Scott Paul is president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. He wrote an essay for Real Clear Politics, “It’s Time To End Permanent Normal Trade Relations With China.” He said, “PNTR is a U.S. legal designation given to some foreign trading partners, and was granted to China as part of the negotiations heading into its ascension into the World Trade Organization more than twenty years ago. This normalcy locked in tariffs for Chinese exports to the United States at a low baseline, removed those tariff rates from an annual congressional review, and created the environment in which Chinese imports saturated the American market. Resultingly, 3.7 million American jobs were lost to the yawning trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2018.”
The Clintons, Bushes, Obama and Biden and their respective administration cabals all sold out our beautiful America!
Senators and congressmen and women participated, including during the Trump administration.
They all committed treason in more ways than one! They should be indicted, convicted and executed. Bush senior got off easy.
We live in an evil world! The treasonous win, the best president in 40 years, who lives America, is impeached and indicted. The evil ones know no shame.
I scratch a previous comment that suggested a previous article was the most important of the year. This one is.
My company is an American OEM and we have a factory in Asia to serve that market. Our core competency is machining and the Chinese still cannot compete with us without manipulating currency; and that doesn't stand under scrutiny.
Trumps 'tariffs' were 1st-point-of-sale-in-Asia($20 cost of your toaster was $4 in Hong Kong where the 25% tax was paid) on steel and aluminum and they were genius causing deflation here. Wilbur Ross and Bob Lighthizer were the architects of this genius and are to be commended. Or not, because the republican globalist donor base hated the decrease of their cheap and easy 'cost reductions' moving our work elsewhere.
Dubya and his globalist republican donors - now behind DeSantis - have a lot to answer for.
May I now revere the way Trump ripped Jeb! in 2016?
We wouldn’t dare be trading partners with the USSR during the Cold War. We still boycott Cuban products. Yet China, every bit the enemy the USSR was is our number one source of goods. And many of them vital to our energy and security needs. And we have thousands of there spies, I mean students here. We let them buy up businesses and farmland as well. What fools we are.
Jun 14, 2023·edited Jun 14, 2023Liked by Don Surber
China is neither food nor energy independent. The Japanese learned the hard way how difficult it is to maintain needed sources of inputs scattered over the Pacific. Meanwhile their ability to feed their people is, in turn, dependent on their acquisition of dollars and euros. So they must sell goods to stay alive.
In 1941, Japan could smelt only 9 million tons of steel annually. The British produced 70 million and the US even more. So once a few Japanese ships were sunk, replacements were not possible. China has the same problem. Most of what China sells can be sourced elsewhere and enjoys success only because of discount pricing. When the shooting starts, needed inputs will quickly dry up as customers reject Chinese goods, squeezing hard currency access. After that, hunger will do the rest.
The Chinese leadership know this. Except for a quick hit where the target sues for peace immediately, military conquest is a non-starter for them.
The Bush family has a long history of using their political clout to profit on the world stage. Sen. Prescott Bush, first a Wall St. investment banker, did it with before WWII with Fritz Thyssen,a German industrialist who supported Hitler at the time. George HW Bush did it with the Saudis via Harken Energy while he was in the Government. GW Bush launched stupid wars to benefit the defense industry and created a surveillance state while people cheered. This was SOP for a lot of wealthy American industrialists who were tied in with the military industrial complex and the government going back over 100 years. The deal was to advance national interests by planting American corporate interests around the world, selling power plants and other infrastructure projects, as well as energy projects and factories. At the same time the government would lean on developing nations with carrots and sticks to get them under our thumb. Loans that couldn’t be paid back - we invented that game. Bribes, assassination of leaders, coups, you name it.
But after Nixon engaged with China, the calculus began to shift, and over the ensuing decades, these economic elites sold out America for profit. That’s all - just for more money. China was their new source of cheap labor. And the government, which always served and was composed at the highest levels by the members of the industrialist ( now tech) class, helped them do it. The Chinese Commies, being smart and ruthless, traded cheap labor for everything, including our national sovereignty. Other countries followed our lead, to everybody’s detriment. Now we’ve created a monster which threatens our existence as a nation. But it’s not an accident and we gave it to them. Sure they steal secrets and technology, but everybody’s in on the game. Nobody does anything to stop it. Trump at least tried. But the elites are bought off.
I totally agree with stopping all trade with China and kicking them out of the WTO, we should also deny them access to American capital markets. They are waging war against us and have been for many decades. Fentanyl is chinas revenge for the opium wars. The COVID issue is a bit more complicated as I think our government was in on it from the beginning. But it was a weapon, not an accident. Like so many things these days, the solution seems clear, the question is now we accomplish our goals with a completely corrupted Federal bureaucracy and political landscape.
Wow Don, so much content in such a brief post. First, I’m certain I read Williamson’s comment re Kroger. And that at the time I read it I’m sure I agreed. I believe he used the analogy to argue that international trade is a zero sum game similar to individuals purchasing groceries from Kroger. I need groceries, Kroger sells them to me at a fair price. China sells us stuff we need or want and we pay for it with paper they want. Win/win! It seemed like a reasonable comparison.
What many of us overlooked is that Kroger operates in a competitive environment against competitors willing to compete on price. If Krogers’ prices are higher then their competitors’ shoppers go elsewhere. Competition keeps Krogers prices close to their cost of goods because their competitors have similar costs.
We didn’t recognize the advantages China had in costs or the impact of an absence of similar competitors. We knew China’s huge population gave them some labor cost advantages but we never considered human expendability into that cost advantage. The Chinese are willing to use slavery and starvation to reduce their costs because reducing their population is one of their goals. Plenty of reserves to replace casualties. They literally could work their excess population to death and reduce costs even more.
Obviously that is a dwindling advantage and now China finds itself with an aging population, so the question is what’s next? I fear is it may be acquisition of more slaves via military intervention. An guess who is the only hurdle standing in their way? Donald Trump? Asking for a friend.
The reasons we don't stop trade with China? Greed and lust for power: All the billionaires in the US want trade with China. Ask Elon Musk. They do not care at all if Americans lose jobs, if towns are hollowed out, if Americans get sick and die from Chinese fentanyl, if their own intellectual property is stolen, if their IP or products help the Chinese military. As long as it is good for business, their business, they don't care.
I wonder how much money Xi is spreading around D.C. so our “elites” will look the other way while they set up shop in Cuba? The Chinese are setting the stage for unrestricted warfare in our homeland and nobody in D.C. seems to care.
Anybody have the address I can send my request? I’ve wanted my vote for Bush back for 7-8 years now. Mittens’ vote too. Come to think of it, I’d like a vote refund for every Repub prexy candidate except PDJT since Bush ‘41 - except maybe for Bob Dole. He was so square he was cool.
Today’s MSM morning news shows did not start by wishing Donald Trump a happy birthday. Happy Birthday Mr. Trump. I would like to add a reminder that June 14 is Flag Day not to be confused with Bastille Day July 14.
You can speak of all the corrupt whores we have had as president, Mr. Surber, except for Mr. Trump, but ALWAYS remember this saying as quoted from FDR;
"Nothing happens in the sea of politics by accident. If it happens, you can be sure it was planned that way."
The horse is gone (American manufacturing industry), the barn has burned down (American jobs, communities, middle class families), the Title to the Property is lost (debt foreclosure, both private and soon all Public debt).
So how now, that American know-how has been gifted to China - so that a few American-in-name-only Corporations, Billionaires and corrupt Politicians could live it up big time, but soon to be a short time - can you close the barn door ?
Hard work and buying American only, requires an entire change of mindset. We are in the end-of-Rome stage where cutting off your jewels is in fashion.
The Clintons, Bushes, Obama and Biden and their respective administration cabals all sold out our beautiful America!
Senators and congressmen and women participated, including during the Trump administration.
They all committed treason in more ways than one! They should be indicted, convicted and executed. Bush senior got off easy.
We live in an evil world! The treasonous win, the best president in 40 years, who lives America, is impeached and indicted. The evil ones know no shame.
I scratch a previous comment that suggested a previous article was the most important of the year. This one is.
My company is an American OEM and we have a factory in Asia to serve that market. Our core competency is machining and the Chinese still cannot compete with us without manipulating currency; and that doesn't stand under scrutiny.
Trumps 'tariffs' were 1st-point-of-sale-in-Asia($20 cost of your toaster was $4 in Hong Kong where the 25% tax was paid) on steel and aluminum and they were genius causing deflation here. Wilbur Ross and Bob Lighthizer were the architects of this genius and are to be commended. Or not, because the republican globalist donor base hated the decrease of their cheap and easy 'cost reductions' moving our work elsewhere.
Dubya and his globalist republican donors - now behind DeSantis - have a lot to answer for.
May I now revere the way Trump ripped Jeb! in 2016?
We wouldn’t dare be trading partners with the USSR during the Cold War. We still boycott Cuban products. Yet China, every bit the enemy the USSR was is our number one source of goods. And many of them vital to our energy and security needs. And we have thousands of there spies, I mean students here. We let them buy up businesses and farmland as well. What fools we are.
China is neither food nor energy independent. The Japanese learned the hard way how difficult it is to maintain needed sources of inputs scattered over the Pacific. Meanwhile their ability to feed their people is, in turn, dependent on their acquisition of dollars and euros. So they must sell goods to stay alive.
In 1941, Japan could smelt only 9 million tons of steel annually. The British produced 70 million and the US even more. So once a few Japanese ships were sunk, replacements were not possible. China has the same problem. Most of what China sells can be sourced elsewhere and enjoys success only because of discount pricing. When the shooting starts, needed inputs will quickly dry up as customers reject Chinese goods, squeezing hard currency access. After that, hunger will do the rest.
The Chinese leadership know this. Except for a quick hit where the target sues for peace immediately, military conquest is a non-starter for them.
The Bush family has a long history of using their political clout to profit on the world stage. Sen. Prescott Bush, first a Wall St. investment banker, did it with before WWII with Fritz Thyssen,a German industrialist who supported Hitler at the time. George HW Bush did it with the Saudis via Harken Energy while he was in the Government. GW Bush launched stupid wars to benefit the defense industry and created a surveillance state while people cheered. This was SOP for a lot of wealthy American industrialists who were tied in with the military industrial complex and the government going back over 100 years. The deal was to advance national interests by planting American corporate interests around the world, selling power plants and other infrastructure projects, as well as energy projects and factories. At the same time the government would lean on developing nations with carrots and sticks to get them under our thumb. Loans that couldn’t be paid back - we invented that game. Bribes, assassination of leaders, coups, you name it.
But after Nixon engaged with China, the calculus began to shift, and over the ensuing decades, these economic elites sold out America for profit. That’s all - just for more money. China was their new source of cheap labor. And the government, which always served and was composed at the highest levels by the members of the industrialist ( now tech) class, helped them do it. The Chinese Commies, being smart and ruthless, traded cheap labor for everything, including our national sovereignty. Other countries followed our lead, to everybody’s detriment. Now we’ve created a monster which threatens our existence as a nation. But it’s not an accident and we gave it to them. Sure they steal secrets and technology, but everybody’s in on the game. Nobody does anything to stop it. Trump at least tried. But the elites are bought off.
I totally agree with stopping all trade with China and kicking them out of the WTO, we should also deny them access to American capital markets. They are waging war against us and have been for many decades. Fentanyl is chinas revenge for the opium wars. The COVID issue is a bit more complicated as I think our government was in on it from the beginning. But it was a weapon, not an accident. Like so many things these days, the solution seems clear, the question is now we accomplish our goals with a completely corrupted Federal bureaucracy and political landscape.
Wow Don, so much content in such a brief post. First, I’m certain I read Williamson’s comment re Kroger. And that at the time I read it I’m sure I agreed. I believe he used the analogy to argue that international trade is a zero sum game similar to individuals purchasing groceries from Kroger. I need groceries, Kroger sells them to me at a fair price. China sells us stuff we need or want and we pay for it with paper they want. Win/win! It seemed like a reasonable comparison.
What many of us overlooked is that Kroger operates in a competitive environment against competitors willing to compete on price. If Krogers’ prices are higher then their competitors’ shoppers go elsewhere. Competition keeps Krogers prices close to their cost of goods because their competitors have similar costs.
We didn’t recognize the advantages China had in costs or the impact of an absence of similar competitors. We knew China’s huge population gave them some labor cost advantages but we never considered human expendability into that cost advantage. The Chinese are willing to use slavery and starvation to reduce their costs because reducing their population is one of their goals. Plenty of reserves to replace casualties. They literally could work their excess population to death and reduce costs even more.
Obviously that is a dwindling advantage and now China finds itself with an aging population, so the question is what’s next? I fear is it may be acquisition of more slaves via military intervention. An guess who is the only hurdle standing in their way? Donald Trump? Asking for a friend.
We have had a lot of elections where one has to choose between the “lesser of two evils”.
Both choices are still evil. Trump and Reagan were the two exceptions.
Hey you forgot it is the US Army’s birthday. 14 Jun 1775.
Great article! Thanks.
The reasons we don't stop trade with China? Greed and lust for power: All the billionaires in the US want trade with China. Ask Elon Musk. They do not care at all if Americans lose jobs, if towns are hollowed out, if Americans get sick and die from Chinese fentanyl, if their own intellectual property is stolen, if their IP or products help the Chinese military. As long as it is good for business, their business, they don't care.
I wonder how much money Xi is spreading around D.C. so our “elites” will look the other way while they set up shop in Cuba? The Chinese are setting the stage for unrestricted warfare in our homeland and nobody in D.C. seems to care.
Anybody have the address I can send my request? I’ve wanted my vote for Bush back for 7-8 years now. Mittens’ vote too. Come to think of it, I’d like a vote refund for every Repub prexy candidate except PDJT since Bush ‘41 - except maybe for Bob Dole. He was so square he was cool.
Today’s MSM morning news shows did not start by wishing Donald Trump a happy birthday. Happy Birthday Mr. Trump. I would like to add a reminder that June 14 is Flag Day not to be confused with Bastille Day July 14.
After this undermining of our nation by the Chinese Communist Party our leaders have done nothing of any substance to counter this danger, NOTHING!
You can speak of all the corrupt whores we have had as president, Mr. Surber, except for Mr. Trump, but ALWAYS remember this saying as quoted from FDR;
"Nothing happens in the sea of politics by accident. If it happens, you can be sure it was planned that way."
The horse is gone (American manufacturing industry), the barn has burned down (American jobs, communities, middle class families), the Title to the Property is lost (debt foreclosure, both private and soon all Public debt).
So how now, that American know-how has been gifted to China - so that a few American-in-name-only Corporations, Billionaires and corrupt Politicians could live it up big time, but soon to be a short time - can you close the barn door ?
Hard work and buying American only, requires an entire change of mindset. We are in the end-of-Rome stage where cutting off your jewels is in fashion.
As I recall, Nixon visited China in `72. Mistake number 1......