FIRST ON FOX — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is set to unveil his plan to “declare economic independence from China” in a preview of his policy speech obtained by Fox News Digital.
In his address that will be given Thursday in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, Ramaswamy says he will “delineate the heretofore-unexamined connection between the rise of ‘stakeholder capitalism’ in the West and China’s use of that trend to achieve economic parity with the U.S. by failing to adopt the constraints that multinational institutions apply to the U.S.”
“This includes the use of forced data and technology transfers and even pro-CCP U.S. lobbying as a condition for acquiring licenses to do business in China, including but not limited to applying constraints (e.g. emissions caps) in the U.S. while failing to apply such caps in China,” the preview of his speech read.
Ramaswamy will boast what he calls a “pro-trade approach to sensibly decoupling from China” and knocked conservatives who reject a “trade-led agenda” as “unserious.”
“To declare independence from China abroad, we must first declare independence from the climate change agenda at home,” the preview read. “Electric vehicle agenda worsens dependence on China for rare earth minerals and mineral refining capacity: when U.S. taxpayers subsidize EVs, American taxpayers subsidize the CCP.”
Ramaswamy asserts the climate change agenda “has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with letting China catch up to the U.S.,” adding that “this is something that the Republican Party has missed in entirety.”
The political outsider reiterated his call for semiconductor independence, calling the CHIPS Act that was passed and sign into law by the Biden administration a “boondoggle” and describing it as the “Green New Deal in chips-related clothing.”
“The right answer: more narrowly tailored pro-semiconductor policy in the U.S., but without the excesses and political trinkets of the CHIPS Act — not as a matter of economic protectionism, but as a matter of national security,” the preview read. “Key way to stop this from simply serving as corporate ‘pork’ — simultaneously open trade relationships with South Korea, Japan, and other nations that provide market access for their own semiconductors to the U.S. market to compete with domestically supported U.S. semiconductor manufacturers.
He will highlight the U.S. military’s reliance on China, pointing out how the CCP is a leading producer of “16” out of the 35 strategic materials identified as critical by the Department of Defense.
“Limiting foreign engagement in other parts of the world (e.g. Ukraine and Middle East) will reopen substantial funds to reinvest in our domestic defense base without the need for expanding the overall U.S. military budget,” the preview read. “Vivek will modernize the Reagan Doctrine to the 21st century — from ‘peace through strength’ to ‘prosperity through peace.'”
Ramaswamy will also propose weakening America’s pharmaceutical reliance on China by bolstering trade partnerships with Israel and India and will do the same regarding rare earth minerals with countries like India and Brazil, adding that Chile is “the world’s third-greatest lithium reserves” yet “our third-largest lithium partner is China.”
“We don’t have to ban Chinese imports; we just need to buy from other countries that produce the same things. I call on all American companies to declare lithium independence from China and grow their imports from Chile,” Ramaswamy will declare according to the preview.
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