Ramaswamy campaign hats made in repressive nation with ‘one of the worst governments in the world’

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11 September 2023

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“Truth. Vote Vivek.”

Black baseball caps emblazoned with this message made their way around the Iowa State Fair last month, and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sported the hat before participating in Fox News’ Republican presidential debate held in Milwaukee, Wis., less than two weeks later.

But the hats have a truth of their own.

They’re made in Myanmar, a country rife with human rights atrocities and led by a military junta. The Myanmar military has propagated torture, sexual violence and mass murders, including killing children, according to press accounts and Human Rights Watch.

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“It’s clearly one of those countries that’s sliding back on the freedom scale very much so,” said Irina Tsukerman, a foreign policy expert, human rights and national security lawyer and president of communications advisory company, Scarab Rising. “The fact that Vivek has chosen that place as opposed to another country where such issues are not really as prominent, like India or the Philippines maybe, it raises questions why. What is he willing to do for money?”

Ramaswamy’s campaign acknowledged purchasing the hats, explaining that they were from one “rush order for an event.”

“When this was brought to Vivek’s attention, he said we were changing it. He was not aware at all of the source, and it has been changed,” Stefan Mychajliw, deputy communications director for Ramaswamy’s campaign, told Raw Story.

The “Truth. Vote Vivek.” hats are made by a company called Otto, which calls itself “America’s largest source for blank caps and custom headwear.” The caps distributed by the Ramaswamy campaign show tags that say “Made in Myanmar,” and the company’s website also shows images of tags that say “Made in China."

Two Raw Story sources saw the hats in person and confirmed that the labels indicate they were made in Myanmar.

“This is bottom of the barrel,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division for Human Rights Watch. “This is amongst one of the worst governments in the world. It is right at the top of the list of the worst human rights abusers in Asia.”

The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, a London-based nonprofit organization, is just “seeing the tip of the iceberg of allegations” in terms of the labor rights abuses in Myanmar since it tracks such abuses from publicly available news sources, which is limited due to a lack of press freedom in the country, said Natalie Swan, labor rights program manager for the organization.

A tag inside a "Truth. Vote Vivek." hat distributed in Iowa by the Vivek Ramaswamy presidential campaign shows that the cap comes from a company called Otto and was made in Myanmar.

“There's not some special zone where things are better in Myanmar,” Robertson said. “It's not like somehow that Otto is going to be this shining paragon of good practice in a country where the military is controlled and the workers are repressed.”

Members of Otto’s leadership team did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment. Otto has offices in Ontario, Calif.; Arlington, Texas; and Fairburn, Ga.

China-Myanmar relationship

While the choice of where a presidential campaign sources its promotional hats might seem trivial, merchandising “is a very important part of his foreign policy because it normalizes his positions with the public,” Tsukerman said.

Ramaswamy, who is running third behind former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in some recent national polls, wants an “America first” approach to foreign policy, according to an article he wrote for The American Conservative on August 28.

The merchandise for sale on his website also boasts “Made in USA” as a selling point.

Ramaswamy has been particularly critical of China, which has a close relationship with Myanmar. When asked about “Made in America” stickers on The Fifth Column podcast, Ramaswamy said, “I’ve actually called for total decoupling from China, total economic independence from China, not on protectionist grounds at all but on grounds of long run national security … I think it is not good for the long run security interests of the United States when we are dependent economically on our enemy for our modern way of life.”

Ramaswamy says the United States should no longer have economic dependence on China.

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“I will admit that it is unacceptably dangerous that so much of our way of life is dependent upon Chinese manufacturing and Taiwanese semiconductors. I will declare economic independence from China,” Ramaswamy wrote in The American Conservative. “I will incentivize American companies to move supply chains away from China and rebase them in allied markets, especially in our own hemisphere, and I will use trade deals as the main way to do it.”

Mychajliw says Ramaswamy’s support for America’s independence from China is unwavering.

“As far as Vivek Ramaswamy is concerned, the major part of his foreign policy platform is declaring independence from China. We cannot be dependent on America's biggest adversary for the shoes on our feet or phones in our pockets. That does not change, and that's very consistent,” Mychajliw told Raw Story.

But factories in Myanmar, which shares a border with China, often are operated by Chinese factory owners, Robertson and Swan said.

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China is a strong supporter of Myanmar’s military government, Tsukerman said, with the Council on Foreign Relations writing that China has “gone all in with the Myanmar regime”.

“It's really rather astonishing to me that he would stoop so low to have a piece of merchandise coming from a country that is one of the worst rights abusing situations in the world,” Robertson said. “It boggles the mind, frankly, that somehow they think it's alright to source something like a hat from Myanmar when any sort of brief Google search can come up with a full page of atrocities that have been committed by that military government.”

Ramaswamy’s foreign policy views were called out during the August Republican presidential debate by his challengers.

“You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” said Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, The Hill reported. Haley’s campaign did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Republican presidential candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy (L) and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley (R) participate in the first debate of the GOP primary season hosted by FOX News at the Fiserv Forum on Aug. 23, 2023, in Milwaukee, Wis. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Former Vice President Mike President, another Republican presidential candidate, said Ramaswamy is “just wrong” on foreign policy on Fox News this week. Pence’s campaign also did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

“It's hypocritical on his part to claim that he wants to move away from China but nevertheless is supporting products in places where China is very dominant, where it basically is behind many of these manufacturing companies,” Tsukerman said.

Last month, Ramaswamy wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that his “progressive ‘elite’ former peers in places like Harvard, Yale & Wall Street” are “dripping sanctimony and condescension toward the so-called ‘rubes’ in the rest of the country.” Minutes later he shared another post with a similar message.

“They remain cloistered in their enclaves and think they’re worldly because they’ve been to London, backpacked in Prague, and took a photo with some starving child in Myanmar — yet they’re downright ignorant, bigoted, and unwilling to hear out their own fellow citizens in their own country. Do that first. Then you can feel good about yourself for going to Haiti or Myanmar *after* that. I know how to give them the dose of reality that they need. I will not be shy about prescribing it,” Ramaswamy wrote.

‘One of the worst governments in the world”

In February 2021 a military coup took place in Myanmar, sending the country into “effective civil war,” where the military has bombed civilians and engaged in” systematic commission of war crimes,” Robertson said.

In April 2023, the military bombed a Myanmar village, killing at least 157 civilians, with at least 25 of them children, the Washington Post reported.

The U.S. State Department has issued a Level 4 travel advisory — it’s most restrictive — for Myanmar, and warns of “significant ongoing challenges and human rights issues” across the nation.

Conditions for garment workers in Myanmar are particularly concerning to human rights activists.

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In its August 2023 report, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre describes “gender-based violence, wage violations, unpaid and mandatory overtime, inhumane working conditions and other forms of abuse” as common, with wages around $2 per day.

As for Ramaswamy’s campaign hats, “It is very, very problematic that this is being produced there, and any claim that somehow this was produced under fair conditions, this is produced in a way that was ethical, I think doesn't hold any water,” Robertson said.

Unions aren’t currently allowed in Myanmar, forcing union leaders to flee the country, and protests are put down by military force. Factory owners are supported by the military and take advantage of workers’ poverty and inability to strike, Robertson said.

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In one case in March 2021, the military massacred at least 65 people as part of a protest by factory workers, Human Rights Watch reported. More than 4,000 pro-democracy activists and civilians have been killed by the junta and nearly 25,000 arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

“You see an immediate crackdown of the right to freedom of association and the right to join and form a trade union in the country, persecution of existing labor rights,” Swan said. “Leaders, you're no longer able to get your union registered in the country, and what that means is that you've lost that foundational framework with which workers can call for better terms and conditions.”

The U.S. Department of State has levied numerous sanctions against Myanmar since 2021.

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