Vivek Ramaswamy Outlines His ‘Modern Monroe’ Foreign Policy Agenda

YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Breakout GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy unveiled his foreign policy vision from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, in Orange County, California, Thursday night.

“These are naked views that you are not supposed to share in public,” the 38-year-old entrepreneur admitted, as he detailed an agenda that strongly reimagines the nation’s relationship with Russia, China, Taiwan, India and other Asian nations.

Ramaswamy called his strategic framework the “Modern Monroe Doctrine.”

With plans to “revise [the] spirit of Nixonian realism,” Ramaswamy said, “the North Star of my foreign policy will be the Modern Monroe Doctrine combined with the Nixon Doctrine — that other nations have to be the first protectors of their own national security.”

Drawing inspiration from the Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century, which asserted American interests and influence in the Western Hemisphere, Ramaswamy’s iteration places a renewed emphasis on national security and the preservation of American ideals.

“If you are a foreign nation,” he added, “you do not mess with the United States of America on our own home soil … and if you do, you will have hell to pay for it.”

He outlined his specific plans for a number of current strategic conflicts.

Under his foreign policy, Ramaswamy proposed that he would end the war in Ukraine “on terms that advance American interests.”

Further, he said, “I will end the Ukraine war on terms that require Putin to end his military alliance with China. But in any good deal, everybody has to get something out of the deal — that is realism. So we will freeze the current lines of control and make a commitment that NATO will never admit Ukraine.”

He also said that he would reopen economic relations with Russia but require that Russia exit its military alliance with China, remove nuclear weapons from Kaliningrad and end Russia’s military presence in the Western Hemisphere. All of this, he said, was a reverse maneuver of what Nixon accomplished with Mao in 1972.

“In my first year in office in 2025, I will make a trip to Moscow to make the same deal that Nixon did when he traveled to China,” Ramaswamy said.

But he acknowledged these actions would not come without consequences.

“I know this is an uncomfortable shock to our modern bipartisan foreign policy establishment,” Ramaswamy said, and “if you’re going to roll that log over, you better bring the pesticide.” 

“Conventional wisdom is, this will threaten Taiwan and American interests which we have in Taiwan,” he said, “Well, leave it to Taiwan to accept a Second Amendment of its own.” 

But before leaving Taiwan to its own defense, he emphasized the importance of the U.S. achieving semiconductor independence. Only after that point would America’s commitments to Taiwan alter.

“We will defend Taiwan if China invades Taiwan before we have semiconductor independence in this country,” Ramaswamy said. “After the U.S. achieves semiconductor independence, our commitments will change.” 

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