Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed the threat of China and its looming influence over American companies, particularly Big Tech, on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" with Maria Bartiromo.
Apple, the highest-valued company in the world, changed the way the Apple AirDrop feature works in China, restricting the function so that protesters could not use the feature to communicate how activists did so in Hong Kong.
Apple CEO Tim Cook remained silent when Fox Business' Hillary Vaughn questioned him last week about whether he supports the Chinese people's right to protest. According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Apple generated $74.2 billion in the last fiscal year in China. The company signed a five-year contract with Chinese officials to help build the Chinese Communist Party its own technology.
"If these tech companies won't fix it, if they're going to continue to underwrite, allow to expand the Chinese Communist Party by financing the Communist Party, then we're going to have to take it into our own hands," said Pompeo. "I think the political risk to companies like Apple is real.
"A lot of companies are seeing it, and they're trying to move out of China," added Pompeo.
"If they can't see what they are doing is denying human dignity to the people of China and putting Americans at risk as well, then we're going to have to pass laws that prevent them from playing footsie with the Chinese Communist Party, empowering and emboldening them and creating wealth for them," said Pompeo.
He believes America has a shot at combating the ills of the CCP but acknowledges the vast amount of work and the lackluster leadership of the GOP.
"They are an adversary determined to make us more like them, and we have to make sure — just like President [Ronald] Reagan did — we have to make sure we win, and they lose," said the former secretary of state.
He said TikTok, a popular video social media platform among the youth operated and owned in China, should be banned.
"Not only are they surveilling our kids — that's horrible, right, that they know what your child's face looks like, they know who their friends are, they know who they're going out to see on a Friday night when they're in college — but it's also a propaganda tool here inside the United States," said Pompeo.
He said all Chinese apps and technologies should be banned and that the CCP is "inside America; it's inside the gates. We have to confront it."
Pompeo believes the issue can be dealt with on the local level. Governors like Kristi Noem have already banned TikTok on government phones. He said, "There should be a full-on effort to confront China at every level of the United States government."
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