Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t holding back in his undeclared fight for the White House. He came out swinging this week talking about China in an interview with Piers Morgan. DeSantis said that the communist nation is the biggest threat that America faces and he would not tolerate an invasion of Taiwan.
These fighting words come as U.S. officials have increasingly warned that China is preparing an invasion of the island nation and that the United States could end up at war with China in the coming years.
Taiwan is of strategic importance to America because the overwhelming majority of the world’s advanced semiconductors are manufactured by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Robert O’Brien, the former Trump national security adviser, said that if China invades Taiwan, the United States will destroy TSMC’s facilities rather than allow China to capture them. If China controlled the output in Taiwan it would make them “the new OPEC of silicon chips” and allow China to “control the world economy.”
“The United States and its allies are never going to let those factories fall into Chinese hands,” O’Brien said.
Piers Morgan asked Gov. DeSantis if the U.S. should get involved in China’s invades Taiwan.
“That would be aggression,” DeSantis said. “Absolutely it would be aggression. Taiwan is a strong ally of the United States. I think that’s a critical interest, for us but also for our key allies like Japan and South Korea, and I think overall the number one issue that we face internationally is checking the growth and the rise of China.”
“They’re much more powerful than Putin and Russia are, and they really represent the biggest threat that we’ve seen to our ability to lead since the Soviet Union,” he continued.
The governor was also asked about TikTok and if he would ban it.
DeSantis responded, “I would.”
“I think it’s a security risk, they are harvesting so much data on our citizens,” DeSantis continued. “There’s a whole bunch of other apps and stuff that are out there, and honestly Piers, I’ve got young kids. I don’t want our kids on some of this stuff. It’s not healthy for them. The TikTok in China is sanitized, it’s more wholesome. Here they’re putting in a lot of bad stuff too. So, I think it’s had a corrosive impact but that in of itself wouldn’t be enough, what’s enough though is how they’re harvesting that to use against the American people.”
