David McCormick, a Republican candidate for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, tours the Lackawanna College of Petroleum and Natural Gas in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, May 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Probable Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick (R) recently made an appearance on a podcast last week, where he again called for U.S. economic decoupling with China, despite his pro-China investments in the past.

“But the way that we begin to hold them [China] accountable is to stop allowing our dependency on those key industries,” McCormick said. “And also, stop American companies from investing in China in ways that goes directly against our interests.”

McCormick made the comments while on “The Tudor Dixon Podcast,” the former Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee’s post-election outlet.

This hard stance against investments in China is likely an attempt by McCormick to cleanse his record of his own economic ties to the Chinese Communist Party-controlled nation with another Senate run on the horizon. As the CEO of a hedge fund called Bridgewater Associates, McCormick oversaw investments worth billions of dollars in Chinese corporations like Alibaba and Baidu. Both of these companies assisted the Chinese government with researching and developing invasive surveillance technology, which was praised by Bridgewater representatives.

Prior to his role with Bridgewater, McCormick also served as the CEO of a software firm called FreeMarkets, where he heavily invested in another Chinese corporation, Huawei. Huawei was found to have deep ties with the Chinese military, and the U.S. government ceased all exports to the company last February over security concerns.

As recently as 2020, McCormick spoke against economic decoupling with China, saying it would harm both China and the U.S.

“I think it’s important to distinguish between decoupling of the U.S.-China economies and decoupling in key sectors or key technologies. And you know, it would really be- given the size of our respective economies, given the interdependence of supply chains, it would really be a blow to China and the United States to move down a path where we have, you know, economic decoupling,” McCormick said at a virtual economic forum. “And that’s a risk with some of the extremes and some of the rhetoric that could emerge on both sides. So, I think that is very much not to be hoped for and something that is to be avoided.”

This long track record of Chinese economic ties contributed to McCormick’s narrow loss in the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania last year. Former President Donald Trump attacked McCormick and endorsed his opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz, who went on to lose in the November midterm against now-Sen. John Fetterman (D). Now with Pennsylvania’s other Senate seat up in 2024, which is currently held by Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D), McCormick is looking to rewrite his past to gain the support he couldn’t muster against Oz last May.