The Republican presidential hopeful detailed the four elements of his plan to decouple America from China.
At an industrial facility in his home state of Ohio, GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy outlined his “declaration of independence from China.”
“There’s four elements to it,” the businessman told a crowd at Axium Packaging in New Albany on Sept. 21.
The first element is rejecting what Mr. Ramaswamy called “the climate change agenda.”
The second is ensuring the United States does not rely on Taiwan for semiconductors.
Decoupling the country’s defense and pharmaceutical industries from China are the third and fourth parts of his plan.
Notably, the 38-year-old entrepreneur, one of the staunchest critics of American financial support for Ukraine in the Republican field, argued that America must commit to “a floor of 4 percent of U.S. GDP spent on military expenditures to defend our own homeland,” through spending on the border, cybersecurity, hypersonic missile defense, space defense, and more.
Amid yet another Congressional battle over spending that could lead to a government shutdown, and after trillions used on conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped fuel the record national debt, it seems reasonable to ask where he would get the money.
Mr. Ramaswamy suggested the United States would gain “a peace dividend by no longer fighting wars in parts of the world that do not advance our interests.”
The Republican candidate issued dire warnings about the United States’ significant dependence on pharmaceuticals from China, a concern raised by lawmakers including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.); the latter co-sponsored legislation on that vulnerability which was introduced in the House last session.
After saying China “unleashed hell on the world with a manmade virus from a lab in Wuhan,” Mr. Ramaswamy suggested that the country “could lace our legal pharmaceutical supply chain with poison, including fentanyl as well,” if today’s simmering conflict erupts into a hot war.
Latest Policy-Focused Speech
Mr. Ramaswamy clearly built on his previous policy-focused speeches, including a Sept. 13 speech detailing his domestic agenda and Aug. 17 remarks on foreign policy at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.
By Nathan Worcester
