Sen. Ted Budd Delivers Floor Speech Encouraging Trump Administration To Hold China Accountable For Targeting The Safety & Security Of Americans

This week,  U.S. Senator Ted Budd (R-N.C.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor ahead of President Trump’s meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China. In his speech, Senator Budd called attention to China’s war on religious freedom, its role in fueling the U.S. drug epidemic, its relationship with key U.S. adversaries, and the consequential state of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) race. 

Read Senator Budd’s remarks, as prepared for delivery: 

This week, President Xi Jinping will visit the U.S. for bilateral meetings at a pivotal moment for U.S.-China relations. During his two terms in office, President Trump has been clear that under his leadership, the United States must engage with China given the reality of our economic relationship, but we can’t forget that China is also a competitor and an adversary. 

The Chinese Communist Party’s malign influence on the world stage is growing rapidly, and American citizens are paying the price. America’s economy, our fundamental values, and our security—both at home and abroad—have been challenged by the CCP. 

I’ve long believed a whole-of-government approach is necessary to address this, and I am grateful that President Donald Trump is at the helm for these crucial negotiations. 

China is our most consequential geopolitical competitor, and we cannot afford to ignore the CCP’s ambitions to reorganize global order at the expense of the United States or underestimate the CCP’s rapidly progressing hard and soft power influence around the world to execute this goal. 

When President Xi enters the White House later this week, I hope discussions between our two nations include America’s most fundamental values and responsibilities upfront: the protection of American citizens abroad and reiterating a zero-tolerance for violating the God-given right to religious freedom. Let me be clear: there is no excuse for the CCP to unjustly target American citizens abroad or their families, harass religious groups, or carry out a broad-sweeping war on faith in China. 

To this day, eight leaders of Zion Church remain behind bars in China because of China’s attack on religious freedom. These detainments are egregious and cannot be ignored. China’s persecution of Christians and other religious groups must not go unaddressed. This is why, during my time in the Senate, I’ve sought to implement strict sanctions on any CCP official who is responsible for or directly carries out violations of religious freedom. 

Under President Trump’s leadership, we have already proven to China that the United States has zero tolerance for religious persecution, and we have seen notable results. 

At the U.S.-China Summit this past May, President Trump personally raised the case of Zion Church Pastor Ezra Jin with President Xi. Two months later, Pastor Jin was released and returned to U.S. soil, where he was reunited with his family after years of unjust detention. While we are deeply grateful for Pastor Jin’s return, we must never stop fighting to bring home the numerous pastors still unjustly detained and to defend the freedom to worship around the world. 

China’s pattern of wrongfully detaining Americans, or relatives of American citizens, is not limited solely to religious crackdowns. I also want to highlight the bipartisan effort Senator Markey and I have taken to bring home both Dr. Youlin Chen and Mr. Min Zin, American academics currently being held in brutal and inhumane conditions. 

I am grateful for this body’s bicameral, bipartisan support in condemning the People’s Republic of China’s repeated pattern of arbitrary or wrongful detention of United States citizens. 

Here at home, China’s influence and key role in the illicit drug supply chain have resulted in the loss of far too many American lives, the destruction of families, and stolen livelihoods. 

I’ve met with far too many families changed forever by the impacts of the drug epidemic. Through buying up American farmland, malign actors have brought the production of illegal hemp-derived products into our communities, and our children are paying the price. And by partnering with transnational criminal organizations, Chinese-connected companies have intentionally made highly addictive, intoxicating substances—like fentanyl and illicit vapes—readily accessible to Americans. 

But make no mistake: China is aware of the consequences of its actions. That is exactly why Beijing has no problem extending law enforcement and counter-narcotics cooperation to other nations to mitigate these outcomes. But Chinese products are still flooding American markets in what looks more and more like a reverse Opium War. It needs to end. 

Just last week, the Trump administration listed the PRC as one of 23 major drug-transit and producing countries. We have rightfully planted the flag, and now we must demand action to dismantle this criminal enterprise preying on the American people. Ahead of his meetings, President Trump is right to raise this issue directly with President Xi.  

Mister President, the American people cannot be blind to China’s efforts to threaten our national security. Especially since the PRC’s growing economic and strategic relationships with adversaries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea have had sweeping consequences. 

Earlier this year, at the U.S.-China summit in Beijing, President Trump and President Xi agreed that Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon, and the Strait of Hormuz must remain open for the free flow of global energy. 

But if Beijing wants to maintain a productive relationship with Washington, it must recognize the consequences of continuing to partner with adversarial nations that fundamentally defy U.S. interests on the world stage. 

Recent reports suggest that China provided Iran with intelligence, including satellite imagery that led to the death of three American service members. 

A PRC State-owned firm has reportedly supplied Russia with materials for kamikaze drones, violating sanctions. And the PRC has reportedly supplied Iran with air defense equipment, among other goods, bypassing sanctions. 

This behavior cannot continue. 

America’s national security must remain at the center of every discussion shaping the future of U.S.-China relations, including the race to develop technologies that will define this century. 

We are in a race with China to develop the next generation of advanced manufacturing technology, quantum computing, space travel and satellite technology, and perhaps most consequentially, artificial intelligence. 

China’s cyber-threats to the U.S. government have been well documented and damaging to our government and private sector even before the rise of artificial intelligence. 

The AI race is not simply about who builds the most powerful model. It is about who will set the standards, safeguards, and norms that will govern one of the most consequential technologies of our time. 

Beijing’s national AI strategy calls for China to reach world-leading levels in artificial intelligence by 2030 and surpass the U.S. That reality should alarm us all—especially given that these models are being developed within fundamentally different political systems. 

China is developing and deploying AI within its authoritarian system that employs censorship and state surveillance. In dramatic contrast, our models are being developed under constitutional principles that promote free speech, value individualism, and encourage private enterprise. 

As the Senator from North Carolina, a state with a growing tech industry, thriving pharmaceutical manufacturing, a pivotal financial sector, and a critical agriculture industry, my state represents many of the successes the PRC aspires to. 

Failure to maintain American dominance in these industries threatens to leave our nation vulnerable and decimate the economic growth and development that has benefited North Carolina and many others. 

I rise today to urge this body, and our entire federal government, to engage with China with our eyes wide open, and without compromising our values, our security, or our strategic interests. Not because we expect our differences to disappear, but because those differences are too consequential to ignore. 

We must continue to invest strategically in our national defense and prioritize AI engineering that promotes safety. As a nation, the United States is the most uniquely positioned to hold China accountable for exporting deadly drugs, evading sanctions in support of Iran and Russia, and for waging a war on religion. So, in that vein, Congress cannot rest in its vigilance to contain the China threat.