Robert O’Brien, President Trump’s national security adviser, and Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, traveled to Paris on Monday for a three-day trip to meet with European officials on China and other foreign policy issues, according to Politico. The meetings were to draw in security and foreign policy officials from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy, and overlap a European foreign ministers meeting Monday. From the U.S. side, discussion on China, including on Huawei, was to be presented by Pottinger. After the individual meetings Monday, O’Brien and Pottinger will meet in a group with the European officials on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Ambassador O’Brien looks forward to conducting in-depth meetings in Paris this week with his counterparts from France, UK, Germany, and Italy to address a range of national security challenges including China, 5G, Russia, Afghanistan, Middle East/North Africa, and Covid response and recovery,” said NSC spokesman John Ullyot.
O’Brien had an op-ed published Monday morning, “Trump will continue to punish China for its horrifying anti-Uighur campaign”, continuing the worst name-calling and blame-escalation of which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Caesars of the Senate have been capable. The op-ed was characterized by this line: “According to recent reports by the Associated Press and the Jamestown Foundation, the CCP is using forced birth control…”, etc. These, apparently, are the intelligence sources available to the National Security Advisor. He otherwise claimed that the 1950s Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and the Hong Kong security law are a chain of linked and closely related events.
