Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to make a major policy address on U.S.-China relations Thursday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda.

The State Department is describing the address as a speech on “Communist China and the future of the free world.”

The speech will come two days after the U.S. government ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston by Friday.

“We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they don’t, we’re going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs,” Pompeo said Wednesday at a news availability in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Pompeo met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen Wednesday to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, China and other matters. He also met with Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeppe Kofod; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Education Jenis av Rana of the Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago that forms part of Denmark; and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Energy Steen Lynge of Greenland, an autonomous territory within Denmark, to discuss opportunities for closer cooperation between the United States and Denmark in key areas of mutual concern.

On Tuesday, Pompeo was in London, where he cheered Britain’s hardening posture toward China and appealed for a global coalition against that country, blaming the Chinese Communist Party for what he described as exploitation of the coronavirus pandemic “to further its own interests,” the New York Times reported from the British capital.

The secretary of state also heaped praise on Dominic Raab, Britain’s foreign secretary, for his government’s decision last week to ban equipment supplied by the Chinese technology giant Huawei from Britain’s high-speed wireless network.

Analysts cited by the Times said Pompeo’s embrace of his British counterparts would only make it more difficult for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to walk back from the brink of a deepening rift with Beijing.

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