GOP hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy addresss China, Trump and Ukraine in Sioux City appearance

SIOUX CITY — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Iowans Wednesday night that the U.S. needs to decrease its reliance on Chinese-made consumer goods.

Ramaswamy also joined the growing chorus of GOP hopefuls denouncing the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the party's nomination.

He spoke in front of a few dozen people attending a campaign town hall event at the beginning of an Iowa campaign swing that will take him to Dubuque and Davenport on Thursday.

Ramaswamy told the crowd that the U.S. depends too much on a hostile Chinese government that disagrees with U.S. values.

Too often U.S. companies make concessions to the Chinese communist government in exchange for doing business in China, Ramaswamy said.

"Today we depend on our enemy for our entire model and way of life," the author and biotech entrepreneur from Ohio told the crowd. "That's a risk to our future. That's a risk to our children's future. We have to be willing to do the hard things, to make some tradeoffs in the short-run for what's right in the long-run. "

Ramaswamy met with reporters before the town hall and said Trump's indictment "smacks of politicization." Trump on Tuesday pleaded not guilty in Miami to 37 federal charges alleging he kept national defense documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach after leaving the White House and conspired to obstruct justice by hiding them from federal authorities.

Before arriving in Iowa, Ramaswamy had said that if elected, he would pardon Trump, and called on his fellow GOP hopefuls to make a similar pledge.

"We need to move forward as a country. It's a dangerous precedent to set to use police power of the federal administrative police state to stop someone who's running for office from obtaining that office," Ramaswamy told the reporters. "I would have made very different judgements than Trump did, but that's different than criminalizing behavior that under Bill Clinton wasn't treated criminally."

The reference to former President Bill Clinton wasn't clear, and he didn't elaborate on it. Trump's son Donald Jr. recently made an Instagram post of a tweet from  conservative commentator Alex Bruesewitz denouncing the case against Trump and asserting that other former presidents including Clinton had taken classified documents without being charged. A USA Today fact check said there are no credible reports of Clinton retaining classified documents after leaving the White House in 2001.

In his town hall, Ramaswamy, in addition to calling for decreased U.S. dependence on China, sounded another popular conservative theme, advocating for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war in which he said Russia is being supported by an alliance with China. He said it would "better secure American interests than to increase the risks of nuclear war."

Last week the Pentagon announced a new $2.1 billion military aid package for Ukraine as it mounts a counteroffensive to seize back Russian-occupied territory. But Ramaswamy said the U.S. has failed to identify a clear national interest that justifies the aid and should support an end to the conflict even if it means giving Russia the Donbas region of Ukraine it has occupied.

"The top threat the U.S. faces is the China-Russia alliance," he said. "I think by ending the war on terms that require Russia to exit its alliance with China we better secure American interests than to increase the risks of nuclear war by continuing to engage in a conflict where China has actually come into Russia's backing with more military weapons."

China, with Russian approval, has called for a cease-fire and peace talks in the war. But it has denied providing military aid to Russia.

Tricia Frederick of Sioux City, who attended the town hall, said she likes Ramaswamy's message, but plans to vote for Trump. Frederick said she hopes that Ramaswamy will be picked as Trump's running mate, if Trump wins the Republican nomination, or for a cabinet position.

Someday, she said, she hopes Ramaswamy wins the presidency, adding that he says many of the same things as Trump in a more polished way.

"He's got a lot of good ideas," Frederick said. "He's young, he needs some experience. There's a lot of spots for him. This guy is a genius. I believe that Vivek and (Trump) would butt heads in some areas because Trump is very direct. But I think this guy could bring a lot to the table."

Philip Joens covers retail, real estate and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Vivek Ramaswamy calls for Trump pardon, less U.S. depence on China