Trump expected to appoint China critics Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz | Donald Trump

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly decided to name prominent China hawks Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz as his respective Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.

Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of state, and he has in recent years advocated a muscular foreign policy toward America’s geopolitical enemies, including China, Iran and Cuba.

Over the past several years, the Florida senator has softened some of his positions to align more closely with Trump’s views. The president-elect accuses previous US presidents of leading America into costly and futile wars and has pushed for a more restrained foreign policy.

An unsuccessful challenger to Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Rubio had been rumored to be one of the leading candidates for Trump’s vice presidential pick before JD Vance was announced.

Since his failed bid for the presidency, Rubio has served as an informal foreign policy adviser and helped Trump prepare for his first debate against Biden in 2020.

Trump has not confirmed the planned appointment, which was first reported by New York Times. If confirmed, Rubio would be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat when the Republican president-elect takes office in January.

While the famously mercurial Trump could always change his mind at the last minute, he appeared to have settled on his choice as of Monday, sources told Reuters.

While Rubio was far from the most isolationist option, his likely selection nonetheless underscores a broad shift in Republican foreign policy views under Trump.

Once the party of hawks that favored military intervention and a muscular foreign policy, most of Trump’s allies now preach restraint, especially in Europe, where many Republicans complain that US allies are not paying their fair share in defense.

“I’m not on Russia’s side — but unfortunately, the reality is that the way the war in Ukraine is going to end is with a negotiated settlement,” Rubio told NBC in September.

Waltz, a Republican congressman and Trump loyalist who also served in the National Guard as a colonel, has criticized Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and has voiced the need for the United States to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.

Last week, Waltz won re-election to the U.S. House seat representing east and central Florida, which includes Daytona Beach. He defeated Democrat James Stockton, a pastor and former president of a local NAACP chapter.

Waltz is a combat-decorated Green Beret and a former White House and Pentagon policy advisor. He was first elected in 2018, replacing Republican Ron DeSantis, who was running for governor of Florida’s 6th congressional district.

Waltz served several combat tours in Afghanistan and was awarded four Bronze Stars.

He was one of the lawmakers appointed in July to serve on a bipartisan congressional task force to investigate the July assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

After Waltz left the US Army, he worked at the Pentagon in the George W Bush administration as policy director for former defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.

Under former Vice President Dick Cheney, Waltz served as a counterterrorism adviser.

In 2021, after Joe Biden ordered a chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, Waltz asked Biden to reverse course and restart military operations in the region. The war in Afghanistan began under Bush after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The cut reported that before his 2018 run for Congress, Waltz ran a lucrative defense contracting firm with offices in Afghanistan.

Waltz has consistently expressed the need to protect the Afghan people, saying that the US “Soldiers will have to go back”. Government reports has stated that US nation-building efforts resulted in more than 48,000 civilian and 66,000 Afghan police and military deaths and widespread torture.

In other developments regarding Trump’s appointments, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has been tapped to become the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, CNN reported Tuesday, citing two sources.

Earlier this year, Noem was widely seen as a potential presidential candidate for Trump. She lost after recycling a two-decade-old story designed to illustrate decisive leadership that involved her shooting a puppy that wouldn’t chase and had bitten members of its family.

Reuters contributed to this report