Trump Fights for America’s Survival

During World War II, the U.S. was the globe’s major manufacturing nation, helping end the war by supplying the Allies with equipment such as ships, tanks and weapons.

How did such a relatively young nation become a manufacturing powerhouse? Because in 1789, the American government passed the first tariff law. In the ensuing 150 years, tariffs functioned as a protective barrier against imports from other countries, fostering the growth of America’s manufacturing industry. But after WWII, the tariff policy that had helped build a strong American industry was discontinued when a new world order was formed under the United Nations.

As that body took on the global leadership role, the American government began to significantly deviate from the principle set by the Founders, who had warned us not to get entangled in foreign affairs.

Sorry, Hans, Wrong Guess!

Our government assumed that other nations could copy our freedom and prosperity if we participated in their internal affairs. This understanding motivated politicians to shoulder the responsibility of being the global provider and protecter.

On the trade level, the U.S. government has unilaterally implemented a low- or no-tariff policy, but allowed other countries to impose high tariffs on our exported goods. Further, we magnanimously carried a trade deficit by allowing other countries’ goods to flood our markets without demanding reciprocity, acting like a rich big brother helping destitute little brothers. This practice helped Europe and Japan recover after the war and facilitated the economic rise of the Four Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore), which took place from the 1950s to the 1990s.

After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Deng Xiaoping once marveled that whoever followed America became rich. Therefore, Deng initiated economic reform called the Open Door Policy at the end of 1970s, establishing a trade relationship with America. Afterward, China benefitted by America’s unilateral low-tariff policy and other privileges, finally gaining most favored nation (MFN) status in 2000.

All this enabled China to eventually become a world economic powerhouse, only trailing behind the U.S.

Offshoring America for Globalism’s Sake

However, this unequal trade has caused America to pay a huge price. Its goods can’t compete in the world market now, which has fostered offshoring – building factories abroad to produce goods to be imported back to America. Gradually, America’s manufacturing industry and workforce disappeared as millions of American factory workers were put out of their jobs.

This is a well-documented problem, but politicians and economists have underestimated its seriousness, partially because the disappearance of American manufacturing has not affected their lives. Also many American politicians, who have sold their influence to foreign companies, have benefited financially from this offshoring practice.

But the real reason perhaps is connected to the increasing popularity of globalism promoted by Klaus Schwab, George Soros, and the like. They prefer a borderless society denying the autonomy of sovereign nations. Globalists view the world as a big family: America can survive without manufacturing by importing merchandise from other countries, they say. As a result, America no long produces basic goods for survival. This has put the nation in a perilously vulnerable position.

Meanwhile the CCP’s ambition of dominating the world became more conspicuous. As a matter of fact, Marxism itself is essentially globalist. During Mao’s time, when China was cut off from the free world, he didn’t forget to remind his followers that only when the proletarians (communists) emancipated the world could they finally declare that they had indeed emancipated themselves. Current CCP Chairman Xi Jingping, who is following in Mao’s footsteps, is fully aware of this mission.

This is why the Marxist CCP will always be the enemy of the U.S.: It stands diametrically opposed to Marxist ideology.

China, Oppressive? Inconceivable!

Kevin O’Leary, the businessman and TV personality, marveled how ruthlessly the CCP does business with America and other countries. He noticed that even after China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO), it has repeatedly violated fair trade practices, never abiding by any of the agreed-upon rules. China lies, cheats, and steals as much as it can. As Peter Navarro illustrated in his book Death by China, The Red Dragon has been engaging in illegal export subsidies, currency manipulation, counterfeiting, piracy, and intellectual property theft while imposing high import tariffs, quotas, and flooding the U.S. market with cheap Chinese goods.

The goal is to make it impossible for American companies to compete, and ultimately lose the trade war to China—and all the while, American politicians have given the CCP’s China MFN status and a host of other privileges.

In 1989 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump expressed his deep concern about the unfair trade practices that were leaving America with the short end of the stick – and the CCP’s global ambition to destroy our nation concerned him the most. It might have been the deciding factor that eventually made him put aside his successful business career to run for president. He had to save America.

In a more recent interview, Baiqiao Tang, a Chinese political dissident who penned the foreword to Navarro’s book, told a story about Trump. According to Tang, after reading Death by China in 2012, Trump was profoundly moved by the sobering reality and the book’s cry for a tough American leader who would dare to stand up to China. Tang claimed that was the pivotal moment when Trump decided to run for president.

Since April 2, Trump’s tariff policy has taken the world on a roller coaster ride. It’s now apparent that he’s using it as a way to curtail the CCP’s power and influence, in addition to regaining fair trade and restoring America’s manufacturing base. Now only America and the CCP’s China remain as contenders in the tariff war.

The CCP released a few videos on X reacting to Trump’s policy. In one of these, Xi stated, “The Chinese economy is not a pond, but an ocean. A storm may churn a pond, but it cannot rattle the ocean. The ocean has weathered countless tempests – this time is no different. It’s high time to recall. After going through 5,000 years of trials and tribulations, China is still here. Facing the future, China will always be here to stay.”

In another video released on X, Xi reminded the world that “the Chinese people have never bullied, oppressed or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token, the Chinese people will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who attempts to do so will find themselves badly battered by the great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”

If we read Xi’s words against the CCP’s history and what it had done to the Chinese people (and to other countries), it’s astonishing that Xi would be so brazen, totally ignoring the fact that the CCP has produced the darkest period in Chinese history, governing Chinese people by high-handed coercion and cruelty. Even today, freedom and human rights are essentially nonexistent in China. However, Xi doesn’t hesitate to use racial pride to manipulate the Chinese people and force them to endure the upcoming hardship they will surely face as this trade war continues in order for his regime to remain in power.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

However, today’s Chinese people aren’t like the ones in Mao’s time. The mass nationwide demonstrations held two years ago showed that the Chinese are no longer submissive slaves to communist ideology. If Xi determines to go head-to-head against Trump’s tariff policy instead of negotiating a better deal for China, it will put the Chinese people through hell the same way Mao did. Should that happen, it might become the catalyst to overturn his regime.

Trump’s tariff policy is an attempt to achieve several objectives at once. It holds the promise of rebuilding our manufacturing, just as it did at our nation’s inception. Inshore manufacturing will provide millions of middle-class jobs for American workers and bolster our own economy. In addition, it also marks an important turning point in history: the beginning of the disintegration of globalism — whether advocated by Klaus Schwab or practiced by Xi – and restoring the concept of national sovereignty.

Most significantly, it actively deals with the Chinese threat, impeding the CCP from becoming a world dominator. This is necessary because no amount of compassion and goodwill can ever persuade Xi to give up his global ambition and embrace freedom and human rights. As long as the CCP exists, it will always be a threat to America and the world.

On a practical level, we cannot rely on China for our critical needs, machinery, food, medicine, electronics, fertilizer, and so forth. If we do not fix the problem now, we eventually will have to kowtow to the CCP, hopelessly watching the regime become the tyrant of the world.

Trump launched this tariff war to fight for America, because he knows America cannot remain like this and survive.

Chenyuan Snider was raised in Communist China and majored in Chinese language and literature in college. After immigrating to the U.S. and studying at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and Duke Divinity School, she became a professor at Christian colleges and seminary. She and her husband live in northern California and have two grown children.