Pompeo on the 2022 Olympics: ‘We Cannot Allow American Athletes to Travel to Beijing and Reward the Chinese Communist Party’

During an interview that aired on Friday’s broadcast of Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated his hope that the United States would boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

According to Pompeo, U.S. participation would reward the ruling Communist Party in China.

“We were working on this very issue during the final months of the Trump administration, trying to figure out the best approach, the approach that would impose the most costs on the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “And so our first push was to develop a coalition around the world to convince the IOC to move those Games. They ought not to be held there. I hope that our athletes get a chance to participate in the Olympics. They very much deserve that.”

“But in the end, we cannot allow American athletes to travel to Beijing and reward the Chinese Communist Party all the while that they are doing all of the nasty activity that they’re engaged in, all of the malign activity they’re engaged in around the world,” Pompeo added. “The world ought to unite. The Olympics are an expression of freedom and athletic talent. And to hold them in Beijing is completely inappropriate.”

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