FREE ALBERTA! Nod from US energizes Canada sovereignty movement
“People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got.”
That was U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s description of growing independence sentiment in Alberta — comments that have energized the province’s long-running sovereignty movement.
'When Scott Bessent says — even somewhat tongue-in-cheek — that he’s heard rumors of an independence vote, that signals awareness at the highest levels.'
As Albertans continue lining up to sign petitions calling for a provincial referendum on separation later this year, separatist advocates say the Trump administration has shown a notable openness to discussing Alberta’s future.
Members of the Alberta Prosperity Project say they have met on several occasions with individuals connected to President Donald Trump’s inner circle and governing team.
Czar power
Bessent’s remarks came while he was criticizing Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s appearance at last week’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. At the event, Carney suggested that the United States under Trump had become an international bully, destabilizing global trade norms and alliances.
Bessent rejected that characterization and instead focused on Carney’s political background.
“Well, I think Prime Minister Carney tried to put on a mask for a bit, and he’s really a globalist,” Bessent said. “He was governor of the Bank of Canada, then governor of the Bank of England, then he was the U.N. climate czar, and he tried to disappear that credential, seem like he was more reasonable — and when he said he wants to make Canada an energy powerhouse,” Bessent said, “Canada has great natural resources, but I don’t think he wants to bring them out.”
Chinese checkers
He further criticized Carney’s recent engagement with Beijing.
“He was just in China, and President Trump said Canada should trade with China,” Bessent said. “But when he came out and said China shares Canadian values — really?”
Turning to Alberta, Bessent highlighted the province’s resource wealth and frustrations over stalled infrastructure projects.
“Alberta is a wealth of natural resources, but they won’t let them build a pipeline to the Pacific,” he said. “I think we should let them come down into the U.S., and Alberta is a natural partner for the U.S. They have great resources.”
Bessent also noted Alberta’s distinct political culture, describing Albertans as “very independent people,” and said he had heard rumors of a possible referendum on whether the province should remain in Canada.
RELATED: Carney puts America last at Davos; Trump hits back
Going it alone?
Jeffrey Rath, legal counsel for the Alberta Prosperity Project, said Bessent’s remarks reflect conversations Alberta sovereignty advocates have been having privately with U.S. officials for months.
“That comes directly out of the meetings we’ve been holding in Washington, D.C.,” Rath told Align.
“We’ve raised the issue with them, and the Americans are very open to having a pipeline come down from Washington through Montana and Idaho ... to the West Coast to service Korea, Japan."
Rath said such infrastructure would strengthen U.S.-led trade alliances in the Pacific and reduce dependence on China.
He contrasted that approach with Carney’s recent visit to Beijing.
“That very alliance that Carney completely ignored when he skipped over all of them and went directly to communist China to declare, you know, Canada's alliance and allegiance to communist China," Rath said.
No accident
Rath also emphasized the influence of the U.S. treasury secretary within the American political system, speaking from his own perspective.
“Scott Bessent is literally the second-most powerful man in the world,” Rath said. “All it takes is one or two changes to U.S. Treasury policy towards Canadian debt, towards Canadian imports, towards Canadian investments and the taxation of Canadian businesses and assets in the United States, etc., and Canada would be bankrupt in three days."
According to Rath, Bessent’s reference to a possible Alberta referendum was not accidental.
“When Scott Bessent is saying — tongue-in-cheek — 'I've heard a rumor that there might be an independence referendum in Alberta this year,' you know, what Scott Bessent is tipping his hand to is that ... they are aware of what's going on in Alberta at the highest levels,” Rath said.
Rath pointed to visible public support for the independence petition drive.
“They are aware of people lined up for miles into cold January nights to sign the Alberta Declaration of Independence to get Alberta out of Canada,” he said. “They're aware of what a great partner Alberta will be to the United States of America because we’re philosophically aligned.”
What’s Greenland to us?
The late, great Angelo Codevilla had a way of cutting through the fog of foreign policy.
In the Claremont Review of Books in 2019, he asked, “What’s Russia to us?” He didn’t ask because he had any special admiration for Russia. He asked because Washington had turned Russia into a utility: a convenient villain that justified budgets, scolded dissent, and kept the governing class in charge. Codevilla’s point was simple but brutal. Strategy begins with interests. Interests require discrimination. Most of what passes for “grand strategy” amounts to habit and vanity.
Greenland touches national defense. Greenland touches Arctic geography. Greenland touches the supply chain for advanced systems. Those facts don’t bend around Davos etiquette.
That question — his question — fits the Greenland uproar better than any of the Davos hand-wringing last week.
European leaders want this story to be about Trump’s manners and apparent recklessness. They want it to be about “norms,” about “tone,” about the precious feelings of the alliance. They want Americans to believe the true scandal lies in a U.S. president speaking too plainly or belligerently.
Trump did speak plainly. In Davos on Wednesday, he pushed for “immediate negotiations” to acquire Greenland and ruled out the use of military force. He also floated a “framework” tied to Arctic security after meeting NATO’s secretary general, while walking back tariff threats that had rattled allies and markets.
Fine. Trump being Trump shouldn’t surprise anyone.
But Europe’s reaction should surprise people, because it revealed how unserious the continent has become — even about something as serious as Greenland.
Instead of handling business like adults — hard bargaining among allies over a piece of real estate that actually matters — European capitals staged indignation, offered lectures, and then produced the usual substitute for seriousness: a symbolic “show of force” meant for domestic consumption.
The numbers tell the laughable story. Sweden sent three officers. Norway sent two. Finland sent two liaison officers. The Netherlands sent one naval officer. The U.K. sent one officer. France sent around 15 mountain specialists. Germany sent a reconnaissance team of 13. Denmark led with about 100 troops. Reuters called it “modest.” That word was kind.
But that’s the European governing class in a nutshell for you: Perform alarm, then perform resolve, then declare victory over a crisis they helped manufacture.
All of this theater tried to sell one idea: Greenland needs protection from the United States.
Preposterous.
Greenland matters because it helps defend the United States. Pituffik Space Base — some Americans may still know it as Thule — sits where U.S. forces can track threats coming over the pole. The Arctic doesn’t care about European speeches. Missiles don’t fly around Greenland out of respect for allied etiquette. Geography dictates capability, and Greenland sits where the map says it sits.
RELATED: Pressed on Greenland, Trump tells Davos the US has weapons he ‘can’t even talk about’
Europe’s commissioners understand that. They just hate saying it out loud because it reminds them of the arrangement they prefer to obscure: America provides the real security; Europe provides the indignant boo-hoo commentary.
The Greenland tantrum exposed another reality that should make America’s sensible policy planners sweat, assuming they still exist: The industrial foundations of power have become strategic again, and the West has behaved like an empire that forgot how to build.
Rare-earths sound like an investor pitch until you remember where they go. Modern weapons systems and advanced electronics depend on them. We need minerals you have likely never heard of — neodymium, dysprosium, samarium, and yttrium — to keep our F-35s flying and our missiles precision-guided.
But the supply chain runs through the part nobody wants to talk about: processing and refining. China dominates that bottleneck — especially the heavy rare-earth elements that sit in the highest-end systems. One major estimate put China’s share of global heavy rare-earth processing at more than 90%. That’s a massive national security hole.
Greenland matters because it offers a way out — not a magic wand, but an exit. Greenland holds serious mineral potential. That potential shifts the long-term strategic balance only if development happens.
Greenland’s own politics have made development tricky. In 2021, Greenland reinstated a uranium ban that effectively froze the Kvanefjeld project, one of the world’s most significant rare-earth deposits, because uranium appears alongside rare-earth ore and triggers the political and regulatory trip wires that make major mining projects difficult to sustain.
Greenland’s voters have every right to weigh environmental costs. Strategy still counts consequences. But the practical result of the ban didn’t restrain Beijing. It protected Beijing’s advantage.
The Europeans, of course, love a green virtue-signal that imposes no serious cost on Europe. Through it all, however, the continent remains dependent on America’s military might, dependent on Chinese processing, and increasingly dependent on slogans to conceal both.
So yes — Trump’s aggressive posture creates complications. Acquisition talk puts Denmark in a public box and turns what should be an alliance negotiation into a freak show. It hands European leaders a stage they don’t deserve and an excuse to treat American interests as a moral problem.
RELATED: Trump announces ‘framework’ of ‘great’ deal with NATO on Greenland
But Europe’s leaders made fools of themselves by trying to address a strategic reality through choreography. A reconnaissance team, a few liaison officers, and a weekend of headlines don’t secure Greenland against anyone. Their “show of force” invited contempt, not respect.
Codevilla’s 2019 essay mocked the way our establishment inflates foreign threats to discipline the home front. The Greenland episode shows a mirror image: European elites inflating a U.S. negotiating push into a crisis because they can’t handle an America that talks like a serious country.
Greenland touches our national defense. Greenland touches Arctic geography. Greenland touches the supply chain for advanced systems. Those facts don’t bend around Davos etiquette.
So use Codevilla’s test. Strip away the moral fog. Rank interests and act like the answers matter.
What’s Greenland to us?
A hell of a lot.
Why Canada’s Chinese EV bet is a big mistake
Canada’s decision to slash tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles is being sold as a pragmatic trade adjustment. In reality, it looks more like a self-inflicted wound to the country’s auto industry, workforce, and long-term economic sovereignty.
Lower prices today may come at the cost of lost manufacturing tomorrow — along with vehicles that struggle with quality and cold-weather reliability in a country where winter is not a minor inconvenience but a defining reality.
A vehicle that looks competitive on paper may tell a very different story after several Canadian winters.
Under an agreement announced earlier this month, Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs into the country each year at a tariff of just 6.1%, down from the 100% rate imposed in 2024.
Officials emphasize that this represents less than 3% of the domestic market. But auto markets are shaped at the margins. Even a relatively small influx of aggressively priced vehicles can disrupt pricing, undercut domestic producers, and discourage future investment.
Under pressure
Canada’s auto sector is deeply integrated with the United States, with parts, vehicles, and labor flowing across the border daily. That system has supported hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs for decades. Introducing low-cost Chinese imports into that ecosystem does not simply add consumer choice; it destabilizes a supply chain already under pressure from regulatory mandates, rising costs, and declining market share.
That pressure is already visible. The combined market share of General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis in Canada has fallen from nearly 50% to roughly 36%. These companies are not just brands on a dealership lot. They are employers, investors, and anchors for entire communities. When their market position erodes, the consequences ripple outward through plant closures, canceled expansion plans, and lost supplier contracts.
Cold comfort
Supporters argue that Chinese EVs will make electric vehicles more affordable, accelerating adoption and helping Canada meet emissions targets. But affordability without durability is a hollow promise. Many Chinese EVs entering global markets have yet to prove themselves in extreme climates. Cold weather is notoriously hard on batteries, reducing range, slowing charging times, and increasing mechanical stress — conditions Canadian winters deliver in abundance.
Reports from colder regions already using Chinese EVs raise concerns about performance degradation, software issues, and inconsistent build quality. Battery thermal management systems that perform adequately in mild climates can struggle in deep cold. Door handles freeze, sensors fail, and range estimates become unreliable. These are not minor inconveniences when temperatures plunge and drivers depend on their vehicles for safety as much as transportation.
Quality concerns extend beyond climate performance. Chinese automakers have made rapid progress, but speed has often come at the expense of long-term durability testing. Western manufacturers spend years validating vehicles under extreme conditions precisely because failure carries real consequences. A vehicle that looks competitive on paper may tell a very different story after several Canadian winters.
Cheap creep
There is also the question of what happens to Canada’s manufacturing base as these imports gain a foothold. History offers a clear lesson. When markets are flooded with low-cost vehicles produced under different labor standards and supported by state-backed industrial policy, domestic production suffers. Plants close, jobs disappear, and skills erode — losses that are extraordinarily difficult to reverse.
Europe offers a cautionary example. In the rush to meet climate targets, policymakers opened the door to inexpensive Chinese vehicles, only to see domestic automakers squeezed between regulatory costs and subsidized foreign competition. The result has been declining investment, layoffs, and growing concern about long-term competitiveness. Canada risks repeating that mistake but without Europe’s scale or leverage.
Spy game
The geopolitical implications cannot be ignored. Modern EVs are data-collecting machines, equipped with cameras, sensors, GPS tracking, and constant connectivity. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that Chinese-built vehicles pose national security risks. Whether or not those fears are fully realized, perception matters. The United States has already signaled that Chinese EVs will not be allowed across its border, even temporarily.
That leaves Canadian consumers in a difficult position. A vehicle purchased legally in Canada could become a barrier to travel, commerce, or even family visits. The idea that a car could determine whether a driver can cross the world’s longest undefended border should give policymakers pause. Instead the Carney government appears willing to accept that risk as collateral damage.
Realism over resentment
Some Canadians, frustrated by U.S. tariffs and rhetoric, may view this pivot toward China as an act of defiance. But trade policy driven by resentment rather than realism rarely ends well. Replacing dependence on the United States with dependence on China does not restore sovereignty; it simply shifts leverage from one superpower to another, often with fewer shared values and less transparency.
President Donald Trump has made his position clear. He is open to Chinese companies building vehicles in North America if they invest in domestic factories and employ domestic workers. What he opposes are imports that bypass production, undermine jobs, and introduce security risks. Canada’s deal does nothing to address those concerns. Instead it places Canadian workers and consumers squarely in the crossfire.
The promise of cheaper EVs may sound appealing in the short term, but the long-term costs are becoming harder to ignore. Lost manufacturing jobs, weakened supply chains, unresolved quality and cold-weather issues, and strained relations with Canada’s largest trading partner are not abstract risks. They are predictable outcomes.
Canada built its auto industry through integration, investment, and a commitment to quality. Undermining that foundation for a limited influx of low-cost imports is not a strategy. It is a gamble — and one Canadian workers, manufacturers, and drivers are likely to lose.
The US-Japan alliance keeps China from bullying the world into higher prices
China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific no longer comes in bursts. It has become dangerous and systematic for America.
A recent long-range patrol by Chinese forces, conducted alongside Russia, prompted Japan to scramble fighter jets. It marked the latest in a string of incidents after months of heightened Chinese military activity around the Senkaku Islands.
If Washington and Tokyo keep strengthening this partnership, they can make the Indo-Pacific more difficult for Beijing to bully and far more stable for everyone who depends on it.
These shows of force don’t happen by accident. China uses them to normalize military pressure, probe red lines, and test the unity of U.S.-led alliances.
This latest episode also made one thing clear, at least: The Trump administration is watching closely.
In a visible show of solidarity with Tokyo, U.S. strategic bombers joined Japanese fighter aircraft for high-profile drills. Days earlier, Chinese military aircraft conducted takeoffs and landings inside Japan’s air defense identification zone and shadowed Japanese aircraft with their radar off near Okinawa. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s State Department expressed concern and reaffirmed its commitment to a “strong and more united” U.S.-Japan alliance.
Washington increasingly recognizes what Tokyo has understood for years: China’s behavior doesn’t just destabilize the region. It challenges the security order that has kept the Indo-Pacific from tipping into open conflict.
That reality puts a premium on reliable partnerships. No partnership matters more than the U.S.-Japan alliance.
Nowhere does that matter more than Taiwan. China’s large-scale military exercises, dubbed Justice Mission 2025, have pushed tensions in the Taiwan Strait to the highest levels in decades. Beijing aims to intimidate Taipei, warn off “external interference,” and alter the status quo through pressure rather than persuasion.
The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy arrived in that environment. While headlines still focus on Europe and the Middle East, the document makes the administration’s priorities clear: The Indo-Pacific remains central to U.S. strategy.
The NSS describes the Indo-Pacific as a critical economic hub that accounts for nearly half of global GDP. It commits the United States to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific by securing sea lanes and upholding international law.
RELATED: Inside China’s plan to beat the US at big tech forever
That framework didn’t start in Washington. Japan first advanced the concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific, and the region later adopted it through partnerships such as the Quad — the informal grouping of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia.
Rather than announcing a new direction, the NSS reinforces a familiar one: Alliances form the core of deterring China. Unlike the Trump playbook in Ukraine, the administration treats alliances as the bedrock of Indo-Pacific security against Beijing’s expanding military reach.
Japan sits at the heart of that network.
China pressures Japan across its waters and airspace, making Tokyo a frontline state. Japan also serves as the United States’ indispensable partner in the region, with basing, interoperability, and shared strategy that no other ally can match at the same scale. Under new conservative leadership, Japan has begun acting with urgency.
Japan’s defense minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, has emphasized that urgency, warning that the country now faces its most severe security environment since World War II. Japan has deepened coordination with the U.S. and other like-minded partners while strengthening its military capabilities by accelerating security reforms and easing restrictions on defense equipment transfers.
Japan has also moved up its plan to raise defense spending to 2% of GDP — from 2027 to now. That headline matters less than where the money goes.
Tokyo has prioritized capabilities suited for a long-term, high-risk environment: unmanned aerial vehicles, expanded surveillance platforms, and submarines equipped with vertical-launch missile systems.
RELATED: Hypersonic missiles are the new arms race. Can America catch up?
Japan’s objective looks straightforward. It aims to become a more capable military partner that complements U.S. forces rather than relying on them by default. That shift aligns with President Trump’s demand that allies reduce dependence on American power by strengthening their own defense industries and readiness.
The U.S.-Japan alliance has also moved beyond drills and declarations toward defense-industrial cooperation. Expanded maintenance and repair coordination, along with eased export controls, have begun laying the groundwork for a durable security partnership.
This collaboration marks a shift from rhetoric to endurance. Aligning strategy with industrial capacity won’t eliminate risk. It will raise the cost of Chinese coercion and reduce the chances that Beijing miscalculates.
Koizumi has stressed that 80 years after World War II, the U.S.-Japan alliance still embodies reconciliation and remains the best instrument to deter China’s rising aggression.
If Washington and Tokyo keep strengthening this partnership — in capability, production, and resolve — they can make the Indo-Pacific more difficult for Beijing to bully and far more stable for everyone who depends on it.
Glenn Beck: Trump’s tariffs and Greenland push have a hidden meaning — and it’s bigger than you realize
President Donald Trump has recently intensified his push to acquire Greenland for U.S. national security reasons, refusing to rule out military force or economic coercion, including tariffs on Denmark and European allies. The U.S. will get control of Greenland "one way or the other,” he told reporters on Air Force One on January 11.
Yesterday at a White House news conference, when asked how far he would go to obtain the ice-covered island, he cryptically replied, "You'll find out."
His determination to acquire Greenland has sparked significant backlash, including strong rejections from Denmark's and Greenland's leaders. Many call it a power-grab that will strain NATO ties and potentially ignite a war.
But Glenn Beck says we have to be smart about the way we think about this. “If you know anything about Donald Trump, he's been against war his whole life,” he says.
Trump’s latest moves, he argues, don’t indicate a desire for war; they indicate a desire to survive an inevitable one.
“What he's acting like is a man who believes the world is dying anyway. The old world is dying and that it's better to break it deliberately and ... grab the wreckage than inherit it by surprise and have to be fighting for the scraps,” he explains, reminding that history repeatedly shows that “only the disruptors ... have a chance of saving their nation.”
Glenn echoes Trump’s words that Denmark “cannot be responsible for the security of the northern hemisphere,” especially against the threat of Russia and China.
“The Danes and the EU are not going to be the ones that prevent war or protect the northern hemisphere. It must be the United States, so we must have control of Greenland,” he says, displaying a map of the country that highlights its strategic location in the Arctic.
Because it straddles the GIUK Gap (Greenland-Iceland-U.K.) between North America and Europe, Greenland is vital for monitoring Russian and Chinese submarines and missiles, providing early warning against attacks on the U.S., controlling access to emerging northern shipping routes, and securing the northern approaches to North America.
For these reasons, the United States has been expressing interest in controlling Greenland since the 1950s, says Glenn, but President Trump — in light of the swelling threat of China and Russia and the weakening of NATO — is actually trying to make it happen.
But this need for hemispheric control extends beyond Greenland.
Glenn suspects that Trump’s tariffs weren’t just economic tools but deliberate “stress tests” on allies and potential partners. By applying pressure equally, even on NATO members like Denmark or close neighbors like Canada, Trump forces the world to answer: Who stands with the West, and who is drifting toward adversaries like China?
Glenn plays recent clips of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney boasting about exporting massive LNG shipments to Asia — “By 2030, Canada will produce 50 million tons of LNG each year, all of which will be destined for Asian markets” — as an example of how tariffs have forced nations to show their true colors.
People might not like Trump’s tariffs or his push for Greenland, but they’re failing to see the big picture.
“The president sees war, and he's preparing for it,” says Glenn.
To hear more of Glenn’s commentary and predictions, watch the video above.
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The fastest way to stop Iran’s killers ... without firing a single shot
The mullahs of Iran have resumed the familiar work of slaughtering their own people. (Again!) The United States can respond without firing a shot — and without waiting months for a traditional embargo to bite.
It can impose an electronic embargo.
An electro-embargo could do something sanctions often cannot: break the regime’s control quickly enough to matter while the killing is still underway.
Washington could pursue this approach unilaterally, or it could press the United Nations to authorize it under Article 41 of the U.N. Charter, which empowers the Security Council to order measures “not involving the use of armed force,” including the partial or complete interruption of “postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication.” The text already exists.
The question is whether anyone has the imagination — and the nerve — to use it.
The electronic advantage
In the context of Iran’s continuing humanitarian emergency, the United States, with a bit of diplomatic legerdemain from Ambassador to the U.N. Michael Waltz, could challenge the Security Council to act. China and Russia sit on the council. They will posture. They will threaten vetoes. But even a public debate would force them to explain why the world should tolerate a regime that murders civilian protesters in the streets.
If the Security Council approves an Article 41 action, the United States could then present its combatant commanders with something Iran has never faced at scale: an embargo not on goods but on electrons.
Physical embargoes remain a standard tool of statecraft. They also take time. Iran can evade, reroute, smuggle, barter, and stall. An electronic embargo moves at the speed of light.
Target Iran’s hardline regime — not the Iranian people — by degrading the communications infrastructure that allows the government to command and control its security forces and manage the extraction and export of oil, its primary source of hard currency.
Strike the regime’s hardened telephone and cellular systems, satellite communications, and broadcast television.
Cripple the internal nervous system that keeps the state coordinated, disciplined, and armed.
The effect would be immediate. A regime that cannot communicate cannot coordinate raids, deploy forces efficiently, jam dissident signals, or maintain operational tempo. It cannot manage a modern oil export apparatus without functioning networks. It cannot run a crackdown in real time if it loses the ability to issue orders and track compliance.
The ‘Venezuelan formula’
Just as important, an electronic embargo could reverse the regime’s favorite trick: cutting the Iranian people off from each other and from the outside world. Tehran has already tried to block the internet and throttle social media. A targeted electronic campaign could negate that control and unleash an information tsunami — one the mullahs cannot shape, censor, or contain.
That shift matters. When citizens can communicate, organize, document, and broadcast, repression becomes harder and riskier. The regime loses its monopoly on narrative. Fear starts to spread in the other direction.
RELATED: Memo to Hegseth: Our military’s problem isn’t only fitness. It’s bad education.
One can imagine a greatly expanded “Venezuelan formula”: degrade internal communications, then use broadcast means to confuse and complicate the regime’s grip on what is happening — while simultaneously encouraging the population to resist theocratic authority. The goal would not be spectacle. The goal would be collapse: the steady unraveling of the regime’s confidence, coherence, and control.
In this mode, a combatant commander could employ SOFTWAR principles to engage and degrade the mullahs through coordinated, non-kinetic lines of operation. Properly executed, such a campaign would affect nearly every aspect of Iranian society — and it would do so without turning Iranian cities into ruins.
A greater strategic payoff: China
The strategic payoff for the United States extends beyond moral clarity. It comes down to oil — and to China.
The recent decapitation of the Maduro junta in Venezuela proved a point many analysts ignore. The key factor is not the quantity of oil in a given country. It is control of the flow of oil. Energy states matter because they can fuel, fund, and sustain adversaries.
If the mullahs fall, China loses a major energy supplier at a moment when it can least afford disruption. Beijing’s ambitions depend on stable inputs. Xi Jinping’s dream of Chinese communist hegemony runs on energy. Remove an important provider, and you squeeze China’s strategic bandwidth — again.
That result alone justifies exploring an electronic embargo.
This is not a call for war. It is a call to use power creatively, within the bounds of international law when possible, and in defense of a population being beaten, shot, and silenced by its rulers.
The mullahs survive by controlling the physical streets and the electronic space above them. Take away the second, and the first becomes harder to hold.
An electro-embargo would not solve every problem. But it could do something sanctions often cannot: break the regime’s control quickly enough to matter while the killing is still underway.
Exclusive: 'Anti-China moves' pay off BIGLY — Governor Sanders and Arkansas earn A+ for crushing CCP land-grabs
The communist regime in Beijing has long worked to undermine the United States.
China — which the first Trump administration recognized as a "revisionist" power keen on shaping "a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests" — and its agents have run intimidation and coercion campaigns out of illegal police stations on American soil; engaged in espionage and political destabilization efforts in the U.S.; and launched numerous cyberattacks on American institutions and critical infrastructure.
Perhaps most importantly, China has bought up vast swathes of strategically significant U.S. land.
'Arkansas was the first state in the country to kick communist China off our farmland and out of our state.'
Some states have taken meaningful steps to fight back against these and other subversive initiatives.
The efforts by Arkansas, in particular, to defend against Chinese communist influence and infiltration have not only captured Beijing's attention but that of State Shield, a foreign-influence watchdog group founded by Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb who went to work last year for the Department of Government Efficiency.
State Shield, which works in over 10 states to advance policies to counter Chinese influence and bolster regional and national security, has awarded Arkansas an A+ rating in its inaugural 2025 State Shield Scorecard and named Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) "Best Governor for National Security."
"Arkansas was the first state in the country to kick Communist China off our farmland and out of our state, and we didn't stop there," Sanders said in a statement obtained by Blaze News.
"We've taken real action to protect our land, our data, and our taxpayers from hostile foreign influence," continued the governor. "This recognition shows that strong leadership at the state level makes a real difference in keeping our people and our economy secure."
RELATED: The truth behind Trump's Venezuela plan: It's not about Maduro at all
Whereas subsequent scorecards will reflect annual reviews of legislative activity, State Shield indicated its inaugural scorecard reflects an evaluation of work completed from 2021 to 2025. During that period, Arkansas passed numerous laws aimed at curbing foreign influence.
Last year, for instance, the Natural State, enacted legislation:
- withholding funding for a state-supported institution of higher education that has a Confucius Institute or similar institute related to China, prohibiting state-sponsored investment in China, and banning sister cities with China;
- barring Chinese Communist Party-controlled businesses from leasing any interest in Arkansas land or holding any interest in agricultural land located within a 10-mile radius of critical infrastructure; and
- prohibiting colleges and universities from engaging in the creation of agricultural products, conducting classified research, or conducting agricultural research under a contract with a prohibited foreign party.
In addition to ratifying these and other pieces of legislation on-theme, Gov. Sanders moved the needle on countering Chinese influence with numerous actions and executive orders.
'It is indeed necessary to be vigilant against Arkansas' anti-China moves.'
Among the gubernatorial actions highlighted by State Shield was Sanders' January 2023 executive order aimed at protecting Arkansas information and communications technology from the influence of adversarial foreign regimes, and her EO banning CCP-linked TikTok on state networks and state-issued devices.
Arkansas' efforts to curb Chinese influence have infuriated the communists in Beijing.
When, for instance, Arkansas ordered the subsidiary of a China-owned agricultural firm ChemChina to sell off land in the Natural State pursuant to Arkansas Act 636 — legislation ratified in 2023 by Sanders — the CCP propaganda publication Global Times viciously attacked the governor.
The publication accused Sanders both of advancing "undignified" rhetoric and proving that "American politicians are incapable of driving local development, but are good at orchestrating political farces."
It further warned that "it is indeed necessary to be vigilant against Arkansas' anti-China moves, as they could potentially lead to imitation and similar actions by other conservative U.S. states."
State Shield's scorecard indicates that while Arkansas leads the pack, other red states — especially Nebraska — aren't far behind.
Sanders, whose efforts have in some cases dovetailed with the Trump administration's, said early last year, "President Trump is the first president in my lifetime to take a hard line against communist China, and we are proud to support that work in Arkansas by getting communist China off our land and out of our state."
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