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On October 28, Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL-6) joined the Atlantic Council for an event as part of the series “Elections 2024: America’s Role in the World,” which is supported by RBC Capital Markets. In discussion with Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Waltz gave his take on how the United States should “think differently” about its foreign policy. Below are some highlights. 

On China

  • “We’ve never faced [an adversary]—certainly not Germany, Japan, or the Soviet Union—that had an economy that rivaled ours, that had control of so many of our basic elements of production, and now has a navy that’s larger than ours, a space force that’s launching more than we are, and a nuclear arsenal that’s tripling in size. We have not seen this kind of military buildup since Germany in the 1930s.”  
  • “We need to begin focusing the nation on the threat that [China] is, because their form of deterrence lies not necessarily in tanks, planes, and ships, but in ports, pipelines, grids, and water supply. If we fail to deter them, they could find themselves controlling over 50 percent of GDP in terms of shipping lanes and access routes into Asia.” 

On the Middle East

  • “Four years ago, we were signing peace deals on the White House lawn with the Abraham Accords poised to expand even further, and look at where we are today. I believe this is a crumbling of deterrence. I think the trying to reenter the Iran deal once again, and the appeasement that went along with that—including negotiating through the Chinese and Russians as intermediaries of all things—has really emboldened Iran, has enriched Iran.” 
  • “I think the failings of the Biden approach has been its focus on Israel and on Gaza and pressuring Israel to restrain rather than focusing on the core issue, which is Iran. And as long as Iran is flush with cash, it will continue to pour weapons, training, and money into Hezbollah, into Hamas, and into the Houthis that have choked off global shipping through the Red Sea.” 
  • “Secondarily, from a moral standpoint, we need to get behind the Iranian people. Mahsa Amini, the young girl who was literally bludgeoned to death for daring to not wear a hijab—it should be a household name in the United States, much as we made Soviet dissidents household names.” 

On NATO

  • “Look, we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations . . . the 2 percent of GDP is not a distant goal. I think Canada has it as a goal in 2032—that’s completely unacceptable. We can be friends and allies and have tough conversations. Two percent is the minimum.” 
  • “My question is, with the worst and most destructive war on their doorstep in Ukraine since World War II, if not now, then when? We should be at 100 percent [of countries spending 2 percent of GDP on defense].” 

On Russia

  • “Enforce the darn sanctions. Russia is selling just as much oil and gas, actually at discounted rates through India and through China, as it did pre-war. You lift the LNG ban that’s currently in place, you flood global markets with clean American oil and gas, you drive down the price of oil, now Putin’s war machine is on its back foot.” 
  • “You get that price below fifty dollars a barrel, he’s struggling; he’s a gas station with nukes. Not only Russia but Iran too for that matter, and addressing our economic problems here at home.” 

On energy

  • “You just cannot power modern economies on wind and solar, even as they exist today. But you start adding in the computing power and the energy needed for massive databases . . . the demands of the economies of the future, of quantum, of data, of AI are only going to put more demands on our grid.” 

Opening remarks by

Helima Croft
Board Director, Atlantic Council
Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy and MENA Research, RBC Capital Markets

Featuring

The Hon. Michael Waltz
United States Representative (R-FL-6)

Moderated by

Matthew Kroenig
Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security
Atlantic Council

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

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