Trump Picks Former Senator and Election Denier to Be Ambassador to China
David Perdue would serve in the role at a time when the U.S.-China relationship is considered to be the most consequential in the world.
By Edward Wong
Reporting from Washington
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Thursday that he would nominate David Perdue, a businessman and former senator from Georgia, to be his ambassador to China.
“He will be instrumental in implementing my strategy to maintain Peace in the region, and a productive working relationship with China’s leaders,” Mr. Trump wrote in an online post.
If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Perdue would take over the ambassadorship from Nicholas Burns, a veteran diplomat and former Harvard professor. Mr. Perdue would serve as a conduit between Mr. Trump and Chinese officials in Beijing, including Xi Jinping, the country’s leader. American officials in the Biden and first Trump administrations have said the U.S.-China relationship is the most consequential in the world.
The two nations are peer competitors, with the world’s two largest economies and most powerful militaries. American officials say that China is the only power capable of displacing the United States as the dominant nation in the world.
Mr. Trump’s picks for the top national security posts have talked about confronting and constraining China: Marco Rubio, the designated secretary of state; Michael Waltz, tapped for national security adviser; and Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s deeply imperiled choice for defense secretary. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump named Peter Navarro, a vocal critic of China, to be a senior adviser on trade and manufacturing.
But Mr. Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the one for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, have not expressed strong animus toward China. Neither man has been a strong advocate of universal tariffs, which some of Mr. Trump’s supporters favor. Mr. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of 60 percent or more on all Chinese goods and to revoke the nation’s preferred trade status, a move that would also lead to higher tariffs.
Mr. Trump has also praised Mr. Xi as a strong and “brilliant” leader and has called the Chinese autocrat a “very good friend.”
Mr. Perdue represented Georgia in the Senate from 2015 to 2021, leaving after he lost re-election to Jon Ossoff. Mr. Perdue publicly questioned the election results, criticized Georgia’s election officials and supported a lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump’s supporters to try to overturn the 2020 results in Georgia, a pivotal state in the presidential race. With Mr. Trump’s backing, Mr. Perdue challenged Brian Kemp for the Republican nomination in the election for governor of Georgia in 2022 but lost by a wide margin in the primary.
Mr. Perdue was the most prolific stock trader in the Senate during his six years there, a fact that raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. The Justice Department investigated him for possible insider trading in his sale of more than $1 million of stock in a financial-analysis firm, but prosecutors did not bring charges.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department. More about Edward Wong