Identifying China as both a competitor and an adversary, Republican vice presidential nominee Senator JD Vance said on Sunday that his party wants to establish a strong international framework where the US can “check” Beijing.
“I think they’re both right, and I think we want to create an international system here where we can contain China,” Mr. Vance said in an interview with CBS when asked whether he viewed Beijing as a competitor or an adversary.
“We don’t want to go to war with China, but certainly they’re our adversary. … For example, the Chinese know they’re manufacturing tons of fentanyl, they’re allowing it to come into our country. (Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee) Kamala Harris hasn’t done anything about that,” Mr. Vance said on “Face the Nation.”
He said Harris should put diplomatic and economic pressure on China to stop the production of fentanyl, which is smuggled to Mexican drug cartels and then shipped to the United States.
In response to a question, Mr Vance said that China needs to be warned about this.
“You go to Beijing, you talk to (President) Xi Jinping, and you say your entire economy will collapse if you don’t get access to American markets. You need to take this fentanyl seriously, otherwise we will impose severe tariffs and economic penalties for not following our laws and not helping us stop the flow of this deadly poison,” he said.
Mr Vance said this was unlikely to have any impact on the US economy.
He claimed, “I think we have a powerful economy, with the best workers in the entire world. If we had to fight a trade war with China, we would fight and win, but we cannot do what Kamala Harris has done, who is so afraid to use the economic power that we have that she is not even willing to stop the flow of this deadly poison coming into our country.”
Former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump mingles with world leaders, and there’s nothing wrong with praising him if it enhances his diplomatic effectiveness, according to the Ohio senator.
“If you have a really good relationship with people and they trust you that you will keep your word. We should remember that Democrats, including Kamala Harris, attacked Donald Trump for having a good relationship with Vladimir Putin. Well, when Donald Trump was president, Vladimir Putin did not invade another country.”
“…So maybe they should take a lesson from Trump’s prayer book about diplomatic legitimacy, because I think a lot of what Donald Trump did was because world leaders respected him,” Mr. Vance said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
