China, Russia top Pompeo trip agenda
Conference on Middle East also on schedule
WASHINGTON — U.S. fears about China and Russia’s growing influence in Central Europe will top Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s agenda as he heads to the region this week, Trump administration officials say.
Pompeo leaves Sunday on a five-nation tour of Europe that will begin in Hungary and Slovakia where he will raise those concerns and the importance of promoting democracy and the rule of law to counter Beijing and Moscow’s efforts to pull the countries away from the West and sow divisions in the European Union and NATO.
The centerpiece of the trip will be a conference on the future of the Middle East in Poland on Wednesday and Thursday that is expected to focus on Iran and will also be attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace team of senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt.
But in Budapest and Bratislava on Monday and Tuesday, Pompeo will specifically point to issues related to Central Europe’s reliance on Russian energy and the presence of the Chinese high-tech telecom firm Huawei, particularly in Hungary, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss Pompeo’s travel and spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials are troubled by Huawei’s expansion, especially in NATO member states where they believe it poses information security threats.
The officials said Pompeo hoped to reverse what they called a decade of U.S. disengagement in Central Europe that created a vacuum that Russia and China have exploited.
One official said Pompeo would “look for areas of shared interest that have been neglected in the recent past” in order to “wrong-foot the West’s rivals in places where they have gained bridgeheads.”
Human rights groups and others have lamented Pompeo’s plans to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and urged him to take a strong stance against his worrisome policies.
But U.S. officials said it is impossible to press the U.S. positions and interests in Hungary effectively without meeting Orban.
“We have to show up or expect to lose,” one official said.