Things are not "particularly worrisome" for the United States as the Trump administration confirms plans to hit China with even more tariffs, as the Chinese have been cheating in its dealings for years, but more tariffs may not be enough to solve the issue, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday.
"The Chinese, for a quarter century back to 1991, have routinely cheated," Gingrich told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria."
"Even Obama's Director of National Intelligence said the Chinese in one year stole $460 billion in intellectual property from American companies, more than our total sales to China."
The Trump administration has confirmed its plans to hit China with a tariff of 25 percent on 4200 billion worth of imports, more than double the original 10 percent proposal.
Bartiromo noted that the move comes after Congress passed a defense bill that some lawmakers claim is more tough on China than previous legislation has been.
"What's happened is you have a new president," Gingrich said. "[President Donald] Trump says he wants to reset the relationship so that we get fairness out of China. The Chinese who have been making out like bandits, ripping off the Americans, are shocked at the idea that we're serious."
Tariffs, though, may not be enough, said Gingrich.
"You may have to ban Chinese companies from the American market," said Gingrich. "You may have to set up a series of reciprocal rules where everything they do to us, we do to them."
There are "two futures" for what can happen between the United States and China, he continued.
"You have a future where you allow the Chinese to keep ripping you off and sooner or later they'll become a dominant power, because if somebody steals $400 billion or $500 billion a year of your inventions and your intellectual property, sooner or later their capacity's going to overwhelm you," said Gingrich.
In addition, the United States should be honest about the "double game" that's being played, Gingrich added.
"Google and others who will do things for the Chinese to help their security police that they won't do for the American military," said Gingrich. "There's a very strange double standard along some of our bigger companies that they will tolerate behavior from the Chinese that they would go crazy if an American government did it.
"Yet, apparently they want the business so badly or they're so intimidated by the Chinese government that they don't think they can protest."
Google is preparing a version of its search engine that will allow sites Beijing deems unacceptable, while discontinuing its project that helps the US military use artificial intelligence to analyze drone footage, and Gingrich said there is "something suicidal" about that kind of thing.
"There's something suicidal about an American company which has flourished because of American freedom and the American rule of law, deciding it won't help protect America but it will in fact help the Chinese government impose a dictatorship," said Gingrich.
"There's another report that Google agreed to build very sophisticated capabilities of artificial intelligence for tracking individuals, something which the Chinese government desperately wants to be able to do."
He argued that the largest, most profitable market on the planet is in the United States, and "if you prefer the Chinese to us, fine. That means we don't have to let you do business in the U.S."
And, Gingrich said, if companies like Google are not prepared to help the United States defend itself, there" will come a morning where they have to do whatever the Chinese dictatorship tells them to do or else."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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