Matt Pottinger
Matt Pottinger is a Senior Advisor at the Marathon Initiative and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Matt is also Chairman of FDD’s China Program. Previously, he served in the White House for four years in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as deputy national security advisor from 2019 to 2021, where he coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy. He served as senior director for Asia, where he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific region, in particular its shift on China policy. Before his White House service, Pottinger spent the late 1990s and early 2000s in China as a reporter for Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
Matt Pottinger Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Edward R. Murrow Fellow
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Reporter
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Reporter
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Distinguished Visiting Fellow
Academic History
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Bachelor of Arts, Chinese Studies
MILITARY AND EARLY CAREER
He fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a US Marine during three combat deployments between 2007 and 2010.
Following active duty, he founded and led an Asia-focused risk consultancy and ran Asia research at an investment fund in New York.
TAKE ON CHINA
Pottinger’s team contributed heavily to investigations and reports detailing China’s economic aggression, which formed the basis for Trump’s trade war against Beijing.
He has also focused on raising awareness of Chinese Communist Party efforts to spread influence and interference in various U.S. institutions, including academia, the tech sector and Wall Street.
MEDIA AND PUBLICATIONS
He was a regular guest on the John Batchelor Show radio program.
He was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.
He has appeared as a guest on Real Vision.