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Ron Paul: the real reasons behind U.S. - China tensions
(Kitco News) - America has always needed a reason to fund its military industrial complex, which is why the country has had a history of “aggravating” other nations, said former congressman Ron Paul.
Paul said that this is the incorrect approach to foreign policy and that the U.S. should be focused on more free trade instead.
“China is more or less a scapegoat, which is very unpopular to say, that’s unpatriotic to say that we have some responsibility for ourselves. We need to stop the interference in trade. I think free trade will neutralize the disagreements that we have, but we always seem to have to have an enemy,” Paul told Kitco News.
The U.S. should not be meddling in Chinese affairs to begin with, Paul said.
“I just think that we shouldn’t be there. What would we say if China has as much activity in the Gulf of Mexico as we have in the South China Sea? The Americans would be really, really annoyed by that, and we can understand that. We didn’t like it when the Soviets were in Cuba,” he said.
It’s also not necessary to be involved in so many different foreign jurisdictions in the interest of national security, Paul said.
“I just don’t think that we need to be in so many different places, and it’s a false statement to say that it’s for national security. That’s just a cliché for spending more money on the military-industrial complex,” he said.
Should a permanent decoupling of relations between the U.S. and China happen, the global economy and the stability of global security would be in jeopardy, Paul noted.
“If there is a total decoupling, I think that is very, very bad. In a way it’s microscopic, the problems we’ve had with Cuba over all these years,” he said.
