Max Baucus

Speaking at Center for American Progress

Max Baucus is a former Democratic member of the United States Senate, representing Montana.

Baucus earned both a Bachelor of Arts degree and a law degree from Stanford University. He has one son, Zeno.

Baucus' live-in girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, had her eye on the Montana U.S. attorney post for years before he nominated her. She withdrew her nomination in March.

Being named U.S. attorney "was the career path she was working on" since at least 2002, said Yellowstone County Attorney Dennis Paxinos.

2025 Washington China Forum

Max Baucus was listed as an attendee to the 2025 Washington China Forum, "a collaborative effort between the Council on Foreign Relations’ China Strategy Initiative and the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy’s 21st Century China Center.,

China lobbyist

The Obama administration's ambassador to China has found a second lease on life as a pro-China talking head on regime propaganda outlets.

Former ambassador Max Baucus has given at least four different interviews to Chinese propaganda outlets in the last two weeks, repeatedly comparing the U.S. rhetoric about China to both the McCarthy era and Nazi Germany.

"Joe McCarthy [and] Adolf Hitler … rallied people up, making people believe things that were really not true," Baucus said during a May 12 interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), a regime mouthpiece. "The White House and some in Congress are making statements against China that are so over the top and so hypercritical, they are based not on the fact, or if they are based on fact, sheer demagoguery, and that's what McCarthy did in the 1950s."

Since his retirement in 2017, Baucus has been a reliable critic of the Trump administration's increasingly confrontational China policy—chiefly the decision to wage a trade war with Beijing. He once warned that the White House's decision to impose additional tariffs was a "slap on the face" to China. But Baucus's recent comments in the pandemic era have been more sympathetic to China—and critical of the United States—than ever before.

His post-retirement public statements praising China have coincided with his burgeoning overseas investments. In 2017, he founded the Baucus Group, a consulting firm that advises both American and Chinese businesses, according to his U.S. Chamber of Commerce biography. He also sits on the board of directors for Ingram Micro, a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, as well as the board of advisers for Alibaba Group, one of China's largest tech companies.

Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, said that it was "inappropriate" for a former ambassador to speak ill about his own government on a foreign propaganda outlet.

"It's like going to China and … talking about your own government that way in meetings. I think that would be pretty inappropriate," Lohman said. "So it would be inappropriate speaking on state media."

Baucus's public statements have received considerable attention from Beijing's propaganda outlets. When the former ambassador compared President Donald Trump's criticism of China to rhetoric used by Adolf Hitler and Joe McCarthy during a May 6 interview with CNN, Chinese propaganda outlets quickly amplified Baucus's comments about how Trump was "a little bit like Hitler in the '30s" and that Americans were worried about "getting their heads chopped off" if they voice their disagreement with the U.S. government's China policy. Xinhua News Agency, a state-owned outlet, extensively cited Baucus's attacks in a May 8 article, using it as evidence that the Trump administration is attempting to "deflect criticisms about their blunders by blaming China." The article was syndicated in party-controlled mouthpieces such as Global Times and People's Daily, according to the Investigative Research Center.

Baucus then appeared on CGTN on May 12 to double down on his Hitler and McCarthy comparison, blaming the Trump administration for flaming "sheer demagoguery."

"[The current U.S. rhetoric] is somewhat reminiscent, nowhere close to that yet, somewhat reminiscent of the McCarthy era and somewhat reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s," he told CGTN.

The former ambassador also gave an exclusive interview to Global Times on May 14, where he said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's claim that the virus may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory "makes no sense" and accused both Democrats and Republicans of being tough on China to score political points in an election year.

Baucus again appeared on CGTN on May 15, where he claimed that America is "sliding toward a form of McCarthyism" because the Trump administration is pressuring policymakers to be tough on China. The former ambassador did another CGTN media hit on May 16, this time appearing alongside his wife Melodee Hanes, who blamed the presidential election for making dialogue "difficult."

"There are a lot of pretty smart people in the United States who are not speaking up. People in office, moderates, especially moderates on the Republican side," Baucus said on May 15. "They are afraid to speak up, they are intimidated, intimidated by President Trump. And it's kind of sliding toward a form of McCarthyism—how it is politically incorrect to speak the truth, speak the truth to power."

While Baucus rarely enjoyed this much attention from Chinese state media outlets after his retirement, this is not the first time he has spoken to Chinese media outlets in recent years. Baucus also gave an exclusive interview to People's Daily in March 2018, criticizing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods as the "wrong policy" and "too confrontational." He has also spoken at events backed by the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, a registered foreign agent of the Chinese government according to a 2018 congressional report.

Doctors for Obama

From Politico on May 4 2009:

Sen. Max Baucus and the Center for American Progress Action Fund are announcing a new group on a conference call later this morning: Doctors for America, which is a reincarnation of Doctors for Obama, an arm of the Obama campaign that boasted more than 10,000 members.

The question of patients' relationships with their doctors is always a flashpoint in debating changes to the health care system, so doctors are often particularly credible messengers.

Today they'll "release new reports detailing the depth and breadth of America's health care crisis and announce a new effort to amplify physicians' voices in support of health care reform," according to the advisory.

Supported by Council for a Livable World

The Council for a Livable World, founded in 1962 by long-time socialist activist and alleged Soviet agent, Leo Szilard, is a non-profit advocacy organization that seeks to "reduce the danger of nuclear weapons and increase national security", primarily through supporting progressive, congressional candidates who support their policies. The Council supported Max Baucus in his successful Senate run as candidate for Montana.

Anya Landau influence

After the Center for International Policy Anya Landau served as International Trade Advisor to Chairman Max Baucus of the Senate Finance Committee. In that capacity she focused on trade and worker adjustment policy, US-Cuba relations, and helped draft and pass the 2006 SAFE Port Act. Previously she advised Senator Baucus on defense, homeland security, immigration, and foreign policy. During her time in the Senate, she worked extensively on issues dealing with U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba, Treasury Department sanctions enforcement and the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba.

Agricultural exports to Cuba

In March 2009 legislation was expected to be launched to open the door to expanded agricultural exports from the US to Cuba.

It was expected that US Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana) will this week introduce legislation to congress that would open the door to more agricultural exports to Cuba.

Co-sponsors on the deal comprised Democrat senators Jeff Bingaman, Maria Cantwell, Tom Harkin, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Debbie Stabenow and Ron Wyden.

Ending Cuban trade ban

Shortly before President Obama took office, a coalition of U.S. businesses, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Society of Travel Agents, the Business Roundtable, and US Chamber of Commerce wrote a letter, in which they said, “We support the complete removal of all trade and travel restrictions on Cuba. We recognize that change may not come all at once, but it must start somewhere, and it must begin soon.”

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a representative of the farm interests, introduced the Promoting American Agricultural and Medical Exports to Cuba Act, S 1089, which currently has 16 co-sponsors. A companion bill, HR 1531, introduced in the House by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has 27 co-sponsors

Trade with Russia

Ending nearly 40 years of trade restrictions with Russia, the Senate voted December 2012 to approve a bill that will allow U.S. companies to expand business ties with the world's ninth-largest economy and its 140 million consumers.

The bill to grant permanent normal trade relations to Russia, which passed 92-4, now goes to President Obama, who said that he'll sign it.

Businesses lobbied hard for the legislation, saying it would allow them to cash in after Russia formally joined the World Trade Organization on Aug. 22.

With passage of the bill, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a top advocate of the legislation, predicted they will at least double within five years.

Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said all U.S. businesses will benefit because Russia now will be forced to lower its tariffs and allow more imports after joining the WTO.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the trade deal "includes only concessions by Russia," since the United States is a member of the WTO.

Planned Parenthood

Baucus received $5000 in lobbying funds from Planned Parenthood in 2008.

C-100 2018 Summit

Ro Khanna delivered opening remarks at the Committee of 100 Annual Summit and Gala, Silicon Valley May 5 2018, at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara.

On May 5-6, 2018, the Committee of 100 held its 2018 Annual Conference at the heart of America's technology epicenter in Silicon Valley. The theme of the 2018 Annual Conference was "Silicon Valley: Bridge Between the U.S. and China." Conference Co-Chairs included Chi-Foon Chan, Ken Fong, Buck Gee, Philip Ma, Ken Xie, and honorary co-chair Linda Tsao Yang.

Over 500 business, government, academic, technology, entertainment, and media representatives attended the two-day conference to discuss strengthening the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China through economics and foreign policy, tech entrepreneurism, artificial intelligence, and the Belt and Road Initiative. Experts also discussed the ongoing tensions surrounding a potential trade war between the U.S. and China.

Speakers included JIN Liqun, Inaugural President and Chair of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; Former U.S. Ambassadors to China Max Baucus and Gary Locke; Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense and Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman; Dr. Fei-Fei Li, Chief Scientist at Google Cloud AI/ML and Director of Stanford University's AI Lab, among others.

Conference theme is “Silicon Valley: Bridge Between the United States and China.”

Committees

• Senate Finance Committee

• Chairman, Subcommittee on International Trade
• Subcommittee on Long Term Growth and Debt Reduction
• Subcommittee on Taxation and Oversight

• Senate Agriculture Committee

• Chairman of Subcommittee on Marketing, Inspection, and Product Promotion
• Subcommittee on Production and Price Competitiveness
• Subcommittee on Forestry, Conservation, and Rural Revitalization

• Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

• Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure
• Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Saftey
• Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health

• Joint Committee on Taxation

External links

• Baucus website with the Senate