GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Elon Musk Friday that he favors more immigration into skilled U.S. jobs and that former President Donald Trump made a “poor decision” by exiting the Pacific-region free trade treaty.
“I think we should re-enter it,” Ramaswamy said to Musk about 94 minutes into the conversation on Twitter. “I think this is a little bit different than what, you know, the course of action taken by Trump in exiting the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership]. I think that was actually a poor decision.”
Ramaswamy did argue that the U.S. should seek changes from the other countries before re-entering the TPP deal:
I think that I can use the leverage of the fact that we did exit it to be able to say, “All right, here’s what we need done differently in a number of the countries from Japan down,” to be able to say here’s how we re-enter that on that fairer terms. And so that’s what I’d like to see … That puts us in a strong position from a trade perspective to then take a look at where we stand vis-a-vis China. So I could go on for hours on this one.
Trump’s decision to exit the treaty during his first week in office was very popular because it would have allowed United States companies more opportunities to import low-wage workers for domestic jobs that are being done by middle-class Americans.
About 20 minutes into the conversation, Ramaswamy also argued for more migration after Musk called for more migration:
I agree with that. I actually fully agree with that. And that’s one of the things where I think the Republican Party needs to define where we actually stand. There is an anti-legal immigration current [mood among voters] … I’m going to be on the debate stage in a month, and if anybody has any qualms with this, I think I’m gonna have a real problem with that because merit-based immigration is one of the fixes to economic growth in this country.
“Merit-based immigration” refers mostly to the inflow of foreign graduates into the well-paid white-collar careers needed by American graduates.
Many polls show that Americans — especially GOP voters — are increasingly outspoken against both legal immigration and illegal migration that is used to shift vast wealth from middle-class families to business leaders and coastal investors. The polls show the greatest opposition to migration into corporate jobs. Those much-denied populist attitudes fueled Trump’s win in the 2016 election against the globalist-backed Hillary Clinton, who prioritized Wall Street’s economic growth instead of voters’ pocketbook growth.
Ramaswamy’s statement suggested he would use the GOP candidates’ debates to go after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is challenging the government’s use of migration to aid companies and investors.
In May, DeSantis said:
We determine as Americans what type of immigration system benefits our country, but when you’re doing immigration, it’s not for their benefit as foreigners, it’s for your benefit as Americans.
So if there’s legal immigration that’s harming Americans, we shouldn’t do that either. For example, some of these H-1B visas, they would fire American tech workers and hire foreigners at lower wages. I don’t agree with that. I think that’s wrong.
During the lengthy conversation on Twitter Spaces, Ramaswamy backed Musk’s portrayal of United States society as a sports team where managers can freely replace lagging domestic players with more productive foreigners.
Musk, who is an immigrant from South Africa, said:
I want to say it in a way that … everyone can understand, which, imagine if America is a pro-sports team. We want to win the championship, and we want to keep winning the championship. And there are some ace players on another team, and they really want to join our team. And now we can make them fight us, or we can have them join our team and just crush [the championships]. And I think if ace players want to join our team, please do. That is the way to continue success … [We] should welcome them, not have all these ridiculous [immigration] obstacles.
“Exactly,” the U.S.-born Ramaswamy responded before blaming President Joe Biden’s business-backed flood of illegal migrants for Americans’ rising opposition to legal and illegal migration:
I think part of the reason you have that reaction is … what we have is somebody who doesn’t even sign up for the team just gets to show up on the field. And that’s what we have now, which creates a backlash from the existing team members to say, “We don’t want any more,” when in fact, what we should be saying is, “We want the best ones who come and follow the process for actually training and joining the team.” And that’s what I think merit-based legal immigration ought to be about.
Both Ramaswamy and Musk own businesses or investment firms that gain whenever the government does not protect citizens and employees against an inflow of foreign candidates for jobs needed by American citizens and their families.
But Ramaswamy also argued that the U.S. government should use its negotiating power to protect U.S. employers and investors from foreign pressure, saying:
It’s very important that [a new treaty would ensure] no more forced IP [intellectual property] transfers, no more forced data transfers, no more forced … service of non-economic nature [that turns] companies into lobbying pawns, [for example], effectively having a nice little [political] condition to be able to get a domestic license to do business, [such as] if you’re Blackrock selling mutual funds in China to make sure that you don’t apply the same standards to Chinese companies that you apply to American ones.
Overall, Ramaswamy argued against political pressure on Wall Street investors, saying:
Part of what the difference was between economics … [in] the U.S. and Europe over the last 50 years — I’m not saying this was the sole difference, but I think it was a factor where U.S. stocks over like a 50-year period had outperformed European stocks — [is] the fundamental model of corporate governance in the U.S. was value maximization. The fundamental model of corporate governance in Europe was the multi-stakeholder model. I think our side won. Why on earth now — to play your basketball team analogy — would the basketball team adopt the strategy of the losing team?
Even as he argued for more migration and loosened curbs on foreign investment, Ramaswamy called for a renaissance in U.S. society after decades of losses caused by migration and outsourcing to China:
I think part of the truth we can rediscover, part of what is good, is the revival of things like individual self-worth on this planet, a sense of grounding and family, a sense of grounding in the nation … We’re like a bunch of blind bats flying around in a cave, trying to figure out where we are.
That cave could be the universe, and that cave could just be a cave on this earth. But we send out sonar signals, and they bounce back, and they say, “Hey, this is where I am. Because I’m blind, I can’t really see where I am.” And so one of those things that [the signal] bounces off of could be family, could be my grounding in the fact that I’m a citizen of this nation [and] that means something to me. It could be my faith that I believe in God [because] I’m a person of this faith. I’m an individual. I worked hard. I created something. It could be the company that I worked for or that I created. That [signal] bounces back and tells me, “This is where I am.”
And so I think there’s a lot of that to do at home … I think that we live in a moment where a lot of those other [civic] pillars right here at home on Earth, even in the United States of America, even in central Iowa where I am today, those pillars have disappeared… My mission is to rebuild some of those basics.
“I think we should definitely not lose, like, pride in America,” Musk responded. “We should be proud to be American, and I certainly am.”