EXCLUSIVE — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview that China should face the same costs as Washington and its allies as world leaders push to stop the war waged by Russia in Ukraine.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, Pompeo said the U.S. needs to demand a full energy embargo on Russia not just from Western allies but from China too. He suggested Washington should be prepared to back up the demands with action to stop Chinese President Xi Jinping from throwing Russian President Vladimir Putin an economic lifeline.
The former Trump administration official said a Western embargo on Russia isn’t enough to punish Moscow for its brutal assault on Ukraine, and that other countries, China included, must make the same commitment. Pompeo indicated that if other nations won’t abide voluntarily, the U.S. must be willing to secondarily sanction their economies, a significant step that the Biden administration has so far refrained from endorsing.
“What Xi will respect are actions that the United States takes,” Pompeo said. “We’re telling the Europeans, we’re telling friends around the world, ‘Don’t consume Russian energy.’ We need to make sure that China is required to do those same things.”
Sanctions have become the national security policy of choice during the Russian military assault in Ukraine, as the U.S. and trans-Atlantic leaders attempt to cripple Moscow economically in response to President Vladimir Putin’s war. But Russia’s ties to China, cemented as a “no limits” friendship shortly before the invasion began, risk dampening the effect of the West’s policies.
Revenue from oil and gas made up almost half of Moscow’s federal budget last year, with China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, counting Russia among its top crude oil and natural gas suppliers.
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While President Joe Biden has warned Beijing of “consequences” for providing material support to Russia, the U.S. has not said whether it intends to impose secondary sanctions on countries that continue to do business with Russia.
Pompeo made the comments before calling to reorder the U.S. relationship with China during an event for the Coalition for a Prosperous America, an influential bipartisan trade association working to boost manufacturing in the U.S.
The former Republican official suggested it was “common sense” that China should no longer receive most favored nation status, a significant move that would greatly increase tariffs on the more than half-trillion in goods imported annually from China by returning Beijing’s trade status to its pre-1980 level.
“This fight with the Chinese Communist Party is inside the gates,” Pompeo said, rebuking decades of American policy that began with the arrival of former President Richard Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger in Beijing more than half a century ago, and then Nixon himself.
Kissinger’s theory “was that if we trade more stuff, sell more trinkets … they will become a nation that will be part of civilization,” Pompeo said. “I don’t think anyone in this room believes that has turned out to be true.”
A former Kansas lawmaker, Pompeo has been touted as a potential running mate to former President Donald Trump in a 2024 presidential race, touting the administration’s achievements in speeches up and down the country since leaving office. If Trump stays out, Pompeo could also prove to be a formidable Republican contender for the top slot.
Addressing the crowd of business leaders, Republican lawmakers, former Trump officials, and other guests, Pompeo took aim at America’s reluctance to cut economic ties with China despite Beijing’s refusal to condemn the atrocities that have emerged as Russian forces withdraw from Ukrainian towns.
The push to reshape the U.S. relationship with China accelerated under former President Donald Trump and has continued under Biden. Twenty-two years ago, three-quarters of House Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to extend the status of permanent normal trade relations with China.
“The government of China has decided to be our adversary. They steal our jobs, they steal our technology, they’ve got horrible human rights abuses,” Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, who was also in attendance at the event, told the Washington Examiner in a separate interview. “And so just like we’re having to decouple from Russia, we’re going to have to do the same thing with China.”
Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the U.S. needed to be clear-eyed about Beijing’s motives while pressing its leaders to hold Putin accountable. “China is not going to cooperate with us unless it’s in their best interest,” he said.
Reports of civilian executions and mass graves in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha have increased pressure on world leaders to punish Russia further for its alleged war crimes, with Biden and trans-Atlantic leaders responding with new sanctions Wednesday.
Beijing has refrained from casting blame on Russia during the crisis and called for facts in the wake of what appeared to be widespread civilian massacres in the wake of Russian withdrawals.
Addressing a Security Council meeting Tuesday, China’s Ambassador Zhang Jun said an investigation into the “deeply disturbing” killings was needed but did not apportion blame on Russia.
Top Biden administration officials have said that Beijing faces reputational stakes in the conflict, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring last month that “China is already on the wrong side of history.”
Pompeo dismissed the idea that China would be of much help.
“The Chinese aren’t going to do a darn thing in this conflict in Ukraine. If anything, they will try to find a place where they can play both sides,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Later, Pompeo accused Beijing of “underwriting” Russia’s government “while it is killing Ukrainian kids.”
China has laid no blame on Russia for the conflict, with U.S. intelligence reporting last month that Beijing had favorably received requests for assistance from Moscow, including ammunition, surveillance equipment, and field supplies.
“Xi Xinping has not once gone to the U.N. Security Council, which they’re a member of, and demanded that Vladimir Putin lay down his weapon systems and withdraw from Ukraine,” Pompeo said. “I don’t expect that will happen.”
Still, the former secretary of state said Biden was not wrong to talk to Xi in a nearly two-hour phone call last month. The U.S. leader warned Xi of “the implications of certain actions,” according to a senior administration official at the time.
“It’s never a mistake to talk,” Pompeo said, but that the U.S. shouldn’t rely on words alone.
The threat of U.S. penalties has rattled Chinese markets, with Xi warning Biden of supply chain disruptions if these escalate further.
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The Chinese leader appeared to suggest that the U.S. could face economic consequences from targeting Russia’s trading partners.
These are warnings which business leaders and lawmakers who have urged the U.S. to shift its supply chains away from China are already inclined toward.
“It’s going to be expensive,” said Roddey Dowd, Jr. of Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, an American company manufacturing pipes and fittings for more than a century. “But we need to take it to them.”
