Ying Ma's Blog

The National Interest, January 21, 2025

What will the second Trump term look like if senior advisors are working toward a foreign policy agenda and priorities that are not the president’s?

By Ying Ma

No more “ridiculous endless wars” lies at the heart of President Donald Trump’s national security agenda and encapsulates his break from, and disdain for, the foreign policy approach of the Republican political establishment. 

In Trump’s first term, many of the president’s senior national security advisors deemed the president and his worldview as dangerous and consistently undermined his agenda. Though Trump has vowed to do better with staffing in his second term, some of his cabinet officials may again diverge dramatically from the president on major foreign policies. 

Senator Marco Rubio, the first official confirmed for the new Trump administration, would be a prime example. Included in the same category are other nominees, especially those sporting the label of national security “hawk,” who might not understand the difference between being tough and engaging in the foreign adventurism of yesteryear. 

In the 2016 campaign, Trump’s critique of endless wars centered on America’s post-9/11 interventionism in the Middle East—most notably, the disastrous war against Iraq waged by the George W. Bush administration. 

Rubio had for years offered a full-throated defense of the war, until it became politically inconvenient to do so. Indeed, he changed his tune only when he ran for president in 2016 when it became clear that American voters overwhelmingly regretted the Iraq tragedy and had little appetite for those who defend it.

Whatever Rubio may say to align himself with Trump today, his views on the most inept and inexcusable U.S. foreign intervention of the twenty-first century do not inspire confidence in his effectiveness or inclination to help Trump prevent the next ridiculous endless war.

If Iraq represented the foreign policy calamity foremost on the minds of voters in the 2016 elections, the Russian war on Ukraine that started during the Biden administration took the prize in the 2024 campaign. Trump has declared it a priority to negotiate a peace settlement between the two countries, rather than continuing to provide unending military aid to Ukraine while risking a nuclear confrontation with Russia.

Here again, the secretary of state had supported what Trump considers a major provocation that led to the Russian invasion: the West’s flirtations with Ukraine on NATO membership. Though Russia is indisputably the aggressor in the current war, Trump sees it as irresponsible for the United States and its European allies to have dangled the prospect of NATO membership to Ukraine, especially when Russia had made clear that is a scenario it would not tolerate.

Who were the doyennes of U.S. foreign policy that considered it wise to provoke Russia in such a way? Many of the same people who bequeathed the Iraq catastrophe to the world. Agreeing with them was Rubio, who had previously declared himself open to Ukrainian NATO membership.

Meanwhile, China, America’s most significant adversary in the twenty-first century, presents the biggest test case for whether staffers would implement Trump’s vision in the second term.

Trump’s strident rhetoric and actions taken against China in trade and economics are well known. He noisily waged a trade war against Beijing in his first term and has threatened 60 percent tariffs on goods imported from China in his second. Animating his confrontational approach is the conviction that China has ripped off or “raped” America economically, whether by brazenly stealing U.S. intellectual property and American technology, engaging in unfair trade practices, contributing to the massive loss of manufacturing jobs, or spying on American citizens and corporations.

Trump’s approach might confuse many into thinking that he wants to confront China across the board. He does not. Indeed, he is reluctant to needlessly heighten security tensions or provoke armed conflict with Beijing. This does not mean he will be ineffective at deterring Chinese aggression—after all, a hot war with China appeared far less likely during his first term than under the Biden administration—but he is as uninterested in starting an endless war with China as he is with the rest of the world. 

Many of Trump’s top national security advisors in the first term pushed for a very different approach. For example, his last secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, advocates recognizing Taiwan as an independent country, a provocation that is certain to trigger armed conflict with China. 

While Taiwan’s vibrant democracy inspires admiration, Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province from an unfinished civil war and has never renounced the use of force to retake the island. Trump himself has never shown any interest in supporting Taiwanese independence. Rubio, however, has long supported it.

Certainly, staffers to the president cannot possibly agree with him 100 percent of the time. As secretary of state, however, Pompeo did far more than disagree—he systematically went about hiring and elevating staffers who secretly or openly hated Trump. Prominent Trump allies have outright called Pompeo “filthy” for sucking up to the president while undermining his agenda and administration from within during the first term. 

There is no indication that Rubio would engage in the same type of obsequiousness or sleaze. Indeed, he had repeatedly defended Trump on politically charged issues during the 2024 presidential election.  

The broader concern is that Trump supporters have already seen previously the havoc wrought from within by cabinet officers and their staffers who disagree sharply with the president on the fundamental foundations of his policy outlook. What will the second Trump term look like if senior advisors are working toward a foreign policy agenda and priorities that are not the president’s?

Let’s hope we don’t find out. Appointing national security officials who actually share Trump’s foreign policy views would help.

This article was originally published by The National Interest .

Image: From White House Website.

Around Christmas, a huge spat broke out between President Donald Trump’s supporters in the high-tech community, such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, and his Make America Great Again political base. At the heart of the disagreement was H-1B visas, a program that, according to supporters, brings in much-needed, high-skilled labor to the United States.

In the latest episode of the “National Insecurity” podcast, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a leading expert on immigration issues, explains the common misconceptions about H-1B visas. For example, most Americans may not know that a vast majority of the visa recipients hail from India and are used by firms that play an integral role in the outsourcing of American’s IT labor. Additionally, while H-1B workers are not unskilled, most are not highly skilled.

Krikorian also discusses immigration policy in the next Trump administration, including areas where the president disagrees with his core voters. To listen to the full episode, please click here or the player below. Enjoy!

“National Insecurity” is hosted by Ying Ma and Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

In 2019, I received the following message from a stranger about my pro-Trump commentary: “You are shit, and your opinion is shit, and quite frankly I wish we lived in a country where people like you were raped and burned. I personally would love to see that lying mouth of yours stapled and sewn shut so I could listen to your muffled screams as your eyes are being dug from your head.” 

Not every piece of mail I received was as ugly, but barrages of hate mail were a regular part of my life as a Trump supporter who consistently advocated for the president in public. 

Yet, in early 2020, I learned from the White House that its personnel office had blocked me from taking a position in the administration. It was emblematic of a disastrous staffing process that did not serve the 45th president well.

As Donald Trump prepares to assume office as the 47th president, personnel will once again play a key role in determining success or failure for many aspects of his administration. The president-elect himself has vowed to do better the second time around. Nevertheless, plenty of pitfalls loom. My own story may offer valuable lessons. 

I became a staunch Trump supporter in 2016, serving as the deputy director of a pro-Trump super PAC. As one establishment Republican after another shunned or outright condemned Donald Trump, I defended the then-candidate on controversial issues, including immigration and securing the southern border, his proposal of the so-called Muslim ban, foreign policy and preventing “stupid, endless wars,” allegations of racism and sexism, and more. 

When President Trump entered the White House, I continued my advocacy. As the last year of his first term dawned, however, I learned that his team had prohibited me from working for the president. Adding insult to injury, the administration had hired and elevated numerous staffers who secretly—and even openly—detested the president.

While I was contemplating whether to notify law enforcement after each threatening piece of hate mail, and while I lost friends, longstanding contacts, and career opportunities due to my steadfast defense of the president, Never Trumpers filled his administration. Some profited handsomely afterwards. All undermined the president and the agenda on which he was elected from within.

Why did the White House personnel gatekeepers deem me unfit to serve? Apparently, I had not fawned over each of the president’s personality traits, and had even dared to express reservations about one or two of his positions while promoting his candidacy and presidency. 

Never mind that I had declared that Trump had a mandate to enact the policies he campaigned on, including those with which others disagreed. As I had written for Fox News, “Unlike a typical politician, Trump is not going to confine himself to the solutions that have not worked in the past. To Americans who want a better deal for their families and their country, that is very much worth applauding.” 

Ironically, the opinions that earned my ban from the White House were all delivered as part of an effort to advocate for Trump and his agenda, usually to extremely hostile audiences. 

None of that mattered. I was blocked for the first three years of the administration. Only when President Trump installed more competent, more MAGA-centric management of the White House personnel office in the fourth year was the ban lifted. 

For his second term, Trump is determined not to repeat the staffing mistakes of the first. Indeed, many of his picks thus far reflect that determination. Loyal and competent former staffers have been nominated for senior positions, including Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy and Russ Vought as the head of the Office of Management and Budget. Political outsiders or unconventional politicians who share the president’s desire to disrupt the status quo in Washington, have also filled the Cabinet lineup. They include tech mogul Elon Musk, health advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and Wall Street titan Howard Lutnick.

Yet, there are reasons to be vigilant. News reports indicate that the Trump transition team has retained private firms to vet candidates and unearth past statements and opinions critical of the president-elect. As my personal experience shows, this is an effort that could quickly go awry unless proper judgment is exercised.

Some of the most fervent Never Trumpers are former staffers of the first Trump administration, including Cabinet-level officials and less prominent aides who have garnered press attention since their departure. None of these people had uttered negative commentary in public about Trump before they were hired. Yet some of them loathed him and his policies and felt a duty to “protect” the country from its duly elected president, while others were mentally weak and intellectually shallow, turning against Trump when it became convenient to do so.

Dave Smith, a libertarian comedian, influencer, Trump supporter, opponent of endless wars, and a regular guest on the popular “Tucker Carlson Show” and “Joe Rogan Show,” expressed wholehearted agreement with the observation that although some of Trump’s Cabinet nominations are excellent, “a good portion…is the same swamp rebranded.” Of course, fixtures of the Washington political establishment, or the swamp that Trump has promised to drain, have now become most adept at mincing words to avoid offending Trump even when they do not support his agenda.

Meanwhile, some of the more low-key Never Trumpers who should have never been hired in the first Trump administration have been given significant responsibilities in the current transition effort. Hard to imagine they would be eager to recruit MAGA devotees. 

The truth is, being a Trump supporter is not easy. Not everyone has what it takes. The next administration should welcome those who have the spine to stand firm when vicious attacks come, which they inevitably will. Those whose views are diametrically opposed to the president’s have no business in the administration, but applicants who have stuck their necks out to defend the president-elect and his agenda are far less likely to wilt under pressure than those who have kept their mouths shut and feigned agreement. 

Trump, not his staff, was elected by the American people. In his first term, this cherished democratic principle was stomped on by sycophants, opportunists, incompetent fools, and slimy political creatures that made their way into the administration. Preventing another staffing disaster requires not just rejecting Never Trumpers who campaigned against the president, but also choosing those who have stood with him, especially when it was not easy to do so.

Making America Great Again requires no less.

Ying Ma  was deputy director of the Committee for American Sovereignty, a pro-Trump super PAC, in the runup to the 2016 presidential election.

Image: President Donald J. Trump waves to the crowd at the National Christmas Tree Lighting 2019 ceremony Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019, on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

President Donald Trump visits a fourth grade classroom at Saint Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, Florida, Friday, March 3, 2017. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

What will President Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy look like in his second term? Does it make sense for the president-elect to consistently rail against “stupid, endless wars” and then nominate Florida Senator Marco Rubio–a neoconservative with great sympathy for endless wars–as Secretary of State?

In the latest episode of the “National Insecurity” podcast, we discuss Trump’s top national security nominations for his next administration, disagreements between Trump and establishment Republicans on America’s role in the world and the proper approach to Ukraine and Russia, as well as schisms within the Make America Great Again Movement on how to deal with China.

Ying Ma and cohost Doug Bandow of The Cato Institute chat with Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, and Tom Switzer, executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.

Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Enjoy!

Image: “President Trump’s First 100 Days: 25” by The White House is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.“

National Insecurity, October 30, 2024

With the U.S. presidential election about a week away, the latest episode of the “National Insecurity” podcast highlights the foreign policy approaches of the top two contenders, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

How might they deal with China, the Middle East, Ukraine and Russia, and the world in general? Does Harris even have a cogent worldview? Ying Ma and cohosts Doug Bandow and Stephen Bryen discuss.

Harris has been touting the support of hundreds of national security officials and professionals, including some who are Republicans. The hosts separate fact from propaganda, point out the hypocrisy and shamelessness of many in the foreign policy establishment, and emphasize the need for Trump (if he wins) to avoid staffing his next administration with those who will engage in flattery to undermine his policy agenda.

To listen to this episode, please click HERE. Enjoy!

America’s first black-Asian vice president ignores horrific attacks on the city’s Asian Americans

Fox News, September 19, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris calls herself “a daughter of Oakland, California.”  

She has also been eager to demonstrate her connection to the average American. In a recent interview with an ABC affiliate, she said, “I grew up as a middle-class kid … in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn. You know? And, um, and I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity.” 

What the daughter of Oakland — who was born in the troubled city but raised in Berkeley — never mentions is that there is not much dignity in being beaten, robbed or killed. 

To read the rest of the op-ed, please visit the Fox News website here.

Image: “Kamala Harris” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

National Insecurity, September 3, 2024

In recent years, Washington has become increasingly concerned about an impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan. What are America’s strategic interests in Taiwan? Should we fight China to defend the island if Beijing invades? What can we do to prevent a war?

In the latest episode of the “National Insecurity” podcast, Ying Ma and cohosts Doug Bandow and Stephen Bryen discuss these and other topics with Prof. Andrew Nathan, a distinguished scholar of Chinese politics and foreign policy at Columbia University.

To listen to the podcast, please click HERE.

Image: “Taiwan-China” by Garoth Ursuul is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Neither Trump nor his allies should be afraid to attack the moral bankruptcy of DEI that has fueled the policy disasters of Harris and Walz.

Op-Ed by Ying Ma for The Federalist, August 19, 2024

Right-of-center groups and individuals that don’t usually agree on much have been delivering the same warning to former President Donald Trump: Shut up about Vice President Kamala Harris’s race and stick to attacking her on policy.

Yet they cannot hide what everyone knows to be true: Harris is the ultimate DEI candidate. Candidate Joe Biden chose her as his running mate in 2020 because she is a black woman, and she ascended to the apex of national politics due to her race and sex.

Just as important, DEI is policy for Harris and the administration in which she serves. The Biden-Harris open-border devastation stems from a fundamental DEI concept: that it’s racist to protect America’s borders — and citizens — from illegal migrants who are overwhelmingly not white, and that Trump is cruel and racist for having done so and promising to do so again. Hence, with Harris as the Biden administration’s border czar, an estimated 10 million foreign citizens have been allowed to illegally enter this country.

On other issues ranging from crime to education to military readiness, Democrats have adopted DEI policies and practices and made this country worse. On day one of the Biden-Harris administration, the White House proclaimed a new “whole-of-government” agenda focused on “advancing racial equity.” In case there was any confusion, Harris had helpfully explained in the 2020 elections that equity means mandating equal results, not offering equal opportunity.

Read the rest of the op-ed here.

Image: Governor Tim Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, August 9, 2024. By Gage Skidmore and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Column for Fox News, July 29, 2024

Since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, the House Republican leadership has instructed its members to keep quiet about a most glaring Harris weakness: the repulsive identity politics that catapulted her to the White House.  

As then-candidate Biden proudly proclaimed in 2020, he picked Harris as his running mate because she is a Black woman. Biden’s submission to the gender and racial preferences at the heart of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) agenda was a brazen attack on merit, and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, a few weeks ago offers a poignant reminder of the perils of hiring the unqualified.  

To read this column in its entirety, please visit the Fox News Opinion page here.

Image: “Kamala Harris – Caricature” by DonkeyHotey is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Column for Fox News, July 29, 2024

Since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, the House Republican leadership has instructed its members to keep quiet about a most glaring Harris weakness: the repulsive identity politics that catapulted her to the White House.  

As then-candidate Biden proudly proclaimed in 2020, he picked Harris as his running mate because she is a Black woman. Biden’s submission to the gender and racial preferences at the heart of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) agenda was a brazen attack on merit, and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, a few weeks ago offers a poignant reminder of the perils of hiring the unqualified.  

To read this column in its entirety, please visit the Fox News Opinion page here.

Image: “Kamala Harris – Caricature” by DonkeyHotey is licensed under CC BY 2.0.