Trump’s V-P pick Vance says China is ‘biggest threat’ to the US
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Republican Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance speaking to Fox News anchor Sean Hannity (not seen) on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15.
PHOTO: AFP
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MILWAUKEE - Mr J.D. Vance branded China the biggest threat to America in one of his first interviews since being named Donald Trump’s running mate,
The Ohio senator made the remarks in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on July 15.
When asked about the war in Ukraine, Mr Vance said Trump would negotiate with Moscow and Kyiv to “bring this thing to a rapid close so America can focus on the real issue, which is China”.
“That’s the biggest threat to our country and we are completely distracted from it,” he said, shortly after joining the Republican presidential ticket.
Democratic US President Joe Biden and his challenger Trump are jockeying to be seen as tough on China as they head towards an election rematch in November. Trump has promised to hike tariffs on China across the board if reelected, vowing a 60 per cent tax on all Chinese imports. Mr Biden has already announced a new 100 per cent levy on electric cars from the world’s No. 2 economy.
US spies believe that China has no clear preference between the two candidates, Bloomberg News previously reported.
Mr Vance, 39, was tapped by Trump days after a failed assassination attempt on the former president
It is not the first time Mr Vance has criticised China. The venture capitalist-turned-senator previously called for “broad-based tariffs” on Chinese goods and advocated for bringing American manufacturing back home to reduce dependency on Beijing.
Mr Vance was a fierce Trump critic in 2016 but has since become one of the former president’s staunchest defenders, embracing his false claims that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud.
In the interview with Mr Hannity, the Ohio Senator said he has changed his mind, reported Cleveland.com.
He was reminded that he had once described himself as a “never-Trump guy,” calling the former US president “reprehensible” and “unfit for the nation’s highest office”.
“I don’t hide from that,” he told Hannity. “I was certainly sceptical of Donald Trump in 2016, but President Trump was a great president and he changed my mind. I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans because, again, he delivered that peace and prosperity.
“I bought into the media’s lies and distortions. I bought into this idea that somehow he was going to be somehow he was going to be so different, a terrible threat to democracy. It was a joke.” BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
