DeSantis Wants to Remind Us That He Is a Hardliner

It isn’t clear why DeSantis and his advisers think that repeating the same boilerplate hawkish rhetoric about China is going to distinguish him in a field that is overflowing with it.

Foreign Policy is reporting that Ron DeSantis will give a China policy speech as part of his effort to “reboot” his presidential campaign:

The speech, which follows a significant plunge in the polls for the Florida governor and the firing of his campaign manager and about one-third of his staff, is DeSantis’s effort to lay out a comprehensive economic and defense strategy to counter China. On the heels of bringing on several high-profile former Republican administration officials to advise his campaign on foreign policy, it’s an effort to outline the threat that China poses through its Belt and Road infrastructure project—but also on the home front, with Beijing attempting to expand its influence into American classrooms and buying up reams of land near U.S. military bases.

DeSantis has made a habit of agreeing with and pandering to hardliners in his political career, and his foreign policy record is proof of that. There is nothing new or surprising about DeSantis staking out an extremely hawkish position on China. The policies he has endorsed and the advisers he has been consulting with already told us this. He isn’t rebooting anything with a speech like this. He is just turning up the volume on his delivery of a tired message.