Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick rolled out a tough-on-China message while campaigning this week, pledging to curb the fentanyl crisis and rein in Chinese purchases of U.S. farmland.

“The thing I recommended was a full-throated strategy to stop the flow of fentanyl,” McCormick told residents of Luzerne County at a roundtable for Building America’s Future’s “America’s Future” tour. BAF, a 501(c)(4) group, recently launched the tour which includes several policy-related events it believes will determine the country’s future, focusing on issues such as the economy, national security, healthcare, and energy.

The candidate homed in on his anti-China strategy at the event, pledging he would do “everything I can to lead the charge” against the spread of fentanyl “because that’s what’s gonna take to fix our country.” In a press release, McCormick’s campaign noted China’s “direct role” in the fentanyl crisis.

McCormick further claimed Pennsylvania is “under siege” due to the drug’s proliferation. “We need to treat this as the national security threat it is. … Step one is interdiction, it’s sanctions, and it’s dealing with China,” he laid out.

The Pennsylvania Republican’s “Keystone Agenda to Reclaim America” includes banning illicit ingredients required to make fentanyl from China, as well as “drug money” from the entire Western Hemisphere.

At a similar Columbia County roundtable, McCormick reiterated the importance of farming to Pennsylvania’s economy and its citizens, also sounding the alarm over Chinese purchases of agricultural land. “We have 52,000 farms here in Pennsylvania, we have $174 billion of GDP of economic activity from our farms,” he explained. “We don’t want to sell our precious farmland to foreign powers, particularly China.”

His agenda for combatting China’s influence also includes banning “strategic” purchases of farmland in the United States. Per his website, this would require “significant purchases of American land by Chinese nationals or companies, as well as purchases near military bases, and critical infrastructure” to be subject to “a national security review.”

McCormick is taking on incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) in 2024 in what is considered one of the most competitive Senate races and one of the biggest Republican pickup opportunities. McCormick ran for the Republican nomination for Senate in 2022, in which he would’ve faced off against now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). But he lost the primary election to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who had former President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Oz went on to lose to Fetterman in the general election.

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Casey’s campaign did not provide comment to the Washington Examiner.

The Cook Political Report rates the Pennsylvania Senate race as “Lean Democratic.”