Vivek Ramaswamy’s foreign policy is clueless and dangerous
Ian Haworth
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Over time, the expectations for the presidency have morphed such that presidents are now judged on factors including celebrity, compassion, and personality. President Joe Biden has made a career out of presenting himself as some form of empathetic grandfather, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
As a result, people have forgotten one of the most fundamental responsibilities of the president of the United States: defining the nation’s foreign policy. And this is why surging candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is so dangerous.
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Yes, much has been said about Ramaswamy’s history, including his reported editing of his own Wikipedia page to remove inconvenient references to COVID-19 and the Soros family, as well as his almost constant flip-flopping on every subject known to man.
But while this sort of insincere cluelessness — based on eliciting short-term support from one audience and hoping the next audience doesn’t catch on — is depressingly normal in today’s political scene, it’s Ramaswamy’s foreign policy that should terrify us all.
Why? Because it’s nothing but pandering ineptitude wrapped in the aura of intelligence that could spark disaster for the United States.
First, there’s the subject of Israel, with Ramaswamy calling to end military aid by 2028, lauding his Middle East plan as “Abraham Accords 2.0,” promising further agreements between Israel and nations such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and Indonesia “in [his] first year in office.”
Like all presidential hopefuls, his first year is jampacked!
Setting aside the importance of Israel to many Americans, the fact is that Israel is the United States’s primary ally in the Middle East (if not the world), especially in the context of Islamic terrorism. Unless Ramaswamy has a plan to solve worldwide antisemitism and the bloodthirsty nature of nations and organizations motivated by the destruction of Israel (including Iran and most Palestinian organizations), then cutting off aid would have two outcomes. First, lots of dead Jews. Second, Islamic terrorism on our doorstep.
Next, what about Taiwan? Ramaswamy has essentially argued that China should “not mess with Taiwan before 2028, before the end of my first term.” According to Ramaswamy, once the United States has achieved semiconductor independence, any commitment to Taiwan would dissolve, and under his hypothetical leadership, the United States would “not take the risk of war that risks Americans lives after that for some nationalistic dispute between China and Taiwan.”
Sucks to be you, Taiwan.
One of the biggest foreign policy failures of our generation has been our collective habit of abandoning a dwindling number of allies on the world stage. Afghan citizens, Kurdish forces in Syria, and now Taiwan?
Even if we could achieve semiconductor independence (with Ramaswamy ignoring the gap in quality, production efficiency, and cost that explains why semiconductors are almost exclusively produced in Taiwan and surrounding nations in the first place), what would stop Taiwan from moving away from the West and toward China in response?
Protecting American interests means more than pushing the tired notion that the president of the United States creates domestic jobs. Protecting American interests includes keeping Islamic terrorism at bay — thank you, Israel — and keeping nations across the world aligned with our interests rather than the interests of our enemies — thank you, Taiwan.
Fortunately, Vivek Ramaswamy will likely never be president, and hopefully, his constant flip-flopping will be exposed during the GOP debates.
But if his style of listless foreign policy gains a foothold, the world is going to become a far more dangerous place.
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Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker and podcast host. You can follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth. You can also find him on Substack.