Vice President Kamala Harris has named Iran — not China — as the top US adversary, countering the Pentagon’s long-held stance.
Asked during a “60 Minutes” interview which country she considered the nation’s “greatest adversary,” the Democratic presidential nominee declared that “there’s an obvious one in mind, which is Iran.”
“Iran has American blood on their hands,” she said. “This attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles — What we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power that is one of my highest priorities.”
However, the vice president declined to answer when asked whether she would support deploying US troops if given evidence that Iran had developed nuclear weapons, saying she would not “talk about hypotheticals at this moment.”
While Iran has been top of mind after launching roughly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last week, the US for six consecutive years has held that China represents the biggest threat.
That ranking is established in the annual US National Security Strategy due to Beijing’s rapidly advancing military, unfair business tactics and pressure campaigns in its strategic competition with the United States.
The Trump administration was first to list China as the top threat facing the nation in its 2018 National Security Strategy. The Biden-Harris administration maintained the assessment in its own version of the document updated in 2022.
The same document also lists Iran, Russia and North Korea as other US nemeses.
But Harris only mentioned China when asked directly by CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker.
“First of all, we must win the competition for the 21st century with China, we must be able to compete and win,” she said. “We should not seek conflict, but we have to understand that there are parameters in which we must operate that include ensuring, for example, that we protect American business interests.”
Whitaker then interrupted, asking whether she would support using American military force to defend Taiwan should China invade the democratically governed island.
“I’m not going to get into hypotheticals, but listen, we need to make sure that we maintain a ‘One China’ policy and — but that includes supporting Taiwan’s ability to defend itself, including what we need to do to ensure the freedom of the Taiwan Strait,” she said.
“We need to make sure we have open lines of communication with China, in particular, military to military, whether the issue is foreign policy, the economy, immigration, or any of the other critical decisions that will come from the Oval Office.”
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican vice presidential candidate, slammed Harris during a Tuesday rally in Michigan for her response to Whitaker’s question.
“China is the biggest threat confronting this country,” said Vance, who added while Iran is a threat, Harris’ comment indicated she “seems to be totally fine with starting or escalating a conflict in every continent all over the world.”
