Secretary of State during the administration of former President Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, has criticized current U.S. President Joe Biden for his response to the appearance of the Chinese spy balloon in early November over U.S. airspace.
During an exclusive interview with The Hill, Pompeo accused Biden of having been the “world’s embarrassment” for his tepid response to the appearance of the balloon, which flew for days over the country and was finally shot down on February 4 off the coast of South Carolina.
Pompeo acknowledged the uncertainty about what information the Chinese balloon was able to gather, but expressed his anger at the White House’s response, which allowed the whole world to see “a slow-moving Chinese balloon passing over (the states of) Montana, Kansas and South Carolina”. “And the United States did nothing,” he has criticized.
According to the former U.S. Secretary of State has lamented that this response from Washington generated “a huge geopolitical advantage” for Beijing, and has rejected the argument of the White House slipping that the fall of “some debris” over Montana did not exceed the risk of being the “global embarrassment”.
On the other hand, Pompeo has denied the statements launched earlier this month by a senior defense official, who assured that already during the Trump Administration some balloon similar to the downed one was sighted on up to three occasions. “As far as I can tell, no one was aware of it,” he added For Pompeo, these statements are a strategy of the White House, which is trying to direct the public gaze to another point, focusing on Trump and thus preventing the population from questioning what happened with the Chinese balloon. “This is exactly what the Biden Administration wants you to talk about,” he denounced.
U.S. authorities have confirmed the sighting of up to four suspicious objects, one of them identified as a Chinese spy balloon of which Beijing acknowledged its existence, although it stressed that it was for scientific and meteorological purposes. Washington has reported the downing of the four objects.
Regarding Pompeo, after two years out of the political sphere following Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections, he is now back in the limelight due to the possibility that he may face his former boss in the Republican race for the 2024 elections, although for the moment there is nothing official.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
