BREAKING: Rand Paul Grills Blinken About Biden ‘Jumping On The Trump Train’ With Tariffs On China

BREAKING: Rand Paul Grills Blinken About Biden ‘Jumping On The Trump Train’ With Tariffs On China

remains insufficient senator Paul secretary blinkin on your recent trip to China news reports came back and said that you reserved your strongest language for uh China and its dealings with Russia castigating Beijing for allowing the war to continue in Ukraine the report went on to describe the exchange as such a blatant dressing down in the Chinese Capital do you think publicly scolding China will make it more or less likely that they continue selling dual use parts to to to Russia um Senator we’ve we’ve tried it both ways uh we’ve had these conversations with China from some time in private hoping to see a change uh we haven’t seen that and it’s important I would argue really I would argue that we’ve only tried it one way we’ve got the stick and almost the majority of people who work for you everybody wants to use the stick nobody’s really considering that there is a carrot so really for the last let’s say five years or more your Administration the previous Administration not a lot different really that uh you put impediments to trade you add sanctions and then you scold them and I mean there is a school of philosophy or School of diplomacy that that believes that public scolding particularly in another country can have the opposite effects that actually you’ve either completely given up on this nothing’s working so why don’t we just read them the riot act and that’s kind of what it looked like yelen was also there recently and she’s described and told uh the Chinese government how it should run its economy what sector of its economy that they should or should not subsidize and uh hold told them as well who who they can conduct business with and then she threatened to impose sanctions you know more or less likely to actually get them to do I mean I think it’s a misunderstanding of diplomacy in general to think that you going and scolding the Chinese yelling going and scolding the Chinese that somehow they’re going to like go oh my goodness we’ve been wrong all along and because they’ve yelled at us and treated us like school children we’re now going to change I would think that the opposite might be true that there might be a certain amount of child psychology to criticizing people and that like a rebellious teenager they actually might end up doing more in addition to threat of sanctions in addition to the scolding we now have the administration talking about uh more tariffs so in June of 2019 then Presidential candidate Joe Biden tweeted Trump doesn’t get the basics he thinks his tariffs are being paid for by China any freshman econ student would tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs remarkably accurate and true at that time but now he’s become jumping on the Trump train but the thing about tariffs regardless of who pays them American consumers will pay for these tariffs are not good for the economic well-being of all Americans in general but the question would become when you add tariffs you’re going to threaten sanctions you’re going to scold them now you’re going to add tariffs more or less likely that they’ll do what you want I think less likely everything we’re doing everything the previous administration did as well as this Administration is heading towards less tradan disengagement from China part of diplomacy might be offering well I tell you what what if you quit selling the Dual use parts to Russia maybe we could consider removing some sanctions on trade and actually trade more with you so the threat of sanctions the threat of tariffs actually have some effects if you’re willing to remove them the history of sanctions is more more or more and then you’re not doing enough and people on the right here will say you got to do even more we’re going to pass legislative sanctions nobody talks about removing them but that’s the only way you’d get Behavior to change and so I really think that it’s a fundamental misunderstanding sort of of what’s going on the final point I’d like to make and I’ll let you respond to this is the ukrainians still claim that Victory includes the Reclamation of all of its territory many NATO allies are beginning to question this check president Peter pavell who once served as the chairman of NATO’s military committee recently stated that he believes it’s naive to think that Ukraine will be able to regain the occupied territories from Russia the commander and general of the Ukrainian Army until he was fired by zinsky had the same sort of comments I think that it’s not an unreasonable thing to believe that this may War May well end in stalemate with people in place some say similar to the way Korea was nobody likes it nobody wanted it nobody agrees the Russian should be there but they’re there and they have a bigger Army and more might than their neighbor so if president pavl is correct in his assessment the Ukraine’s war aims are naive one of the few negotiating items Ukraine possesses is a promise to remain a neutral country not aligned militarily yet you have repeatedly ruled out Ukraine remaining outside of NATO if you take this off the table you’re taking off one of the things that actually is a negotiating item my question to you is are there any circumstances under which neutrality of Ukraine would be a negotiating item thank you Senator uh let me try to respond to both uh both questions uh first if you want to look at uh at hectoring or hering I would invite you to look at the website of the Chinese uh foreign Ministry on a daily basis uh in terms of what they say about us second uh I’m not going to apologize to anyone for standing up for American workers and American companies because here’s what we’re dealing with um and by the way of of course you’re right we always try uh and as a diplomat I always try to engage our partners or adversaries diplomatically quietly to see if we can get the result if we don’t then we have to use every means at our disposal including calling them out let me if I address the question so on this what we’ve seen and what we’re seeing now and this goes to the Tariff question is China very deliberately uh using over capacity in critical sectors to export its way out of its current economic troubles and to do that uh in a way that undercuts and indeed could gut our own work IND my question to you is is there an offer ever that you would undo things in exchange for behavior of course and that goes so you want to argue tariffs are good and sanctions are good the offer would have to be to say to the government quietly or otherwise that we would be willing to go in the opposite direction there’s no public I hear no public discussion not from Congress and not from any one of the administration we would undo this if this Senator on their on their own on their own terms uh it’s clear that if the conduct that we object to and that risks terrible damage to our workers to our communities to our companies if they change that conduct of course did you specifically discuss not having tariffs or undoing sanctions in exchange for the Chinese to quit selling dual use parts to Russia um in the cont sure if they if their companies uh don’t engage in that practice we’re not going to sanction them I didn’t hear any public statements of that did you make private statements to president shei that you would undo trade sanctions and not put on tariffs in exchange for better Behavior by by by definition if they don’t engage in the conduct that we uh object to then we’re not going to be uh using those tariffs or using those sanctions but this sounds like drawing this out of you doesn’t sound to me like this is the kind of diplomacy that’s occurring if you want it to occur you have to have a little different conception of you’ve got the stick the whole problem with diplomacy in this country not just your Administration but the previous is all you see is the stick all you see is more sanctions and if I ask you to tell me what has China done to change its Behavior based on your sanctions to change their behavior for the better I would say you can’t come up with anything China is doing everything seems to be the wrong direction that’s your interpretation everything’s the wrong direction so the sanctions really are not having a value unless you want negotiate removing sanctions to get better Behavior Senator B Holland uh thank thank you Mr chair chairman welcome Mr

At today’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about policies relating to China and the Russia-Ukraine war.

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