to be.