GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Sunday defended his view that "major concessions" must be forced from Ukraine to allow the United States to focus more on China, which he considers the military's major threat.
"The job of the U.S. president is to look after American interests," Ramaswamy, who at the age of 37, is the youngest person so far to be campaigning for the nomination, told ABC's "This Week," adding that he does not think it's a "top foreign policy" for the United States to continue backing Ukraine.
Later in the show, Ramaswamy said that he also does not think it is "preferable for Russia to be able to invade a sovereign country that is its neighbor," but still he thinks that the main threat to the United States military is "the China-Russian alliance. I think that by fighting further in Russia, by further arming Ukraine, we are driving Russia into China's hands."
Ramaswamy instead said he would "end this war" if Russian President Vladimir Putin ends Russia's alliance with China.
"I don't trust Putin, but I do trust Putin to follow his self-interest," Ramaswamy said. "What I think we need to do is end the Ukraine war on peaceful terms that, yes, do make some major concessions to Russia, including freezing those current lines of control in a Korean-war style armistice agreement."
He said he knows Ukraine would not want to do that, and that he supports that there is a permanent commitment to block Ukraine from entering NATO.
"But in return, Russia has to leave its treaty and its joint military agreement with China," said Ramaswamy.
He also said he's concerned about the potential of China invading Taiwan, and said it's a "much higher priority" that a war be stopped there.
"China's bet is that they're going to go for Taiwan, and the U.S. won't want to be in simultaneous conflict with two nuclear superpowers at the same time," said Ramaswamy. "But if Russia's no longer at China's back and vice versa, we're in a stronger position."
Meanwhile, when Ramaswamy was asked if he knows of a "fine line" to walk to appeal to former President Donald Trump's voter base and Trump's "America First" agenda, he replied that the term does not belong to anyone but the "people of this country."
"I think we take that agenda even further if we're doing it based on first principles and moral authority, as [Ronald] Reagan did, rather than on vengeance and grievance," he said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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