Roles for Rubio and Waltz signal hard Trump stance on Ukraine and China

Donald Trump has chosen a pair of establishment Republicans from Florida for senior roles in his administration as he builds a national security team that looks more hawkish than the isolationist America First brand of foreign policy he has championed in public.

- Andrew Roth

Trump was expected to select the senator Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, the top diplomat of the US, and has asked the congressman Mike Waltz, a retired Green Beret who is known as a China hawk, to become his national security adviser, a powerful role that would help shape Trump's policies on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as around the world.

Rubio is a noted foreign policy hawk with hardline policies on China and Iran, and on Venezuela, where he has led US efforts to unseat the president, Nicolas Maduro. He was one of the earliest China hawks in Washington, where Beijing is now viewed with extreme scepticism by both parties, and has served as a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China.