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Vivek Ramaswamy defended the foreign policy positions that saw him come under attack in the GOP presidential debate in an interview Tuesday.
Speaking on “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” the 38-year-old entrepreneur laid out his plans for defending Taiwan and his idea to use Ukraine as a bargaining chip to entice Russian President Vladimir Putin to exit his military alliance with China.
Mitchell pressed Ramaswamy on his proposal to freeze the current battle lines in Ukraine, letting Russia keep the Donbas region as long as Ukraine gives up all attempts to enter NATO. Mitchell noted that the NATO provision is Putin’s basic demand, asking Ramaswamy, “Isn’t that letting Putin win despite his war crimes?”
“Andrea, you conveniently left out the most important part of the deal, which is what the United States wins out of it,” Ramaswamy responded, saying his plan to have Russia keep the Donbas region would be conditioned on Putin cutting ties with China.
He called Russia’s ties with China “the single greatest threat that the United States faces today.”
The GOP candidate has also been vocal — and garnered criticism — on his views about the U.S. relationship with Taiwan in recent weeks.
During a campaign stop in Iowa last weekend, Ramaswamy said, “I’m clear, we will defend Taiwan, at least until we have achieved semiconductor independence in this country, at which point we will reevaluate.”
In the Tuesday interview, Ramaswamy said he wants to get to a place where “we will resume our position of strategic ambiguity … The U.S. — neither party even recognizes Taiwan as a nation right now. Both parties embrace the 'one-China' policy.”
The U.S. has long maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” about defending Taiwan, though President Joe Biden has said numerous times during his term that the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
Ramaswamy continued in the interview, “I’m the only presidential candidate who has said we will defend Taiwan. Nobody’s had the courage to say it. And then I said, after we achieved semiconductor independence, we will resume our current posture of strategic ambiguity.”