Why tariffs beat treaties in a world that cheats



President Trump’s tariffs are set to snap back to the “reciprocal” rates on Wednesday — unless foreign countries can cut deals. So far, the only major players to reach agreements in principle are the United Kingdom and, ironically, China.

Others aren’t so lucky. The European Union, Japan, and India all risk facing a sharp increase in tariffs. Each claims to support free trade. India has even offered a so-called zero-for-zero deal. Vietnam offered similar terms.

Free trade is a myth. Tariffs are reality. The Trump administration should raise them proudly and without apology.

The Trump administration should be skeptical. These deals sound good in theory, but so does communism. In practice, “true” free trade — like true communism — has never existed. It’s impossible. The world’s legal systems, business norms, and levels of development differ too much.

Economists may still chase unicorns. But the Trump administration should focus on tilting the board in our favor — because someone else always will.

Free trade is a mirage

Start with the basics: Different countries are different. Their economies aren’t equal, their wages aren’t comparable, and their regulations certainly aren’t aligned.

Wages may be the most obvious example. In 2024, the median annual income for Americans was around $44,000. In India, the median annual income was just $2,400. That means American labor costs nearly 20 times more. And since labor accounts for roughly a third of all production costs, the math practically begs U.S. companies to offshore work to India.

RELATED: Trump’s tariffs take a flamethrower to the free trade lie

  Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images

It’s China in 2001 all over again.

Back then, the average U.S. wage was about $30,000. China’s? Just $1,100. When China joined the World Trade Organization, American manufacturers fled en masse. Since 2001, more than 60,000 factories have disappeared — and with them, 5 million jobs.

The result: decimated towns, stagnant wages, and hollowed-out industrial capacity. And don’t blame robots or automation. This was policy-driven — an elite obsession with free trade that delivered real pain to working Americans.

 

We’ve run trade deficits every single year since 1974. The inflation-adjusted total? Roughly $25 trillion. And while U.S. workers produce more value than ever, their wages haven’t kept up. They’ve been undercut by cheap foreign labor for decades.

Equal partners? Think again

What if the other country is rich? Can free trade work between economic peers?

Not necessarily. Even when GDP levels match, hidden differences remain. Take regulation. America enforces labor standards, environmental protections, and workplace safety rules. All of those raise production costs — but for good reason. American-made goods reflect those costs in their price tags.

Meanwhile, competitors like China or Mexico cut corners. They dump waste, abuse workers, and sidestep accountability. The result? Cheaper products — on paper. But those costs don’t vanish. They just get pushed onto others: polluted oceans, exploited laborers, sicker consumers.

This is why the sticker price on a foreign good doesn’t reflect its true cost. The price is a lie. Cheapness is often just corner-cutting with a smile.

National strength means self-reliance

Rather than debating whether free trade is possible, we should ask whether it’s good for America.

Should we outsource core industries to foreign nations with no loyalty to us? Should we depend on countries like China for our pharmaceuticals, our electronics, or even our food?

The founders didn’t think so. The Tariff Act of 1789 wasn’t about boosting exports — it was about building an independent industrial base. A sovereign nation doesn’t beg for favors. It builds.

We aren’t just an economy. We are a people — a nation united by heritage, language, faith, and trust. That matters more than quarterly profits.

Free trade is a myth. Tariffs are reality. The Trump administration should raise them proudly — and make no apologies for putting America first.

China’s greatest export isn’t steel — it’s industrial theft



President Trump last week announced a deal in principle with China: The U.S. will impose 55% tariffs on Chinese goods, while China will respond with a 10% tariff on American goods. In return, China will continue supplying rare earth minerals and magnets, and Chinese students will keep attending American universities. The deal’s finer details remain in flux.

  

Noticeably absent from the agreement? Any commitment from China to protect American intellectual property. That’s no accident. China denies stealing American IP altogether, chalking up clear examples of theft to normal “market behavior.”

Trump is the first president in half a century to take trade seriously. But tariffs alone won’t fix this.

And in a way, they’re right. IP theft is normal in China. Some of the country’s most successful firms, like Huawei, were built on stolen American technology. For the Chinese Communist Party, theft isn’t an embarrassment. It’s a strategy.

The great Chinese rip-off

In 1983, much of China was still preindustrial. No engines, no tractors, no cars. Labor happened by hand or with the help of animals. Rural China looked a lot like colonial America.

But in just a few decades, China transformed into an industrial superpower. It now produces three times more industrial output than the U.S., including 24 times more steel and far more oceangoing ships. It has the world’s largest economy by purchasing power.

How did they do it? Theft.

RELATED: Without tariffs, the US is defenseless in an economic war

  Moor Studio via iStock/Getty Images

A 2024 House Homeland Security Committee report estimates that China steals between $300 billion and $600 billion in American IP annually. A 2017 report from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property drew similar conclusions. If we use a midpoint estimate and track the losses back to 2001 — when China joined the World Trade Organization — America has lost nearly $10 trillion in intellectual property to China.

China gets this technology in several ways. First, through direct espionage. Only 29% of these operations target military secrets. The rest focus on industrial and commercial tech: manufacturing methods, chemical formulas, blueprints. Espionage alone accounts for roughly $180 billion in losses each year.

Second, through counterfeiting. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 60% of all counterfeit goods sold worldwide come from China. In the U.S., that number rises to 87%. Counterfeiting costs U.S. businesses up to $291 billion per year.

Third, through piracy on Chinese e-commerce platforms. The United States Trade Representative reports that American rights-holders lose billions thanks to widespread digital theft of films, music, software, books, and branded products. Of the $2.16 trillion in Chinese e-commerce sales in 2024, roughly 40% were pirated or counterfeit. That’s $864 billion in lost profits — just last year.

Americans deserve to benefit from their own labor and ingenuity. But China continues to loot our IP with impunity, and our leaders let it happen.

The golden goose gets gutted

Beyond outright theft, China siphons off American technology through strategic corporate acquisitions and forced technology transfers.

The U.S. runs a trade deficit with China of more than $300 billion annually. To cover it, we sell assets — ownership stakes in American companies. Chinese investors target U.S. tech and industrial firms, acquire shares, then funnel proprietary information back to China. Once the intellectual property is transferred, they sell off their holdings.

Technically legal. Strategically disastrous.

China also compels U.S. companies to “partner” with Chinese firms when setting up operations inside the country. The Chinese side runs daily operations and learns the ropes. In exchange, Americans share their tech. Eventually, the Chinese copy the technology, replicate the products, and compete directly with the very companies that taught them.

That’s how Huawei rose to prominence. The company reverse-engineered American products, then used its home-field advantage to grow into the world’s third-largest smartphone maker.

China’s strategy works. And American businesses, addicted to short-term profits, keep falling for it. The consequences aren’t just economic — they’re geopolitical. This is how the CCP turned a rural backwater into a peer competitor.

Trump is the first president in half a century to take trade seriously. But tariffs alone won’t fix this. As I argue in my book “Reshore,” the only way to win this fight is to bring America’s factories home. Reshoring means economic independence. It also cuts off China’s access to the technology they’ve been stealing for decades.

Until then, we’re funding our own decline.

Trump’s tariffs take a flamethrower to the free trade lie



The globalist fairy tale is finally unraveling — and not a moment too soon.

For decades, Americans were sold the shiny promise of globalization: open markets, booming trade, cheaper goods, and peace through economic integration. But behind the glittering sales pitch was a brutal reality — the slow, deliberate hollowing out of the American middle class.

Trump’s tariffs are not just about trade. They’re about rebuilding what our elites sold off piece by piece.

Enough of this.

President Donald Trump’s recent announcement on tariffs sent the elites — those who profited most from this decades-long experiment — into full panic mode, and for good reason. Their gravy train may finally be running out of track.

This isn’t about economic theory. This is about the lives, livelihoods, and dignity of the American people — especially those in towns and cities that once hummed with the sound of industry.

How it started

The North American Free Trade Agreement was the appetizer in a global feast that served American manufacturing to foreign competitors on a silver platter. Even President Bill Clinton, at the NAFTA signing ceremony in 1993, seemed eager to get past the domestic details and embrace the coming wave of globalization.

By the early 2000s, the United States was importing at unprecedented rates. Today, the trade deficit with the European Union alone is $235 billion. That’s not trade — that’s surrender. Our deficit with Europe hasn’t fallen below $100 billion since 2011.

None of this happened by accident.

It began with a handshake in 1972, when President Richard Nixon traveled to Mao Zedong’s China. At the time, China was riding bicycles and rationing rice. No one imagined that opening the door to trade would lead to the economic superpower we face today.

But by 2001, that door had been blasted open. China joined the World Trade Organization, committing to lower tariffs and removing trade barriers. American markets were flooded with cheap Chinese goods — and American workers were left holding an empty lunch pail.

The result was a trade deficit with China that ballooned to $295 billion last year. That’s the largest deficit we have with any country. Our total trade deficit in 2024 was a record $1.2 trillion — the fourth consecutive year topping $1 trillion.

The human toll

The fallout from this one-sided relationship with China is staggering. A 2016 MIT study found that, in the decade following China’s World Trade Organization entry, the U.S. lost 2.4 million jobs — nearly a million in manufacturing alone. The researchers concluded that international trade makes low-skilled workers in America “worse off — not just temporarily, but on a sustained basis.”

You’d think a quote like that would be plastered across every office in Congress. But no. The political class — especially on the left — chose to ignore it.

Instead, they wring their hands in confusion when working-class Americans turn to a leader like Donald Trump. “Why are they so angry?” they ask, while standing atop the wreckage of towns they helped dismantle.

About that wreckage

In Galesburg, Illinois, Maytag once employed 5,000 workers. The last refrigerator rolled off the line in 2004. The site is now rubble and weeds.

Youngstown, Ohio — once a titan of American steel — has lost 60% of its population since the 1970s. Gary, Indiana, once home to U.S. Steel’s largest mill, has over 10,000 abandoned buildings. In Flint, Michigan, over 80,000 GM jobs vanished. By 2016, over half of men ages 25 to 54 in Flint were unemployed. Buick City, once a symbol of industrial might, was demolished in 2002.

Detroit, once richer than Boston, is now 40% poorer. The U.S. auto parts industry lost 419,000 jobs in the decade after China joined the WTO.

Even NPR admitted that “the China Shock created what looked like miniature Great Depressions” in these areas.

From dream to despair

Between 2000 and 2014, America lost 5 million manufacturing jobs — the steepest decline in American history.

Meanwhile, in the same time period, corporate profits soared 600%. CEO pay has ballooned to 290 times that of the average worker. In 1965, it was 21 times. Since 1978, CEO compensation has grown by over 1,000%. Regular worker pay? Just 24%.

They told us the rising tide would lift all boats. Turns out, it mostly lifted yachts. And the rest of the boats? Capsized.

This economic assault came with a steep psychological toll.

A 2017 Princeton study found a link between rising deaths of despair — suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses — and job losses in trade-exposed areas.

Since 1999, overdose deaths in America have increased sixfold. In Ohio, they rose 1,000% between 2001 and 2017. The hardest-hit areas? Deindustrialized, working-class communities.

The American middle class is vanishing. In 1971, 61% of households were middle class. By 2023, it was just 51%. In 1950, manufacturing jobs made up 30% of total U.S. employment. Today, they make up just 8%.

RELATED: Why tariffs are the key to America’s industrial comeback

  Bet_Noire via iStock/Getty Images

There are fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than there were in 1941 — before we entered World War II — despite our population more than doubling.

This collapse hit black workers especially hard. Between 1998 and 2020, more than 646,000 manufacturing jobs held by black Americans disappeared — a 30% loss in that sector.

A reckoning long overdue

Trump’s tariff push is a long-overdue confrontation with the failed consensus of globalization. For 25 years, the arrangement has been spectacular — for China and for U.S. corporations chasing cheap labor. But for America’s workers and towns, it has been catastrophic.

Yes, the corporate press is scoffing. CBS News recently “fact-checked” Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s claim that America has lost 90,000 factories since NAFTA. The correct number, they said, was actually 70,500.

Oh? Only 70,500? As if that’s supposed to be reassuring.

These aren’t merely statistics. These are livelihoods — entire communities turned into ghost towns. Every shuttered factory was once a promise of stability, dignity, and upward mobility. And with each closure, that promise was betrayed.

We’ve allowed globalization to crush the backbone of this country — the working men and women who don’t show up on CNBC but who built the very foundation we all stand on.

Trump’s tariffs are not just about trade. They’re about sovereignty. They’re about self-respect. They’re about rebuilding what our elites sold off piece by piece.

This is not a perfect plan. But it’s the first real attempt in decades to confront the human cost of globalization. It’s a wager that America can still choose dignity over dependence, self-sufficiency over servitude.

Let’s hope we’re not too late.

The real American factory killer? It wasn’t automation



Dylan Matthews at Vox wants you to believe that robots — not China — killed American manufacturing. Even if tariffs reshore production, he argues, they won’t bring back jobs because machines have already taken them.

This is not just wrong. It’s an ideological defense of a decades-long policy failure.

The jobs lost to offshoring aren't just the five million factory jobs that disappeared — the number is likely more than double that. The real toll could exceed 10 million jobs.

Yes, American manufacturing has grown more productive over time. But increased productivity alone does not explain the loss of millions of jobs. The real culprit isn’t automation. It’s the collapse of output growth — a collapse driven by offshoring, trade deficits, and elite dogma dressed up as economic inevitability.

Ford’s logic

To understand what actually happened, start with Henry Ford.

In 1908, Ford launched the Model T. What set it apart wasn’t just its engineering. It was the price tag: $850, or about $21,000 in today’s dollars.

For the first time, middle-class Americans could afford a personal vehicle. Ford spent the next few years obsessing over how to cut costs even further, determined to put a car in every driveway.

In December 1913, he revolutionized manufacturing. Ford Motor Company opened the world’s first moving assembly line, slashing production time for the Model T from 12 hours to just 93 minutes.

Efficiency drove output. In 1914, Ford built 308,162 Model Ts — more than all other carmakers combined. Prices plummeted. By 1924, a new Model T cost just $260, or roughly $3,500 today — an 83% drop from the original price and far cheaper than any “affordable” car sold now.

This wasn’t just a business success. It was the dawn of the automobile age — and a triumph of American productivity.

Ford’s moving assembly line supercharged productivity — and yet, he didn’t lay off workers. He hired more. That seems like a paradox. It isn’t.

Dylan Matthews misses the point. Employment depends on the balance between productivity and output. Productivity is how much value a worker produces per hour. Output is the total value produced.

If productivity rises while output stays flat, you need fewer workers. But if output rises alongside productivity — or faster — you need more workers.

Picture a worker with a shovel versus one with an earthmover. The earthmover is more productive. But if the project doubles in size, you still need more hands, earthmovers or not.

This was Henry Ford’s insight. His assembly line made workers more productive, but it also let him build far more cars. The result? More jobs, not fewer.

That’s why America’s manufacturing employment didn’t peak in 1914, when people first warned that machines would kill jobs. It peaked in 1979 — because Ford’s logic worked for decades.

The vanishing act

Matthews says manufacturing jobs vanished because productivity rose. That’s half true.

The full story? America lost manufacturing jobs when the long-standing balance between output and productivity broke.

From 1950 to 1979, manufacturing employment rose because output grew faster than productivity. Factories produced more, and they needed more workers to do it.

But after 1980, that balance began to shift. Between 1989 and 2000, U.S. manufacturing output rose by 3.7% annually. Productivity rose even faster — 4.1%.

Result: flat employment. Factories became more efficient, but they didn’t produce enough extra goods to justify more hires.

In other words, jobs didn’t disappear because of robots. They disappeared because output stopped keeping pace.

  

The real collapse began in 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. Over the next decade, U.S. manufacturing output crawled forward at just 0.4% a year. Meanwhile, productivity kept rising at 3.7%.

That gap — between how much we produced and how efficiently we produced it — wiped out roughly five million manufacturing jobs.

  

Matthews, like many of the economists he parrots, blames job loss on rising productivity. But that’s only half the story.

Productivity gains don’t kill jobs. Stagnant output does. From 1913 to 1979, American manufacturing employment grew steadily — even as productivity surged. Why? Because output kept up.

So what changed?

Output growth collapsed. And the trade deficit is the reason why.

Feeding the dragon

Since 1974 — and especially after 2001 — America’s domestic output growth slowed to a crawl, even as workers kept getting more productive. Why? Because we shipped thousands of factories overseas. Market distortions, foreign subsidies, and lopsided trade agreements made it profitable to offshore jobs to China and other developing nations.

The result: America now consumes far more than it produces. That gap shows up in our trade deficit.

In 2024, America ran a $918 billion net trade deficit — including services. That figure represents all the goods and services we bought but didn’t make. Someone else did — mostly China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union.

The trade deficit is a dollar-for-dollar reflection of offshore production. Instead of building it here, we import it.

How many jobs does that deficit cost us? The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that every billion dollars of GDP supports 5,000 to 5,500 jobs. At $918 billion, the deficit displaces between 4.6 and five million jobs — mainly in manufacturing.

That’s no coincidence. That’s the hollowing-out of the American economy.

We can’t forget that factories aren’t just job sites — they’re economic anchors. Like mines and farms, manufacturing plants support entire ecosystems of businesses around them. Economists call this the multiplier effect.

And manufacturing has one of the highest multipliers in the economy. Each factory job supports between 1.8 and 2.9 other jobs, depending on the industry. That means when a factory closes or moves offshore, the impact doesn’t stop at the plant gates.

The jobs lost to offshoring aren't just the five million factory jobs that disappeared — the number is likely more than double that. The real toll could exceed 10 million jobs.

That number is no coincidence. It matches almost exactly the number of working-age Americans the Bureau of Labor Statistics has written out of the labor force since 2006 — a trend I document in detail in my book, “Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring Our Jobs Home and Revive the American Dream.”

Bottom line: Dylan Matthews is wrong. Robots didn’t kill American manufacturing jobs. Elites did — with bad trade deals, blind ideology, and decades of surrender to global markets. It’s time to reverse course: not with nostalgia but with strategy, not with slogans but with tariffs.

Tariffs aren’t a silver bullet. But they’re a necessary start. They correct the market distortions created by predatory trade practices abroad and self-destructive ideology at home. They reward domestic investment. They restore the link between productivity, output, and employment.

In short, tariffs work.

3 Lessons Trump Can Learn From His Last Trade War With China To Win This One

In Trump’s second term, he aims to leave a lasting legacy. To do this, he should draw from the lessons learned during the previous trade war.

The FDA just made Ozempic even more expensive — here’s how



While Americans struggle to afford life-changing medications, the Food and Drug Administration has effectively forced U.S. patients to subsidize Denmark’s booming economy. The agency’s recent declaration that the semaglutide shortage is “over” represents a staggering policy failure that benefits foreign pharmaceutical giants at the expense of American patients and health care innovation. Semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, is the key ingredient in weight loss and diabetes medications that are reducing obesity nationwide.

The numbers tell the story: Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant behind Ozempic and Wegovy, became the largest company in Europe at the end of 2023 after demand for Ozempic skyrocketed. This meteoric rise has transformed not just the company but an entire nation. Novo Nordisk was responsible for more than half of Denmark’s private sector job growth, which now boasts one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies. Pharmaceutical exports are driving half of the country’s 2.5% GDP growth in 2023, with anticipated growth of 3% in 2024 and 2.9% this year.

Americans pay the highest prices in the world for medications that fuel another nation's economic boom.

The tiny Danish port town of Kalundborg, home to fewer than 17,000 residents, has become an unlikely boomtown. Novo Nordisk is investing an eye-watering $8.6 billion in expanding its facilities there. While Danes enjoy lower interest rates, expanded public amenities, and a robust job market thanks to the influx of American dollars, Americans face impossible choices about whether they can afford medication at all.

Americans foot the bill

Novo Nordisk relies heavily on the American market, with more than half of its sales coming from the United States. This dominance helped sustain Denmark’s economy, preventing a recession.

The company's dependence on U.S. consumers is reflected in its steep pricing. Ozempic costs $900 per month, while Wegovy is priced at $1,300 — a prohibitive expense for many Americans. For a time, an affordable alternative existed. When the federal government declared a semaglutide shortage, compounding pharmacies were allowed to produce lower-cost versions, offering them for hundreds of dollars less than the brand-name drugs.

That changed in February. Holdovers from the Biden administration declared the shortage over and set a deadline for compounding pharmacies to stop selling semaglutide alternatives. This move effectively drove the drug’s cost from under $200 back to more than $1,000.

The FDA’s blunder

The FDA's decision carries devastating consequences for Americans who depend on these medications. Rural and underserved communities, which often relied on telehealth and compounding pharmacies when brand-name options were unavailable or inaccessible, will be disproportionately affected. Countless patients will be forced to abandon treatment due to cost barriers, leading to worsening health conditions and higher long-term health care costs.

The FDA's decision represents a profound failure of regulatory policy. Rather than protecting American interests, it has sacrificed affordable access to critical medications to boost a foreign pharmaceutical giant’s profits and another country’s economic growth.

A better approach would balance legitimate safety concerns with the need for market competition to control prices. The FDA should immediately reassess its shortage determination and restore the ability of American compounding pharmacies to produce affordable alternatives. Insurance reforms should expand coverage for these medications, and policies need to ensure Americans aren't paying premium prices that subsidize European health care systems.

Putting American patients first

Regulatory agencies must prioritize the health and financial well-being of American patients over the economic interests of foreign corporations and governments. Americans already pay the highest drug prices in the world, and their money should not be fueling another nation's economic growth.

Policymakers must take action. Americans deserve access to affordable, life-changing medications without being forced to bankroll Denmark’s economic success. The FDA’s decision on semaglutide is more than bad health care policy — it is a failure to protect American consumers in favor of subsidizing foreign prosperity.

FACT CHECK: Did South Africa Ban All US Businesses And Halt Mineral Exports?

A post shared on Facebook claims South Africa banned all American businesses and halted mineral exports. Verdict: False There is no evidence for this claim. Fact Check: Social media users are claiming that South Africa suspended all U.S. businesses and halted the export of minerals to the U.S. in response to the U.S. suspending all USAID projects. […]

China’s tech infiltration poses an urgent national security risk



Totalitarian regimes cannot tolerate criticism, and China is no exception. The Chinese Communist Party’s Great Firewall is not just about restricting information within its borders — it is a deliberate effort to suppress dissent worldwide.

Now, China has a new tool for repression: DeepSeek, an AI model built using U.S. chips. Weak export controls under the Biden administration allowed China to achieve an artificial intelligence breakthrough once thought to be years away.

Competition with China isn’t a game. It’s time to stop letting Beijing gain an unfair advantage, whether through illicit means or simply by ceding ground.

Like TikTok, DeepSeek is poised to become a propaganda tool for the CCP. The model is already censoring content deemed a threat to “state power,” including references to Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, and even Winnie the Pooh. This level of content control — extending beyond information to influence minds — poses a direct and urgent threat to U.S. national security.

The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly used technology to target U.S. interests. For years, Americans have downloaded TikTok, unaware that the app functions as Chinese spyware. This malware collects and shares user data with the CCP, tracking contacts, photos, search histories, and even keystrokes. As a result, Beijing has access to vast amounts of Americans' metadata. From a national security standpoint, this is alarming. The CCP now holds data on military installations, population centers, and critical infrastructure — essentially a detailed map with targets marked.

Even more troubling are the cybersecurity risks uncovered in DeepSeek. An Epoch Times investigation found that DeepSeek stores user data on China-based servers. One company discovered the AI model transmits information to China Mobile, a state-owned telecom giant. A separate analysis by cybersecurity firm Wiz revealed that DeepSeek suffered a major data breach, exposing chat histories, secret keys, and other sensitive information. These security failures make clear that China cannot be trusted with our advanced technology.

The threat doesn’t stop there. ByteDance, TikTok’s CCP-affiliated parent company, uses the app to promote pro-China propaganda while suppressing anti-CCP content. A Rutgers University study confirmed that TikTok amplifies content favorable to the CCP while down-ranking videos that contradict its agenda. Another CCP-linked app, RedNote, is gaining traction in the U.S. and will likely follow the same pattern. This psychological warfare must end. The U.S. cannot allow Beijing to continue exploiting American users through predatory technology.

That’s why I’ve introduced the China Technology Transfer Control Act, which would prevent China’s military from acquiring sensitive U.S. technology and intellectual property through export controls. My bill would also sanction foreign entities that sell prohibited U.S. technology to the PRC.

We can’t continue to let our foremost foreign adversary perform psychological manipulation on Americans or allow it to collect troves of our sensitive, personal information. My bill puts up guardrails to keep the CCP from acquiring increasingly advanced U.S. technologies and developing more software like DeepSeek R1.

The Biden-Harris administration did not do enough to protect America’s most sensitive technology. The CCP knows that, which is why any U.S. technology that ends up in the hands of the CCP can be weaponized against us. We must protect our advancements and ensure Americans — not the CCP — reap their benefits.

Competition with China isn’t a game. It’s time to stop letting Beijing gain an unfair advantage, whether through illicit means or simply by ceding ground. We need decisive action now to safeguard our leadership in technological innovation — not just for today but for generations to come.

Treasury Sec. Yellen literally bows to CCP counterpart, describes official China trip as 'successful'



Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen described her official trip to China as "successful" Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation" while a viral video of her repeatedly bowing to her CCP counterpart in Beijing raised eyebrows back home.

"Never, ever, ever…an American official does not bow. It looks like she’s been summoned to the principal’s office, and that’s exactly the optics the Chinese love," Bradley Blakeman, former senior staffer in George W. Bush's White House, told the New York Post of the unseemly protocol flub.

"WATCH: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — in an embarrassing 'diplomatic faux pas' — repeatedly bows to Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing," @RNCResearch tweeted.

In the video, Sec. Yellen's counterpart, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, approaches her, with his hand extended as if to shake hands.

Yellen returns the gesture by extending her own hand. The pair lightly grasp hands and shake, and then the situation grew awkward. As she shook He's hand, she bowed, not once, but three times. Cameras flash as a woman wearing a mask, carrying two bags, moves in from behind Yellen, possibly in an effort to guide her. Meanwhile, He stands tall and takes a step back, maintaining the handshake all the while.

— (@)  
 

In an interview with Yellen before she left Beijing, "Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan aired the clip, but referred to it only obliquely. Brennan framed it as "one of those awkward moments," likening it to He's mention of concerns about Chinese spy balloons.

"I had a very constructive visit. I received a warm welcome and ... had substantive conversations about the global economy, developments in our own economies, financial markets, and a list of concerns that each of us brought to the table that we agreed to follow up on over time," Yellen told Brennan.

Yellen said she made it clear during the meetings that the U.S. could not compromise on national security issues "even if it harms our own narrow economic interests." She added that when the U.S. takes actions that would affect China's economy, the U.S. would ensure our actions were "transparent, narrowly targeted, and well-explained."

Asked if Beijing was taking a warning shot by restricting exports on critical minerals essential for computer chips, Yellen said she had "expressed concern" about China's action, describing it as "potentially" retaliatory.

"My purpose is to ensure we don't engage in a series of unintended escalatory actions that would be harmful to our overall economic relationship."

She said that senior officials as well as citizens from both countries had had "very little contact" with one another in the past several years, due in part to COVID, and that the lack of contact can lead to misunderstandings.

"I do think my trip has been successful in forging those relationships and creating the opportunity for a deeper set of more contacts at our staff levels."

"It is my hope that there is a path to bring inflation down ... the data I've seen suggests we are on that path," Yellen said, as the conversation with Brennan moved to the economy back home.

Yellen's apparent optimism about Bidenomics stopped short when Brennan asked her directly about the risk of recession given the recent slowdown in job numbers.

Recession is "not completely off the table," Sec. Yellen said, also adding her expectation that we would see a slower pace of ongoing job gains in the future.

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India Sees Surge in Clothing Manufacturers Fleeing China

The Times of India (TOI) reported on Friday that a substantial number of large garment companies are shifting their operations from China to India. India has been waging a boycott campaign against China and trying to persuade international corporations to do business with India instead.