Rep. Dusty Johnson: 'We're Sleepwalking' in U.S.-China Competition — Calls For Bipartisan Action

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, a four-term member of the U.S. House, warned that the United States is underestimating the strategic challenge posed by China and urged a more focused, bipartisan response.

Speaking with Fox News Digital at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, Johnson — long regarded in Washington as a pragmatic problem solver and former leader of the Republican Main Street Caucus — said partisan fights are distracting the country from the competition with the Chinese Communist Party.

"I think the biggest mistake is that we're basically sleepwalking through this competition," Johnson said. "Every day the leaders of China get up, and they try to figure out how to beat America, how to destabilize our country, how to get an advantage. And we're, frankly, in this country spending more time fighting one another than we are trying to think about how to compete with the Chinese Communist Party."

Johnson warned that fierce partisan primary battles have amplified the loudest and angriest voices in both parties, making it harder for nuanced, pragmatic solutions to gain traction.

"Primary turnout tends to favor those obsessed with purity rather than progress," he said. "When you try to swim upstream with nuance and thoughtfulness, it often doesn't compete with simply saying, 'Let's go fight.'"

On fiscal policy, Johnson emphasized that long-term solvency for entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare will require bipartisan cooperation rather than unilateral promises not to touch benefits.

"We simply are not going to restore solvency to those programs with a status quo approach," he said, noting that the 1983 Social Security reforms required collaboration between Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Johnson entered the 2026 South Dakota Republican gubernatorial primary as the frontrunner but finished third in a close race behind real estate executive Toby Doeden and incumbent Governor Larry Rhoden. He said a recent wave of negative advertising that painted him as a "career politician," along with broad anti‑Washington sentiment, damaged his campaign.

Despite the primary outcome, Johnson said he will continue to serve as South Dakota's only voice in the U.S. House through January and is not ready to retire. "I'm 50, but I feel like a young 50 — still full of piss and vinegar," he told Fox News Digital, adding that he remains interested in public service, business and nonprofit work.

Key background: Johnson is best known for his work on agricultural policy, fiscal issues and U.S.-China relations and has often advocated pragmatic, centrist solutions in Congress.