President-elect Trump has begun putting into place his Cabinet and a common denominator is that the emerging national security team shares his longstanding conviction that the Chinese Communist Party is not a competitor. It is a determined and increasingly dangerous enemy.

While nominees to some key positions remain to be formally announced, Mr. Trump’s choices for Secretary of State, Senator Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor, Rep. Mike Waltz, and Secretary of Homeland Security, Gov. Kristi Noem, are on record about the CCP threat. 

If complemented by a similarly minded Defense Secretary, Director of National Intelligence and CIA Director, Donald Trump will have the most robust team with regard to the era’s “existential threat to freedom” since Ronald Reagan’s first-term line-up of Judge Bill Clark, Cap Weinberger, Bill Casey and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.

We will doubtless hear shortly about the rest of the national security appointments. I pray - and expect - that those nominees will be of a mind with the President and his selections to date on the peril posed by the Chinese Communist Party. 

A position that is often not understood to be a key part of that cohort, however, is the Treasury Secretary. During his first presidency, Mr. Trump was saddled with a Wall Street denizen named Stephen Mnuchin who worked assiduously to protect the Chinese from efforts by other administration officials to curtail the suicidal practice of allowing even CCP-controlled corporations building weapons to kill us to raise funds in our capital markets. 

The second Trump presidency – and our nation – require a Secretary of the Treasury who also truly puts America First and is a strong and effective champion of the national security, not of the greed-driven behavior of too many in the financial sector that endangers it.