North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum said over the weekend that it was important for the U.S. to use energy policy to dominate in its cold war versus communist China.
Burgum, who is running for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, made the remarks during an interview with Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.”
The 66-year-old said that he is running for president, despite endorsing former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, because he believes “we need to focus on the things that matter the most to most Americans, and that is the economy.”
“I mean we don’t just need course corrections on the economy, energy, national security, we need 180 degree turn because on the economy, whether it’s inflation, taxes, spending, deficit, trade, all in the wrong direction,” Burgum said. “On energy policy, we should selling energy to our friends and allies instead of buying it from our adversaries.”
“And on national security, that starts with border security. And right now we’ve got an open border,” he added. “I’ve been down there with the National Guard troops of North Dakota, and it’s completely unreported what’s going on down there. And all of these things are affecting every American.”
Burgum then discussed the issue of China, saying that while it is a cold war, it’s different than when the U.S. was in a cold war against Russia.
“When Ronald Reagan was leading this country and we were in a Cold War with Russia, Russia had a small economy, they weren’t very connected,” he said. “And we were able to just outperform them with our economy. And with our strong economy, we’re able to have a strong military.”
“Now in our cold war with China, we’ve got to get our economy sprinting. It’s crawling right now. And part of the reason it’s crawling is this incredible red tape. I’ve seen the red tape as an entrepreneur, as a small business person. I’ve seen it running large global businesses,” he said, adding that the U.S. needed to be “much smarter about how we manage this.”
“And I’ll give you one horrible example: Putin likely doesn’t even invade Ukraine, if not for having all of Western Europe dependent on his energy,” he said. “Well, then belatedly, the Biden administration says we’re going to put sanctions on Russian oil. And that takes some Russian oil out of our markets. But Russia selling oil 20 to 30% off to who? To China. China, the world’s largest importer of oil and gas in the world. And we’re over there with Blinken, Yellen, Kerry, and nobody’s even talking about how we can use energy policy as a lever in our relationship in the cold war with China.”
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