“I would take executive action as appropriate to be able to move us in that direction,” he says
Published July 9, 2023 2:23PM (EDT)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to Iowa voters gathered at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on March 10, 2023 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
If elected president, Ron DeSantis says “he would aim to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status,” according to Reuters. The Republican Florida Governor said as much during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, adding, “I think we probably need Congress but I would take executive action as appropriate to be able to move us in that direction.”
Per the outlet’s reporting, “The Senate voted in 2000 to grant that status to China as it prepared to join the World Trade Organization . . . The status is a legal designation in the US for free trade with a foreign nation.” Calling China “the No 1 geopolitical threat this country faces,” the presidential hopeful is up against Trump in the next election, “who leads the Republican field currently in the polls with DeSantis a distant second.” Trump has said “he would give China a 48-hour deadline to get out of what sources familiar with the matter say is a Chinese spy facility on the island of Cuba 90 miles (145 km) off the U.S. coast.”
“We’re going to have a new commitment to hard power in the Indo-Pacific. At the end of the day, what China respects is strength,” DeSantis said during his interview with Fox News. “If you’re showing strength and we have hard power to back it up, they’re going to be much less aggressive. My fear is, under Biden, his weakness is really inviting China to do more.” Weighing in on China via Truth Social on Saturday, Trump seemed to be in line with his opponent, saying, “We have a corrupt, incompetent leader in Biden — He has taken millions of dollars from other countries like China. He is totally compromised!”
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