Mike Waltz is a retired Army colonel who served as a Green Beret, an elite special forces unit of the US Army.
Washington:
In the most significant appointment yet for India from the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump on Monday announced Mike Waltz, a Congressman from Florida who is the co-chair of the India Caucus, as his new National Security Adviser.
Waltz, 50, is a retired Army colonel who served as a Green Beret, an elite special forces unit of the US Army.
He has served in the US House of Representatives since 2019 and has been a vocal critic of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy. In his current term, he serves on the House Armed Services Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee.
He has urged Europe to increase its support for Ukraine, calling for the US to adopt a more rigorous stance on the matter, aligning with one of the President-elect’s key foreign policy goals. Additionally, he has strongly criticized the Biden administration’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Waltz has praised Trump for pushing Nato allies to spend more on defence, but unlike the President-elect has not suggested the US pull out of the alliance.
“Look we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations,” Waltz said last month
Waltz is also on the Republican’s China taskforce and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
Waltz had been open about his willingness to serve in the administration and was considered a candidate to lead the Pentagon. The role of National Security Adviser does not require Senate confirmation.
Trump Moves Quickly to Appoint Key Personnel for Incoming Administration
Waltz is also a co-chair of the India Caucus in the House, which is the largest country-specific group in the US Congress.
Trump has been moving swiftly to announce key personnel of his incoming administration, including Susan Wiles, his White House Chief of Staff who will be the first woman to hold the position.
Trump’s other appointments include Stephen Miller, as a senior adviser, who is a known critic of the H-1b visa programme which he tried to kill in Trump’s first administration.
The President-elect has been quickly assembling a roster of senior staff since winning last week’s election. He has already announced Tom Homan as his “border czar,” Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the United Nations, and Lee Zeldin as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
