Ron DeSantis targets China, big business as he rolls out economic plan — including ban on lockdowns

News

By Ryan King

July 31, 2023 | 2:12pm

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rolled out a wide-ranging plan for the US economy Monday, focusing most of his ire on China and big corporations — while indicating he was “game” for a constitutional amendment that would forever ban economic and social lockdowns meant to contain the spread of pandemics like COVID-19.

“I think at the end of the day, what happened … already violated the Constitution, the Fifth Amendment, because if you take somebody’s property, you’ve got to provide just compensation,” DeSantis said during a question-and-answer session in New Hampshire.

The 44-year-old, who shot to national prominence by defying shutdowns as well as mask and vaccine mandates, was specifically asked if he would back an “amendment to prevent any more shutdowns from any other alleged Chinese viruses.”

“When I’m president, we’re going to usher in a reckoning about the people that perpetrated those policies so this never happens to our country,” the governor pledged.

During the event in Rochester, DeSantis railed against corporatism and the outsourcing of industrial jobs to China as he laid out his plan to rejuvenate the US economy.

“We cannot have policy that kowtows to the largest corporations on Wall Street at the expense of small businesses,” the 2024 Republican candidate declared at a manufacturing facility.

“There’s a difference between a free market economy, which we want, and corporatism, in which the rules are jiggered to be able to help incumbent companies,” DeSantis added. “We also have to stop selling out this country’s future to China.”

Though the candidate was light on details about how he would confront Beijing during Monday’s event, his campaign website features vows to end China’s preferential trade status, ban imports deriving from stolen intellectual property, bolster protections against child and forced labor, and restrict the sale of strategic assets like farmland to Chinese interests.

“We are no longer going to sell out to China at the expense of the American working family,” he vowed Monday.

In addition to China, DeSantis said his agenda would provide “economic independence from the failed elites and policies that have harmed this nation’s middle class.”

“We are a nation with an economy, not the other way around,” he said. “We are citizens of a republic. We are not cogs in a global economic empire.”

DeSantis’ plan calls for pursuing 3% annual economic growth by cutting regulations and lowering taxes; energy independence; ending the practice of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards by large investment firms; securing the US-Mexico border; opposing corporate and bank bailouts; and reining in government spending.

The Republican contender also vowed to gut Biden administration restrictions on cryptocurrency while opposing a national digital currency, and supporting a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.

At one point, DeSantis took an indirect swipe at former President Donald Trump over his record on federal outlays.

“We really haven’t had a president since Ronald Reagan who leaned in against Congress overspending, and so I will be that president that will do that and will stand up for taxpayers,” he vowed.

Under President Biden, DeSantis said, “American families have been saddled with weak economic growth, high prices; their quality of life has stagnated.”

“Bureaucracy and red tape are one of the leading drags on economic growth right now in our country,” he continued. “We are also going to ensure that tax rates are low, that the tax code is simple, and that these policies are permanent.”

As he has often done on the campaign trail, DeSantis cited his home state as a model for the rest of the country.

“Florida continues to lead the way,” he said. “Our economy is ranked number one amongst all 50 states by CNBC. We’re ranked number one in new business formations, number one in economic growth amongst large states, and our economy has grown way more than the nation as a whole.”

DeSantis, who most polls show a distant second behind Trump in the 2024 GOP race, will barnstorm around New Hampshire for the early part of this week before returning to Iowa for a bus tour beginning Friday.

“What kind of country do we want to have?” he asked his audience in Rochester. “And I want a country where Americans that work hard, Americans that get the most out of their God-given ability, are able to get ahead.”