GOP Rep. Budd: We Need Tariffs on China if They Increase Russian Purchases, They’re Supporting Russia Through Purchases, Sharing Intel.

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) discussed his push for tariffs on China if they increase their purchases of Russian agriculture, said that China has supported Russia by boosting agricultural purchases and sharing intelligence with Russia, and “we’re seeing them being an increasing ally” of Russia.

Budd said, “What we’re seeing is China support Russia, I mean, through agricultural purchases, through shared intel. with Russia before the Russian invasion. They are simply not a force for good right now. We’ve seen them on the world stage over the past decades become increasingly hostile to us, and now with their long border with Russia, we’re seeing them being an increasing ally in Russia’s very unjust war against the Ukraine. And so, we have to be very cautious about how we’re dealing with China right now, including economically.”

He added, “[O]f course, we’re for international trade, of course, but when we see free trade, we used — China essentially gamed us in that, and they were trying to destroy our industries. They would come to our universities and steal our intellectual property and then develop the products in China, or they would destroy things like our textile industry and electronics industry. Look, we are the most powerful economic country on the planet, and what China has continually done over the past decade-and-a-half is try to erode that, destroy our manufacturing base, destroy our intellectual property base, and try to surpass us on the world stage. So, we need to make sure that when we trade, we realize the predatory effects that China has towards us.”

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