GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy calls for declaration of independence from China

Ramaswamy announced his decision to enter the 2024 race to the White House last month

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday called for declaration of independence from China as the Indian-American presidential aspirant asserted that he has entered the 2024 race to revive the missing national identity and realise the full potential of the American economy.

China is the top foreign policy challenge being faced by the US, Ramaswamy told CNN.

"One of the core aspects of my platform is actually unleashing the American economy itself...I think we need to unleash the American animal inside the heart of the American economy,” he said.

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"That’s why I'm taking aim at certain opponents or certain anti-growth measures. I think we find a lot of that in the climate change policies in this country. That's why I have been as focused as I have on actually unleashing not only American energy, but the American economy overall," Ramaswamy said.

Running for presidency, he said, is about something bigger. “This is about reviving a missing national identity. That's the missing ingredient to both unleashing our economy, and this is a core part of my campaign -- taking on the actual foreign policy challenges that we face on the global stage,” he said.

"Number one is communist China. And I'm leading the way in this race in calling for a declaration of independence from China, because the key difference today is, unlike the USSR in the last century, we were never dependent on the Soviet Union for the shoes on our feet, for the phones in our pockets. That is the case today,” Ramaswamy said.

"I think it's the number one external threat we face. So, I'm actually delivering a vision of national identity that hopefully allows us to make the short-run sacrifices we will need to on the global stage,” said Ramaswamy, who announced his decision to enter the 2024 race to the White House last month.

Responding to a question on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the Indian American opposed the move to bail out either the bank or even the depositors.

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"Because here's what's actually going on. Silicon Valley Bank made some uniquely bad management decisions. One of them is, first of all, they have a depositor base that's really concentrated on tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. A staggering nearly 90 per cent of their deposits are uninsured,” he said.

“That's an anomaly compared to most banks in this country. So what's happening right now is, a lot of Silicon Valley executives and V.C.s this weekend, many of them have even reached out to me to push this narrative that that's going to create a bank run in America if Silicon Valley Bank isn't actually bailed out,” he told CNN.

"But what they're doing is actually trying to create the fear of one. I think that can actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is dangerous. But the reality is, Silicon Valley Bank also had exposure to interest rate-tethered securities that they could have hedged. A normal bank would have done that. Silicon Valley Bank did not,” he said.

"I do not think we should reward that kind of bad behaviour, that kind of bad mismanagement. And even on behalf of many start-up companies who put their money in a concentrated way into that one bank, I don't think we should be rewarding that with a bailout," he said.