House chairman slams Pompeo for suggesting US could ‘disconnect’ from Australia over China deal

The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday slammed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his “thoughtless comments” in which he suggested the U.S. could cut off intelligence sharing with Australia over Chinese infrastructure projects in the country.

“Only in the Trump Admin would our most senior diplomat casually threaten to ‘disconnect’ from a long standing ally,” Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said in a statement on Twitter tweeted out by the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

“The [U.S.]-[Australia] alliance is strong enough to withstand such irresponsible, thoughtless comments, but it shouldn’t have to.”

CHM @RepEliotEngel: Only in the Trump Admin would our most senior diplomat casually threaten to “disconnect” from a long standing ally.

The – alliance is strong enough to withstand such irresponsible, thoughtless comments, but it shouldn’t have to.https://t.co/lumBZjmpsh

— House Foreign Affairs Committee (@HouseForeign) May 26, 2020

His statement came in reaction to an interview Pompeo gave over the weekend with Australia’s Sky News, where the secretary warned that Chinese investment in Australia posed a threat to Washington’s intelligence sharing alliance with Canberra.

Pompeo said the U.S. is prepared to “simply disconnect” from Australia if projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative — the name given to Beijing’s planned infrastructure investment and projects around the world — threaten secure telecommunications.

“I don’t know the nature of those projects precisely, but to the extent they have an adverse impact on our ability to protect telecommunications from our private citizens or security networks for our defense and intelligence communities, we will simply disconnect. We will simply separate,” he said in an interview with the Australian program “Outsiders” that aired Sunday.

“We’re going to preserve trusted networks for important information. We hope our friends and partners and allies across the world, especially our Five Eyes partners like Australia, will do the same,” Pompeo said.

The U.S. and Australia, along with New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada, are members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance, considered one of the most important security networks.

The U.S. Embassy in Australia in a statement reported by The Guardian sought to downplay Pompeo’s remarks, saying the U.S. had “absolute confidence in the government’s ability to protect the security of its telecommunications networks and those of its Five Eyes Partners.” The embassy added that Pompeo was answering a “very remote” hypothetical. 

Australia had already banned China from building telecommunications infrastructure and the Chinese companies Huawai and ZTE from the 5G network in the country, with the U.S. arguing Beijing has the potential to spy on foreign nations with access to their communications lines.

But the secretary has expanded his warnings to other allies that China’s Belt and Road Initiative poses a threat to national security and those countries’ relationships with the U.S.

During a trip to Israel in mid-May, Pompeo said in an interview with Israeli media that Chinese infrastructure projects in that country “put the capacity for America to work alongside Israel on important projects at risk.”

Pompeo’s comments to Australian media were in reference to planned Chinese infrastructure projects in the state of Victoria.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday didn’t address Pompeo’s remarks explicitly but said the federal government in Canberra originally opposed the infrastructure project in Victoria, The Guardian reported.