Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Sunday slammed the reported U.S. deal to buy Chinese drones for the FBI and Secret Service.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Ratcliffe denounced the risky plan first reported by Axios.
“Like so much of the Biden administration has done on national security lately, it makes very little sense,” Ratcliffe said.
“It’s hard to make sense what is doing this other than it is consistent with the Biden administration’s taking a softer approach in trying to promote a false narrative that somehow China is a competitor, not an adversary,” he said.
“And you would think that the lessons learned from COVID-19 would teach everyone that China is not to be trusted and that moves like this are harmful to our national security posture,” he said.
According to Axio, the proposal comes as efforts to purge military and law enforcement agencies of potentially compromised Chinese tech have stalled because of bureaucratic red tape and as experts worry the federal government is needlessly expositing itself to snooping by foreign actors.
“There’s so many both in Washington and in Wall Street that do not want China to be the bad guy,” Ratcliffe said. “As I said before, recent events around the world that resulted in the death of 4 million people worldwide at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party through COVID-19 should teach a lesson that China should not be trusted.”
According to Ratcliffe, China is going to be increasingly aggressive with the “weak” Biden administration, adding stepped-up aggression by China toward Taiwan was predictable.
“We predicted this and said that there will be a ripple effect from Afghanistan among the dark adversaries, particularly China and the Indo-Pacific would test American resolve in the face of a retreat and a surrender to the Taliban,” he said.
“And that’s exactly what happened in Taiwan and we cannot afford to let that happen,” he added. “Unfortunately, I think the Chinese are going to continue to be aggressive over the next three years when they see weak leadership in the White House.”
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