Early in 2018, while the Trump administration and most Americans were still celebrating the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, President Trump emphatically announced another economic strategy that also represented a new direction in U.S.-Sino relations that would further protect and strengthen the American position, when he announced an initial round of tariffs on Chinese produced solar panels.
And the American position, one that had been weakened due to a tradition of flimsy foreign policy leading to the rise of the reckless and brutal communist Chinese, was rightly recalibrated early on by a determined "America First" president.
Unfortunately for the American workforce, the Obama administration, far-too-often, painted a rosy picture of China.
This was evidenced by remarks made by former President Obama at a 2015 White House visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping where the former president had referred to Red China as "the current international system’s builder, contributor, and developer."
His statements were not inaccurate, as during the previous year, China’s economy had surpassed America a few years earlier than experts had originally forecasted.
He also added that his administration "welcomes the rise of a China that is peaceful, stable, prosperous, and a responsible player in global affairs."
It’s not so much that the former president’s comments didn’t age well, but that they were so delusional and misguided at the start.
By 2015, China was well established as the top national security/geopolitical adversary of the United States.
This was evidenced by a report from The Report of the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property which showed that the "peaceful, stable, prosperous" and "responsible" player that Obama hoped for was actually robbing the U.S. to the tune of an estimated $225 to $600 billion per year, not counting full cost of patent infringement, which according to the report, was an "area sorely in need of greater research."
However, Obama alone is not to blame for these problems; it also isn’t solely a failure of Democrats either. The politician most responsible for China being placed on the fast track to global dominance was probably former president George H.W. Bush, whose foreign policy vision fast-tracked the communist nation to "observer" status with the predecessor to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Just 15 years later, China would join the WTO as a "founding member" in 2001.
This was enabled via President Bill Clinton’s signing of the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000, 14 years later, which granted China full, permanent, and normal trade relations (NTR) status.
Out of touch D.C. elitist politicians were certainly warned of the negatives of allowing China into the WTO as major labor unions in the manufacturing sector were vehemently opposed due to fears (that were later realized) that because of the deal, the much cheaper labor rates in China would cause massive job losses and factory closures in the United States.
As predicted by those with the best interests of the American worker at heart, almost six million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost between 1999 and 2011.
But another problem that accompanied the economic fallout of a legitimized China was the acceptance and even normalization of shady Chinese tactics.
For decades, China has been leveraging their advantages in manufacturing and technology to conduct spying operations; that has called into question whether the nation should be involved in the building of new 5G networks globally.
In January, there were reports that cell-phones manufactured by China and distributed by the U.S. government to low income households were infected with malware.
It isn’t just a problem that America is dealing with, as a report last month from CNN detailed how phones manufactured by China’s Tecno and sold in Ethopia, Ghana and Cameroon were with loaded with the Chinese born Triada malware.
This virus registers users for unwanted subscriptions and runs up data use, while collecting personal data.
The China conundrum is the only issue that surpasses COVID-19 and even the domestic economy in importance this November.
Given the revelations related to the Biden families’ China ties, and the fact that career politicians like the Democratic nominee had a hand in creating this mess, the only candidate that America can afford to elect is Donald Trump.
The republic’s very survival depends on it.
Julio Rivera is a small business consultant, political activist, writer and Editorial Director for Reactionary Times. He has been a regular contributor to Newsmax TV and columnist for Newsmax.com since 2016. His writing, which is concentrated on politics, cybersecurity and sports, has also been published by websites including The Hill, The Washington Times, LifeZette, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Toronto Sun and PJ Media and many others. Read Julio Rivera's Reports — More Here.
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