Gov. Scott Walker, who earlier this week called on President Barack Obama to cancel the official state visit from China's President Xi Jinping next month, said Friday that he didn't mean to imply that the United States should walk away from trade agreements or official relations altogether with the Asian nation.
"Trade with China is important to the country as a whole," the GOP presidential candidate told the
MSNBC "Morning Joe" program in an interview hours before he was to make a foreign policy speech at the Citadel in South Carolina.
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But when it comes to an official state visit, "that's one of the highest prizes we can give to countries that we work with that are allies and partners."
But China, he said, has been involved in "cyberattacks against our very own government" that "not only put the government at risk, it's put the individual information and millions of Americans at risk."
The Wisconsin governor also discussed the nuclear agreement that has been reached with Iran, pointing out that he's said "repeatedly would terminate the deal on day one," a stance that's not being taken by other GOP candidates.
"I think if you're going to be president, you need to be president on day one," Walker said. "And if it's a bad deal, you need to terminate that immediately."
Walker said the agreement is not a treaty, but an "executive action done by this president" that is meeting opposition nationwide because it's a "bad deal."
"I can still remember as a kid tying yellow ribbons around the tree in front of our house, tying the yellow ribbons during the 444 days that Iran held 52 Americans hostage," said Walker. "Iran hasn't changed much since then. This is not a country we should be doing business with, and we need to be aggressive."
The governor also addressed the shooting of the two Virginia journalists, saying that people are slipping through the cracks, and part of stopping that is "breaking the stigma against people getting help when it comes to mental health issues."
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