Speaker Johnson preparing legislative package to combat ‘China-led axis’

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he wants to pass major legislation before the year’s end to combat what he called a “China-led axis” of nations intent on destroying America. 

Mr. Johnson told the Hudson Institute that interconnected threats facing America are being orchestrated by China, and he made the case for a “new policy of peace through strength for the 21st century” epitomized by former President Donald Trump.  

“I refer to it as a ’China-led axis’ composed of partner regimes in Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and even Cuba,” the Louisiana Republican said in one of his first major statements on foreign policy. “Now they each have their own cultures, their own specific sinister aims, but they all wake up every morning thinking how they can take down America.”

“They are increasingly using their collective military, technological, and financial resources to empower one another in their various efforts to cut off our trade routes and steal our technology and harm our troops and upend our economy,” he told the think tank briefing.

As a result, Mr. Johnson said, the Congress must work to counter China with every tool at its disposal. 

“The House will be voting on a series of bills to empower the next administration to hit our enemies’ economies on Day One,” Mr. Johnson said. “We will build our sanctions package, punish the Chinese military firms that provide material support to Russia and Iran, and we’ll consider options to restrict outbound investments in China.” 

Mr. Johnson said votes on such legislative priorities would begin this fall, with a goal of passing a legislative package before 2025. 

“Our goal is to have a significant package of China-related legislation signed into law by the end of this year, in this Congress, featuring these priorities and many more and we’ll work aggressively toward that package,” he said. “I’m very hopeful that much of this can be bipartisan.”

The House Republican leader championed Mr. Trump’s foreign policy record and the Republican Party’s agenda for foreign affairs in the years to come. Mr. Johnson praised Mr. Trump for calling out Russia and China, enforcing oil sanctions on Iran, and brokering the Abraham Accords establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and several once-hostile Arab nations. 

“The Republican Party is not one of nation-builders or careless interventionists, we don’t believe we should be the world’s policemen, nor are we idealists who think we can placate tyrants,” Mr. Johnson said. “We are realists: … We have to be prepared to fight and if we must fight, we fight with the gloves off.” 

Mr. Johnson’s pitch for a muscular foreign policy is music to the ears of many at the Hudson Institute, which is now home to Mr. Trump’s rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, and former Rep. Mike Gallagher, who led the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party before exiting Congress this year. 

The speaker said the work of the House’s CCP committee, established shortly after Republicans regained control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, would not stop when the year ends, noting, “Beijing is our No. 1 foreign threat.”  

He also pitched a vision for a new foreign policy built on a coalition big enough for Mr. Trump’s “America First” supporters and Ms. Haley’s more internationalist backers.

“We need a U.S.-led, America First coalition that advances the security interests of Americans and engages abroad with the interests of working families and businesses here at home,” Mr. Johnson said, “a coalition that’s good for everybody.”