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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is ready to get tough on China and has bipartisan support to do so. The Speaker said he intends to send a message to Bejing that “we mean business.”
Tensions between the U.S. and China have steadily risen and the Chinese spy balloon was the icing on the cake.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle finally agree on something: We need to stand up to China.
McCarthy and the 118th Congress plan to set federal policy to give President Biden a “backbone” and the power to be brazen when it comes to China.
McCarthy said, “If we have the policymakers on board, we could send the president policy that will make him stronger and give him a stronger hand.”
“I want to empower the president,” he continued. “If we are united in the House, it gives the president a stronger hand. In essence, the House can try to give him a backbone.”
McCarthy said the president “needs to be where House Republicans and Democrats are,” and warned that he is “not there” yet.
“We need to speak directly to China, and, regardless of how long he thinks he has known Xi — Xi is a different person than he was before, and China is in a different place than it was before, and they think they are stronger than they were before,” McCarthy warned. “We need to be united to do that.”
“One of the first things he should do with Xi is stop the fentanyl coming to America,” McCarthy said. “He just has to call and say, this is personal, if you don’t stop the chemicals from coming, we’re going to do something about this.”
It sounds too easy, but McCarthy said that the U.S. has “done this before with Xi and fentanyl got curbed very quickly.”
It needs to happen again to curb the current crisis! Fentanyl overdoses became the leading cause of death in this country in 2021 for adults 18-45 according to government data.
Can Congress and the White House work together to solve the China problem? McCarthy believes that’s how it’s supposed to work.
He said, “He is the President of the United States. I am the speaker of the House. Our job is to work to try to find what is best for America.”
“I would do everything in my power to get there,” he said. “Do we have a difference of opinion? Yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to work with him, because I want to get him to the right place.”
“I’ve always thought that one of our biggest problems with China is we have never spoken with one voice,” McCarthy said. “They [China] see the divide, and they take advantage of it.”
We need a united America to keep China at bay and avoid any chance of war with China.
Last month, the House voted overwhelmingly in favor of creating a committee called “Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.”
Reportedly, the U.S. European allies took note of the China committee and McCarthy believes it will embolden those countries to also stand up to our biggest threat.
