Pompeo Threatens To Cut Off Australia if Victoria State Continues with Belt and Road

May 24, 2020 (EIRNS)—The utter lunacy of the deranged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues unabated. This morning he gave an interview with Rupert Murdoch’s operation Sky News Australia, threatening to “disconnect” the intelligence and telecommunications ties with Australia unless they stop the State of Victoria from working with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation with the BRI in October 2018. They plan to have specific joint investment agreements within the coming months, according to South China Morning Post.

Pompeo, asked about that BRI agreement said,

“To the extent they have an inverse impact on our ability to protect telecommunications from our private citizens or security networks for our defense and intelligence communities, we will simply disconnect. We will simply separate. We’re going to preserve trusted networks for important information. We hope our friends and partners and allies around the world, especially our Five Eyes partners like Australia, will do the same.”

Pompeo has also demanded that Boris Johnson’s U.K. government cancel its deals with Huawei or face the same cut off of intelligence ties. Johnson has not caved in as yet.

The subservient Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison immediately kissed Pompeo’s Iron Cross, saying:

“We didn’t support that decision at the time they [Victoria] made it. National interest issues on foreign affairs are determined by the federal government. I respect their jurisdiction when it comes to the issues they are responsible for and it’s always been the usual practice for states to respect and recognize the role of the federal government in setting foreign policy.”

Morrison’s government took the lead at the World Health Assembly in calling for an independent investigation into alleged Chinese responsibility for the COVID-19 crisis. Pompeo, in the Sky News interview, repeated the now exposed lie that China intentionally infected the world. “We saw them close down Hubei province,” Pompeo said, “but leave open flights to Milan and flights to Tehran—places greatly impacted—flights to places like New York City, I’m sure Australia as well.” As EIR has reported, Prof. Daniel Bell from Tsinghua University has proven from both international and Chinese flight records that all such flights were cancelled.

Beijing earlier this month restricted beef imports and imposed an 80% tariff on Australian barley, “in moves widely seen as retaliation for Australia’s push for an independent international inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic,” as SCMP put it.