The Libertarian View: Presidential Nominee Chase Oliver on China, the Border, and the Economy

[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW] Chase Oliver is the Libertarian Party’s 2024 nominee for U.S. President. In this episode, we get his take on solving the border crisis, boosting the economy, and managing the threat of China and other adversaries.

“Eventually, a lot of these countries do end up overthrowing their terrible, autocratic governments, and when they look for an example of what they want to go to, we need to be that shining beacon for them to look at. This is what free speech can give us: the most prosperous and powerful economy in the world, because ideas are allowed to spread,” says Mr. Oliver.

“I fear what happens if we stop being the best and most free and prosperous nation in the world, because that’s what will allow China to truly ascend, is if we step away from our principles and our values. If we hold true to those, there’s nothing China can do to stop us because we’re going to be a more powerful economy, a more powerful military, and a more powerful cultural force around the world.”

Mr. Oliver proposes what he calls a “21st century Ellis Island” in order to streamline the process of migration into the United States.

“99 percent of people just want to come here and work, get a job, make some money, and possibly take that money back home with them to their family during the offseason if they’re in agriculture. We need to facilitate that through a 21st-century Ellis Island that basically says, if you’re coming here, come through a port of entry. Submit yourself to a background check and health check to make sure you’re all good to go if you are coming, and get to work. When we do that, we streamline the process of getting those peaceful workers right through the port of entry. And we can really laser focus our law enforcement on those who are trafficking human beings for the purposes of labor or sexual exploitation, or for those who bring fentanyl, in order to basically sell it as Xanax,” explains Mr. Oliver.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek:
Chase Oliver, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Chase Oliver:
Thank you for having me.

Mr. Jekielek:
How did you end up being a presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party? Please tell us about your background.

Mr. Oliver:
First, it’s about how I came to be a Libertarian. I started out in politics as an anti-war Democrat because I opposed the George Bush wars. When we elected Barack Obama, he made a lot of anti-war promises and failed to deliver. When that happened, I decided to leave the Democratic Party and became an independent for a while. Luckily, I stumbled upon the Libertarian Party of Georgia booth at a festival. They literally waved me into their tent. They said, “If you’re anti-war, you’re really pro-liberty. You’re really a libertarian at heart, and let us explain to you why.”
That started my journey. Then I ran for Congress in a special election because they needed somebody in Atlanta to run. I thought, “I’m a Libertarian from Atlanta. I’ll do it.” From there, I ran for the U.S. Senate. Many people saw me reach the runoff between Walker and Warnock. They immediately said, “That’s the guy who needs to run for President.” I thought they were crazy, but here we are a year-and-a-half later. I’m the nominee for the Libertarian Party, and I’m loving it.

Mr. Jekielek:
You’re fundamentally anti-war. Please explain that for us.

Mr. Oliver:
I don’t believe the United States should go to war unless it’s a war that’s fully declared by Congress in line with the Constitution. Since 9/11, we have been imposing our values through the war on terror, using bombs, bullets, and drones. This has only created further tension with other countries around the world. A much better approach to foreign policy is to engage with other nations like we do with our neighbors in our own communities. We engage in commerce, discourse, and discussion. We don’t resort to violence. That should be the way nations interact with each other as international neighbors.

Mr. Jekielek:
Let’s talk about China. This is an area that I have been following for a few decades as it’s highly relevant to what you just described. We have tried to engage with China using a similar approach to what you mentioned. However, we often don’t understand their intentions, which is particularly true at the moment.
Currently, China describes itself as waging a people’s war against America, and this manifests in various ways. They allocate $16 billion a year on influence operations like the United Front. This is just for influence operations on Americans. Reacting to that with discourse doesn’t seem to have worked.
Mr. Oliver:
You’re right. We want to engage in full, free, voluntary trade. Sometimes our partners are not necessarily acting in good faith and we see that with China. They manipulate the currency and use other mechanisms to gain advantage in trade negotiations. What I encourage us to do is call their bluff and continue trading, because they’re inflating a bubble that will eventually burst. When it does, the people of China will demand market liberalism.
Any centrally planned economic system that manipulates the economy will eventually have consequences. When this happens, the billion-plus people in China will demand a better government, and hopefully through peaceful revolution, push for a more liberalized government in the long term. But as the world’s leading economy, we must continue to push for this and show that playing by the rules of the road leads to economic growth. We can grow our influence with international neighbors by trusting that our market forces can invest in the developing world and create market relationships independent of government intervention.
American business has been successful at this. It wasn’t just Ronald Reagan who tore down the Berlin Wall, but also brands like Wrangler jeans and McDonald’s, which represented Western trade and values. We can continue to promote this kind of engagement in East Asia and hopefully see market liberalism flourish over the next generation.

Mr. Jekielek:
Engaging the people of a nation is different from engaging the dictatorship or ruling party of that nation. Different diplomatic strategies would be required.
Mr. Oliver:
Yes, I believe we always need to separate people from their government. I believe in every aspect of foreign and domestic policy. As Americans, we need to separate ourselves from the government quite often. With foreign policy, particularly with economic development, I support programs outside of the government sphere, such as micro-lending. These programs allow entrepreneurs in the United States and the Western world to directly inject capital into the developing world and build relationships on a personal level, rather than a governmental one. Governments, after all, have a monopoly on violence, and both the elites on both sides often have a vested interest in continuing conflict.

Why do we keep rattling the saber with China? The military-industrial complex wants to keep finding new weapon systems to justify their existence. They claim that an ascendant China is a reason to worry, even though we are far ahead militarily. We have to engage with the Chinese government, but with caution. We have to recognize that we can only trust them so far.
However, I want to see more American entrepreneurs investing in China, and more Chinese entrepreneurs investing in the United States as their markets hopefully liberalize. Strong market relationships between people can lead to a demand for their governments to stop the saber-rattling. This approach can create far better change than high-level talks between the two countries that often lead nowhere and only worsen the division.

Mr. Jekielek:
Regarding doing business in China, it is true that you have to provide your intellectual property (IP) to the partner company you work with. They can then use it however they please. An example is Segway, a company that went into China to do production. The partner company obtained the IP, as is customary, and a competitor that arose from that transferred IP later bought the original Segway. Now, it is considered Chinese technology. This doesn’t seem fair to me.
Mr. Oliver:
Yes. As we expose more instances like this, you will see fewer people wanting to send their money and economic development into China. This will ultimately harm China in the long run. This is a great example of why some American firms might choose not to do business there and prefer to do business in countries like Vietnam, Thailand, or South Korea, where they don’t face these challenges with China.
As the Chinese economy eventually heads towards a recession due to currency manipulation and other economic tactics, you will see people questioning why those American firms didn’t invest in China and instead went to Vietnam, South Korea, Thailand, or Malaysia. It’s because those countries treat businesses fairly and have voluntary and free exchange. This is not the case with China.
We need to further push the idea that you can’t simply steal someone’s product because you do business with them, and certainly not force them to hand over that information to the government. Maybe there could be economic incentives to encourage such actions. But if I were running Segway and was given such a deal, I would instead choose to open a factory in South Korea, who is a great trading partner.

Mr. Jekielek:
The U.S. and Japan have had a very good relationship for a long time, and China observed how that relationship worked. The U.S. approached Japan and said, “Let’s engage in free trade. As long as we have free trade, we will be great friends.” This led to significant growth in the Japanese economy, making it one of the largest in the world. Some argue that China followed a similar path, but the issue was that they had a communist dictatorship governing the country. While China did make certain beneficial economic reforms, they did not make comparable political reforms.

Mr. Oliver:
We need to highlight these contrasts and our differences in values. We are currently at Freedom Fest, and I’m sure there are people here with whom I strongly disagree. I participated in a debate last night with a couple of individuals, and we were able to have productive discussions and disagreements without resorting to reporting each other’s words to higher authorities. This creates a better world that fosters growth. As the United States, we need to continue being a shining example of this.
The best way for us to combat censorship abroad is by combating the creeping censorship that’s happening here in the United States. We need to push back against that and assert ourselves as the freest and most expressive nation on earth, serving as a beacon for other nations to look to. Eventually, many of these countries will overthrow their autocratic governments and seek an example to follow. We need to be the shining beacon they look at. Free speech is what can give us the most prosperous and powerful economy because it allows ideas to spread. Through discourse, the best ideas thrive and the worst ideas fall aside.

This is the fatal flaw of central planning, communism, and socialism. It is a very small number of people making market decisions for billions of people. In contrast, capitalism and markets work because they allow for trillions of individual decisions. Central planning leads to redundancy, inefficiency, and ultimately the death and starvation of people due to insufficient resources.

This is why capitalism and markets work. By expressing these principles through our government, we can expose the people in China to these ideas. In the information age, it is harder to isolate everyone completely. The more we expose people to these ideas, the more likely they will rise up and implement them in China. We can achieve this without resorting to violence. As long as we remain true to our principles and the Constitution, the people of China will one day rise up.

Mr. Jekielek:
I have been following your thoughts on the military. China is currently undergoing a significant military buildup while the U.S. is not. A comparison of military shipbuilding clearly shows that China has a considerable advantage. China follows a doctrine known as military-civil fusion, where any development with potential military application must be done in coordination with the military.
Even if a company is economically independent, it is still under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party. China practices a system called unrestricted warfare, called asymmetric hybrid warfare in the West. Essentially, everything in China is geared towards countering their greatest adversary, which is America. This poses a significant threat to us, and if we are not prepared, it could become a substantial problem for us.

Mr. Oliver:
I recognize that China is certainly building up its military, but I also recognize that there’s a disparity. China is the second-largest military spender in the world. However, we spend five or six times more on the military. Even if we cut our military in half, we’d still be doubling our military investment compared to what China is investing today. We’re already the most military-capable fighting force on earth.
A single aircraft carrier could take out a nation if we needed to, in terms of our capability. It is similar to our nuclear capability. The first thing we have to do if we want to be calling China’s bluff and insisting that they are not arming themselves nuclear and growing their nuclear arsenals, we have to signal to the rest of the world that we’re willing to disarm some of our nuclear arsenal. The U.S. and Russia have the two largest nuclear stockpiles in the world, and it creates a world on the brink.
Yes, I understand that China’s building up, but I also understand that the United States spends so much in the military-industrial complex, far beyond what they need to be able to combat China, if China really wanted to start a war. I also remind people that the United States itself is a heavily armed nation. We have the Second Amendment for a reason. If China landed an aircraft carrier on the coast of California and tried to invade, they wouldn’t make it to Utah before gun owners took them out. We are a well-armed civilian population, and they are not afforded that freedom and that capability.
I recognize that China is an aggressor on the global scale. All we can do is lead by example, show what happens if we reduce our nuclear stockpiles, and that engages China to do the same. Hopefully, we can engage Russia to do the same. But as far as military spending, yes, they’re going to build up their military. It’s part of the bubble that’s going to burst eventually because, of course, it’s central planning money.
If we stop being the best and most free and prosperous nation in the world, and if we step away from our principles and our values, that’s what will allow China to truly ascend. If we hold true to those principles and values, there’s nothing China can do to stop us, because we’re going to be a more powerful economy, a more powerful military, and a more powerful cultural force around the world. Nothing they can do will change that, in my opinion, because of the freedom we enjoy.

Mr. Jekielek:
You’re familiar with strategic deterrence doctrines. Of course, the idea is that if you have the weapon, you stay strong.

Mr. Oliver:
You’re right. We do have to ensure that we maintain vigilance, and in my opinion, the best deterrent is a strong and powerful military. I will never argue for a weak military. I believe we need to have a military that can protect us from sovereign invasion and act as a check against bad actors around the world. If anyone ever wants to go to war with us, it will be the last thing they do. We must maintain our military strength.
However, I also recognize that our military budget is bloated. There are areas in the military where we can make cuts without compromising readiness. We can streamline our Pentagon spending and achieve a more prepared force at a fraction of the cost we spend today.It’s about aligning our priorities and ensuring that we are not benefiting lobbyists who want to fund unnecessary weapons systems.
Many of the programs we develop in the United States military are not really necessary. They are outdated weapons systems that we continue to produce simply for job creation. Instead, we should focus on preparing ourselves for 21st-century warfare, like information warfare and cybersecurity. Additionally, we should prioritize securing our infrastructure, such as water, electricity, and nuclear power plants, rather than building tanks for a land war.

Mr. Jekielek:
I appreciate your thoughts on China. I would like to discuss domestic policy further. In your closing remarks, you mentioned wanting to tear down the system. However, you also believe in being the shining city on the hill. Isn’t that part of the system?

Mr. Oliver:
I believe in the system as intended by the Constitution and the principles it upholds. However, our current government has deviated significantly from those principles. We now have a massive lobbying force and regulatory agencies that dictate market decisions, picking winners and losers. We need to distance ourselves from these aspects because, as you mentioned, we are a capitalist nation. We operate under a market-based system. But there are many areas where undue influence and regulation hinder our true potential, and we need to address those issues.
But there are so many areas where there is this creep of socialism and market control and central planning that I want to sound the alarm on. We can actually be much better than we are today. We can be more prosperous and grow faster if we start removing ourselves from the creeping socialism that is coming into our government.

That’s not just from Democrats. Most people would assume that Democrats are the more socialist party in the United States. But Republicans want to do that too, through their own picking of winners and losers in the marketplace, and through their own regulatory loopholes that they give to giant corporate interests. This really harms small businesses who effectively pay a higher tax rate than those big businesses. Small businesses are the largest job creators in this country, but all the profit seems to be going to the large corporate interests.

Why is that? Because they can buy and pay for the tax code. They can get the carve-outs and deductions they want. Their effective cost of doing business is much lower, resulting in larger profit margins. We need to get back to a truly competitive free market.
We currently have market capitalism for the average person, but socialism for the rich and well-connected. This is a problem because it creates a top-heavy economy that benefits the wealthy but not the small business owner and the average family in this country.

The system I want to tear down is this grift at the top that allows for so much influence to be exerted by those who have wealth. It takes away wealth from the average American family. Through market forces, we can correct this, but we have to remove government interference from those market forces.

Mr. Jekielek:
Libertarians are not polling very high, it would be fair to say. Of course, there’s an interest in the Libertarian Party here at Freedom Fest. If you do not win the presidency, what would be the biggest win you could achieve through your candidacy?

Mr. Oliver:
The largest metric of victory would be winning the White House. It’s a very high hill to climb for a third party, based on the nature of our two-party system. But there are lots of other victories we can have. We can have ballot access wins, so it is easier to run Libertarians all up and down the ballot. The people can see more Libertarian options in their ballot and they can become more comfortable with us. They can see us in the marketplace of ideas, and we can ultimately grow and win at the local level and start building up our bench.

We can win major party status at the state level. That gives us access to the primary ballot. The Libertarian Party of Iowa got to participate in the Iowa caucus, a huge political event, because we earned major party status in the previous election. That’s what got me on stage at the Iowa State Fair political soapbox, one of the largest political functions, as the first candidate who’s not a Republican or Democrat to ever participate in the soapbox.
We made that investment and earned that major party status, so those two things can help us build our party structure up. In addition to getting the ideas out there, the best part about running as a Libertarian is that we push our ideas out there. The Democrats or Republicans, in an effort to not lose votes, adapt and adopt those ideas themselves. We’re pushing the Overton window towards liberty through pressure outside of the two parties.

Mr. Jekielek:
A big topic right now is how our borders should work, given our current reality. People are dying of fentanyl in America, and China is waging war on America by providing the precursors for that. They’re involved in every step of the supply chain, including laundering the money. Organized crime cartels are running people through the border, which also helps bring in the fentanyl. All this comes at a tremendous cost to America.

Mr. Oliver:
The border situation is clearly a crisis and every American can recognize that. But I think the reason is that the government does a really bad job of streamlining the process to allow peaceful workers to come here and work. That’s what most immigrants are colloquially. 99 percent of the people just want to come here and get a job, make some money, and possibly take that money back home with them to their family during the off-season, if they’re in agriculture.
We need to facilitate that through a 21st-century Ellis Island that basically says that if you’re coming here, come through a port of entry, submit yourself to a background check and a health check to make sure you’re all good to go. If you are, then come in and get to work. When we do that, we streamline the process of getting those peaceful workers right through the port of entry, and we can really laser focus our law enforcement on those issues.

As a Libertarian, I want to end the drug war and decriminalize all drugs. But pressing fentanyl into a Xanax pill and selling it to someone who believes they are taking a Xanax, resulting in an overdose, is fraud and violence that needs to be addressed. If we allow peaceful people to enter the country through our ports of entry, we can focus our law enforcement at the border on catching those who intend to do harm. We need to separate those causing harm from those seeking a better life.

This streamlined process will be more secure for the United States and better for immigrants who are given some form of legal status to work here, preventing their labor from being exploited. Additionally, this will help protect American workers from having their wages driven down by foreign workers. Therefore, a 21st-century Ellis Island is a more practical solution than attempting to deport millions of people or placing everyone in cages.

Mr. Jekielek:
Doesn’t that strain the social safety net?

Mr. Oliver:
As a libertarian, I believe we can address multiple issues simultaneously. This includes reforming entitlements and the existing welfare system. Texas, being the second largest state in the United States and having the second-largest number of illegal immigrants, actually showed a net benefit to the tax base of around $422 million in fiscal year 2018, according to a study conducted by Rice University. While they do utilize social services, they also contribute to the tax system through sales tax, property tax passed on through rent, excise taxes, and even contribute to the social security system through false social security cards, without ever being able to collect benefits.
Ultimately, immigrants can be an economic net benefit to the United States. While there are cases where immigrants may place a strain on resources, when viewed in a broader spectrum, they are actually beneficial.They contribute to the growth of the economy. Many immigrants or children of immigrants are currently leading Fortune 500 companies. To me, it’s actually positive that we are attracting industrious individuals who are eager to work hard, create something, and fully utilize their potential in the free market in the United States.

Mr. Jekielek:
The argument is that the people who come here through the standard process are more likely to fit the description you just provided.
Mr. Oliver:
The majority of individuals who genuinely desire to come through the standard process are indeed hardworking and industrious. However, there are also many individuals who are sidelined by the process because it is too long and expensive. This is when they end up coming here illegally.
They weigh the cost-benefit of going through a lengthy and costly process versus taking the risk of being smuggled across the border and being able to start working in the economy immediately. I believe that if we streamline the process, individuals won’t have to make such a decision anymore. Additionally, this would lead to a decrease in human trafficking.

Mr. Jekielek:
Any final thoughts as we finish up?

Mr. Oliver:
I hope your viewers will consider that they have more than just two choices when they look at their ballot. I encourage them to thoroughly research each candidate, visit their website, examine their platform, and disregard the party affiliation. Instead, vote for the person they believe is the best candidate. If every American did that, I think we would already have a Libertarian Party president.

Mr. Jekielek:
Chase Oliver, such a pleasure to have you on the show.

Mr. Oliver:
Thank you very much.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.