Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis continued his presidential campaign on Dec. 5 by pledging to ban Communist China from being able to invest in American companies responsible for developing sensitive technologies and artificial intelligence.
Mr. DeSantis’s Tech-Integrity Project Pledge states: “If elected to office, I pledge to prevent foreign investments of U.S. tech companies from aiding our adversaries, like the Chinese Communist Party, and harming America’s economic competitiveness and national security.
“Specifically, I will do everything in my power to block adversaries from benefiting from U.S.-made next-gen technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum computing.”
The goal of the tech-integrity project is “to protect the national security and economic competitiveness of the United States by preventing American Big Tech companies from helping” America’s adversaries, especially the CCP, by educating presidential candidates and voters and supporting policies that would restrict and prevent American companies from getting away with such behavior.
In its mission statement, the project calls out Big Tech companies like Microsoft and Apple for selling out and “aiding and abetting the CCP to gain access to China’s market and reap profits.”
“The American people and our hard-fought freedoms are what enabled these companies to become the behemoths they are today,” the project states in its mission statement.
“They should put our country first. Instead, Big Tech is helping China with artificial intelligence, giving trade secrets to the CCP, and selling sensitive technologies to Chinese firms who serve China’s military and commit human rights atrocities.”
DeSantis has maintained his stance against Communist China during his governorship and defended it on the campaign trail.
In his going-on two terms in Tallahassee, the governor has signed legislation to ban the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—and its associates—from owning land and doing business in Florida.
He has also shut down CCP-operated Confucius Institutes on Florida college campuses.
The governor has also distinguished himself from his fellow Republicans by demonstrating that he does not leave well enough alone when it comes to big businesses, specifically by standing up to The Walt Disney Company after it threatened to fight against the Parental Rights in Education bill.
He’s been on record accusing people in the Republican Party of having a hands-off “chamber of commerce view” of business and preferring to allow corporations to do as they please.
And, in the case of Disney, he’s asserted multiple times that he would continue to fight back and not allow a corporation to utilize size, subsidiaries, and special privileges to work against Florida parents and policy.
He also passed legislation that prohibited corporations from threatening their employees with job loss if they did not get vaccinated.
The Epoch Times reached out to both the governor’s campaign and the Tech Integrity Project for further comment, but neither party responded in time for publication.
Mr. DeSantis is scheduled to participate in the fourth Republican Presidential Debate in Alabama on Dec. 6.
