Sen. Mitt Romney appeared to take aim at the president for repeatedly criticizing NATO and for waging a trade war with U.S. allies like Mexico and Canada. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo congress Romney subtly scolds Trump in first Senate floor speech

Sen. Mitt Romney used his first speech on the Senate floor to offer a defense of alliances abroad and a plea to avoid divisive conspiracy theories — an indirect rebuke of President Donald Trump who has done neither.

Romney’s maiden floor speech comes as the Utah Republican and former 2012 presidential candidate has shown in his short-time in the Senate that he is occasionally willing to challenge Trump — breaking with the president’s national emergency at the border and some of his nominees to the Federal Reserve.


Romney appeared to take aim at Trump for repeatedly criticizing NATO and for waging a trade war with U.S. allies like Mexico and Canada.

“Alliances are absolutely essential to America’s security, to our future. I can’t state that more plainly,” he said. “Our alliances are invaluable, to us and to the cause of freedom. We should strengthen our alliances, not dismiss or begrudge them. We should enhance our trade with allies, not disrupt it, and coordinate all the more closely our security and defense.”

Romney devoted the majority of his speech to warning about the threat from China, an aspect of foreign policy where he is largely on the same page as the president. It’s a reminder of Romney’s balancing act — saying he’ll criticize Trump when he thinks he’s wrong, but will be with the president when he’s right.

Romney slammed the Chinese government for cheating other nations on trade and said the nation was becoming the United States’ biggest geopolitical threat.

“When it was admitted to the World Trade Organization, the expectation was that China would embrace the rules of the global order, including, eventually, respect for human rights,” Romney said on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. “It has done the opposite.”

Romney added that Trump is right to use tariffs to prevent the theft of intellectual property but warned the United States “will need to counter it directly” otherwise China will not change.

But he ended with another subtle rebuke of Trump.

“Each of us must make an effort to shut out the voices of hate and fear, to ignore divisive and alarming conspiracies, and to be more respectful, more empathetic of our fellow Americans,” he said. “And when it comes to cooling the rhetoric and encouraging unity, there is no more powerful medium than the bully pulpit of the president of the United States.”

