On the same day second-term Republican President Donald Trump called out the United Nations for silence on the persecution of Christians, a North Carolina senator was on the floor in Washington calling out China’s war on religious freedom ahead of its president coming to America.
Trump was to welcome President Xi Jinping on Wednesday through Friday. The discussions by the leaders of the two world superpowers are expected to include the expiring trade truce, artificial intelligence guardrails, Taiwan and regional security.
Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., is hopeful for more.
“To this day, eight leaders of Zion Church remain behind bars in China because of China’s attack on religious freedom,” Budd said Tuesday afternoon on the floor of the Senate. “These detainments are egregious and cannot be ignored. China’s persecution of Christians and other religious groups must not go unaddressed.”
Budd said he’s hopeful discussions between the United States and China include “America’s most fundamental values and responsibilities upfront: the protection of American citizens abroad and reiterating a zero-tolerance for violating the God-given right to religious freedom.”
“Let me be clear,” he said. “There is no excuse for the CCP to unjustly target American citizens abroad or their families, harass religious groups, or carry out a broad-sweeping war on faith in China.”
In New York at the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Trump a few hours earlier gave a blistering message to colleagues.
“It is equally unacceptable that, with all the genuine atrocities in the world, the U.N.’s top human rights officials spend their time criticizing the United States for protecting our children from transgender mutualization and transgender insanity and enforcing our immigration laws. The craven hypocrites of the Human Rights Council have little to say about the persecution of Christians or the crimes of the world’s most repressive regimes, yet they want America to open our borders to gangs and criminals from the world’s most dangerous places.
“It is deeply ironic that the United Nations has an entire institution, the UNESCO group of people and countries, devoted to protecting cultural heritage – yet, with their ceaseless promotion of mass migration, these globalists are actively destroying the greatest cultures and most extraordinary heritage in history. There is no human right to illegal immigration, but there is a right to remain a sovereign nation.”
UNESCO is the acronym for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Budd’s speech also called out China for its role in fueling the drug epidemic in the United States, its relationship to pivotal American adversaries, and the state of the artificial intelligence race.
Trump’s speech also centered on attending to dangers immediately rather than leaving them for another day, in particular the Islamic Republic of Iran; terrorism, such as 9/11 and the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel; Cuba’s ties to the Communist Party USA, Antifa and the Democratic Socialists of America; artificial intelligence; and the fact there is no global government, hence, “While I am president, there will be no global taxes.”
