President-elect Donald Trump has announced his intent to nominate Georgia’s former U.S. Sen. David Perdue as his ambassador to China.
Mr. Perdue, one of Mr. Trump’s most reliable supporters in the Senate, served one term but lost his 2020 re-election bid in a runoff with Democrat Jon Ossoff. Encouraged by Mr. Trump, he also mounted an ill-fated primary challenge against Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022.
Before entering politics, Mr. Perdue had a 40-year international business career that included extensive work in China, from sourcing consumer goods to targeting Chinese consumers for sales of American agricultural commodities.
Mr. Perdue was CEO of Reebok and Dollar General. He has also lived and worked in Singapore and Hong Kong, “Asian tiger” economies whose breakneck growth was in part tied to China’s emergence as a global trading power.
In the early 1990s, Mr. Perdue built out the Asia sourcing operation for Sara Lee. Known mainly for its baked goods, Sara Lee at the time had purchased well-known consumer products brands and was ramping up its operations in the region.
Mr. Perdue started his career in France for Atlanta-based consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates, which focused on consumer products including textiles.
Mr. Perdue is the first cousin of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who served as Mr. Trump’s agriculture secretary and reportedly talked the former president out of pulling out of NAFTA.
While governor, Sonny traveled to China in 2008 to inaugurate a new Delta flight from Atlanta to Shanghai in 2008, a more hopeful time in the bilateral relationship when politicians and chambers of commerce saw China as a growing market and the next great source of foreign direct investment.
That sentiment is largely absent from today’s discourse. David Perdue’s appointment comes as Mr. Trump threatens a tough tack on China that could include ratcheting up tariffs that Mr. Trump introduced and President Joe Biden has maintained, even as the latter has sought to steady turbulent U.S. ties with the country. Mr. Biden has imposed export controls on advanced semiconductors and installed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.
Depending on whom you ask, Mr. Perdue made his career either boosting American competitiveness by helping firms find lower-cost sourcing options in Asia — or by outsourcing U.S. jobs.
Either way, he has firsthand experience engaging with one of the central problems Mr. Trump has tried to address with his China policy: an exodus of American manufacturing that coincided with China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Politico reported that Mr. Perdue’s abortive stint as chief executive at North Carolina Pillowtex in 2002 illustrated the tensions of the day: finding factories in Asia was a central part of his revitalization plan, as the American textile manufacturer was being undercut by cheaper imports. The journey ended with Pillowtex in bankruptcy.
Mr. Perdue’s position on China has evolved over time. In an interview with Global Atlanta in 2011 upon the launch of Perdue Partners, an agricultural trading firm he started with Sonny and others, Mr. Perdue expressed optimism about the promise of Asian markets for U.S. brands and farm goods.
Having witnessed the “rise of the trading company” in Hong Kong, Mr. Perdue said U.S. firms could compete in Asia with the right guidance and expressed his desire to be an “ambassador” for such firms as they navigated new markets.
Mr. Perdue took a more hawkish stance on China during his time in the Senate, where he served on the Foreign Relations Committee and chaired the subcommittee on sea power. It was there, he wrote in an essay for the conservative outlet Washington Times, that he saw the extent of an expansionist China’s desire to use a state-led growth model and Marxist philosophy around the world:
“America is at war — not a hot war like World War II or a cold war like the one with the Soviet Union but a New War that includes so much more than historical kinetic warfare or cold war rhetoric. This New War is existential and will determine whether the free world will, in fact, remain free. It could very well be won without a shot ever being fired.”
In a statement about his appointment on X, however, Mr. Perdue took a softer tone.
“I am truly honored to accept President Trump’s nomination to become the next US Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China,” Mr. Perdue wrote. “Having lived in Asia on two occasions, I understand the gravity of this responsibility and look forward to implementing President Trump’s strategy to make the world safe again and to represent the United States’ interests in China.”
Mr. Trump, in his own social media post, pointed to Mr. Perdue’s business experience and his role as the only senator to serve on the Armed Services and the Foreign Relations committees.
“He will be instrumental in implementing my strategy to maintain peace in the region, and a productive working relationship with China’s leaders,” wrote Mr. Trump, who this week invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping to his January inauguration.
Reports have differed as to whether Mr. Perdue better represents a strategy of engagement or a combative approach, especially considering he is likely to be serving under Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state and another prominent China critic in the Senate.
Three takes for more perspective:
- Bloomberg: Trump’s China Ambassador Pick May Open Path for Cooperation
- Politico: Trump’s pick for China ambassador could be bad news for Beijing
- BBC: Trump taps China critic Perdue as next ambassador to Beijing
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