Pompeo: ‘The Chinese Communist Party Has Declared Economic War on America’

During Wednesday’s “The Ingraham Angle,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lamented executives in the U.S. financial sector.

Host Laura Ingraham played a video of Citibank CEO Jane Fraser warning about the possible consequences of pulling back from China.

“When we look at the clients that we serve, many of them are multinational clients in China,” Fraser said. “And we see that there is a high degree of interdependence. We’ve got to take a strategic view in America as to where it is that we need more strategic independence and to build that in a thoughtful manner. But also in a way that doesn’t cause crises, economic crises.”

Pompeo reacted by noting that Fraser and others in high finance had not acknowledged the “economic war” the Chinese had declared on the United States.

“[I] will tell you, it also sounds an awful lot what I heard from Chinese leaders, Chinese leadership saying, ‘Oh, we’re so connected, it’ll be really bad for you.’ This is precisely the wrongheaded thinking that for 40 years didn’t recognize that the Chinese Communist Party has declared economic war on America, they stoke their economy on the back of America, and we allowed them to do it.”

“I hope our senior financial leaders will begin to truly understand that they are American companies with American interest and do the things that will defend American freedom and put real trust on the Chinese Communist Party to begin to behave,” he added.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor