Trump, DeSantis speak on combatting Chinese influence

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa. (FLV) – Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump separately spoke on their plans to compete against China on economic production and trade as both candidates continue campaigning for president in 2024.

“We need independence from China,” DeSantis said on an interview with Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “We cannot subcontract out key aspects of our industrial base to a country that doesn’t have our interest at heart and that is our No. 1 geopolitical threat.”

The governor said that as president, he would take “executive action as appropriate” to remove China’s “most favored nation status.”

The status was intended to liberalize the communist country’s economy by accepting the nation into the World Trade Organization. The decision is projected to have lost roughly 3.7 million American jobs from 2001 to 2020. At least 74% of the country’s manufacturing jobs were lost in this time as well.

DeSantis criticized Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for “happy talk” and their claims of China being “healthy competition.” As president, he vows to “recognize that China is a threat.”

“At the end of the day, what China respects is strength. And if you’re showing strength, and we have hard power to back it up, they’re going to be much less aggressive,” he said.

DeSantis signed a bill in May that was intended to prevent members of the Chinese Communist Party from purchasing Florida farmland and real estate.

“We really need to have a unified effort in this country to deter the CCPs ambitions and their influence and part of that is asserting our economic sovereignty,” DeSantis said during the bill signing.

Trump also made statements regarding his work to combat Chinese influence as president, in an Iowa campaign trial appearance on Friday.

“I stood up to China like no administration has ever done before,” he said. “Bringing hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our treasury.”

“When China targeted our farmers,” Trump continued, “I gave those same farmers $28 billion dollars straight out of the tariffs that I was taking from China.”

“For the purposes of national security, I will ban communist China from buying up American farmland and other critical infrastructure in the United States,” Trump said.

DeSantis is mostly concerned that the country will not be safe from Chinese influence if President Joe Biden remains in office.

“My fear is, under Biden, his weakness is really inviting China to do more, not just in their own theater,” said DeSantis. “We see them doing more in our own hemisphere here in the West.”