The Republican governors of Florida and Virginia began their overseas tours on April 24 amid lingering speculation that either one, or both, will jump into the 2024 presidential race.
While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei.
Both leaders will have visited South Korea and Japan before returning home—a notable choice for prospective candidates seeking to boost their foreign affairs resumes at a time when the geopolitical threat from the Chinese Communist Party is drawing outsize attention in Washington, especially among Republican lawmakers aligned with former President Donald Trump.
Trump, the dominant 2024 Republican primary candidate, has a list of successes to tout when it comes to dealing with China and its communist sister regime in North Korea. The former president has devoted much attention to attacking DeSantis as polls have shown the Florida governor as the most potent of the actual and potential primary challengers. Trump continued that offensive after DeSantis arrived in Tokyo.
“The ‘Consultants’ are sending DeSanctus, and demanding he go immediately, on an emergency Round the World tour of U.S representative population countries, like South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Israel, in order to up his game and see if he can remove the stain from his failing campaign,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Bad poll numbers! Perhaps he can, and perhaps he can’t, who really knows, but he’ll have plenty of time to think as he sits alone, on his [taxpayer] funded airplane, riding it out and thinking, WHY???”
DeSantis, who billed the trip as a trade mission, could not avoid questions about his undeclared presidential campaign. When asked about polls that show him trailing Trump by increasing margins in their hypothetical Republican primary, the governor told the media pool as he left his meeting with Kishida, “I’m not a candidate, so we’ll see if and when that changes.”
Youngkin, who likewise billed his trip as a trade mission, has not denied he has presidential ambitions, but he has not directly addressed questions about 2024 other than to say he has no political aims now beyond flipping the Democrat-controlled state legislature red in elections this fall.
With his two 2021 campaign managers recently signed onto DeSantis’ Never Back Down PAC, it doesn’t appear that Youngkin is preparing to launch a campaign—at least not anytime soon. There is some speculation he could announce after November’s elections. But as of last week, Youngkin was not saying what his plans were—beyond his pending trade mission and the coming elections.
“Listen,” he told reporters on April 17, “I didn’t write a book, and I’m not in Iowa, or New Hampshire, or South Carolina because the road to holding our House and winning our Senate majority is through greater Richmond and Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia and I-81 corridor. And this is what this year is all about.”
In an average of polls maintained by Real Clear Politics, Trump was ahead of DeSantis by 29 points. Youngkin drew less than one percent of the average, compared with Trump’s 52 percent.
Not All Non-Campaign Campaigns Are the Same
The speculative 2024 Republican primary contenders have taken different roads in charting their non-campaigns, with DeSantis the most obvious in running for president without formally declaring his intent to do so.DeSantis has traveled to early primary states Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada as part of a book tour to promote his recently published best-seller, “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”
The DeSantis-sanctioned super PAC, Atlanta-based Never Back Down, which has more than $30 million in contributions, has established a campaign staff in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina as well as 28 ‘Students for DeSantis’ chapters across 18 states.
Speculation has always been that DeSantis would officially declare his candidacy after the Florida Legislature adjourns in early May, sometime between May 8 and Memorial Day weekend.
Among the reasons is that the state’s Republican-controlled legislature is expected to adopt a bill to overturn Florida’s “resign to run” law, which bars officials from seeking one office without resigning from one they hold.
DeSantis’ non-campaign campaign and poll status as the leading contender in wresting the party’s nomination from Trump—he led in some late 2022, early 2023 surveys—has drawn thunderous criticism from the former president.
Trump has labeled DeSantis as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Meatball Ron” in withering social media assaults, speeches, and paid ads hammering at his perceived biggest challenger.
With the first presidential debate three months away, some DeSantis supporters, such as U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), believe the sooner DeSantis announces, the better.
Speculation about Youngkin making a 2024 presidential run has floated about since his 2021 win in the Virginia governor’s race and gained some momentum in praise—including from some Democrat—he has garnered for his performance as a conservative governor in a blue state.
Youngkin made several campaign stops across the country on behalf of Republican candidates during the 2022 midterms and is a much-sought after speaker at conservative events.
States Tout Military Ties in Tense Region
While trade is the key component of their missions, both Republican governors—in a nod to burnishing foreign affairs and national defense bonafides—addressed the importance of U.S. military alliances with western Pacific democracies in the face of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) decade-long military expansion and North Korea’s nuclear weapons provocations.Youngkin’s meeting with Tsai comes amid rising tensions between the United States and the PRC over China’s actions in the South China Sea and threats to invade Taiwan, which it considers a territory.
Visits between U.S. and Taiwanese officials draw rebukes from PRC officials and, after the last two House Speakers—Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—met with Tsai within the last year, the PRC responded with live-fire drills and maneuvers with warships and fighter jets near its shores.
Youngkin hinted at the growing relationship between Virginia universities and other high-tech developers and Taiwan companies as an important bond in forging mutual defense against the PRC.
“Virginia’s relationship with Taiwan is a meaningful driver of the national partnership, with recent growth in annual product exports from Virginia significantly outpacing that of the broader nation,” Youngkin wrote in his order creating Virginia Alliance for Semiconductor Technology (VAST).
“Furthermore, Taiwan and Virginia share common values, including democratic norms and support of a rules-based world order.”
Meanwhile, Japan, while facing threats from the PRC is also being targeted and taunted by North Korea in test ballistic missile launches.
Japan announced in November 2022 that it plans to dramatically increase defense spending over the next five years. It is raising defense spending to 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP)—or by 60 percent—by 2027, giving Japan the world’s third-largest defense budget.
“We very much applaud your efforts to bolster your defenses,” DeSantis told Kishida. “We understand it’s a tough neighborhood out here with North Korea and the rise of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].
“We really believe that a strong, strong Japan is good for America,” he continued, “and a strong America is good for Japan. So we commend you on that. And we hope that our country is there with you every step of the way.”
DeSantis’ four-country trade mission is on behalf of Enterprise Florida, a public-private partnership that represents 60,000 Florida-based businesses that exported nearly $70 billion worth of goods to more than 200 countries in 2022.
Enterprise Florida, Inc., maintains a network of 20 offices in 13 countries that generate trade and investment opportunities for Florida, including in five Southeast Asia countries concerned with the PRC’s increasingly aggressive claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea that include building artificial islands bristling with weaponry astraddle the world’s busiest commercial sea lanes.
Among Enterprise Florida’s clients are the state’s 17,900 military contractors, who employ 200,000, especially in defense and space-related aeronautics development.
DeSantis called Japan a “great ally” to the United States and told Kishida he was “excited” to be exploring ways to enhance economic opportunities between Japan and Florida.
Kishida said meeting with governors of U.S. states is important in “strengthening U.S.-Japan relations” and said meeting with DeSantis was important in “strengthening Japan-Florida relations.”
One of DeSantis’ goals in Japan is to secure direct passenger and cargo flights between the Land of the Rising Sun and the Sunshine State by Japanese and American carriers, a vow he made in a November 2022 speech in Orlando.
That objective appeared to be in a holding pattern.
“Maybe we can do something about it, because we think there are great opportunities to be able to link the state of Florida with Japan,” he said.
