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

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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.

Trump’s UK tariff deal exposes the global free trade lie



President Trump on Thursday announced a new tariff deal with the United Kingdom — the first major agreement to follow the “Liberation Day” tariffs that forced 90 countries to come crawling back to the negotiating table.

Earlier in the week, India offered a zero-for-zero tariff deal — free trade on pharmaceuticals, steel, and auto parts. Trump declined.

America doesn’t just need tariffs to protect jobs and industries. It needs them to defend its sovereignty.

Predictably, the free-trade faithful slammed the U.S.-U.K. deal as “managed trade” that would harm consumers. They rushed to embrace India’s offer instead. They’ve got it backward.

Trump’s “managed trade” with the U.K. will do more to strengthen America’s economy — and serve American workers — than any so-called “free trade” agreement with India. Why? Because developed and developing nations operate in fundamentally different economic worlds. One-size-fits-all trade policy doesn’t work.

Free trade is a myth

This may offend professional economists who worship the rational-consumer model, but it must be said: Different countries are different. These aren’t surface-level quirks. They reshape the entire trade equation and make real free trade — not just difficult — but impossible.

Start with wages. In 2024, the median American worker earned $61,984. The median Briton earned $47,162 — both figures in U.S. dollars for easy comparison. The U.K. lags behind but not by much. If the U.K. were a U.S. state, it would rank somewhere in the middle. Free trade with the U.K. won’t trigger mass offshoring because our labor markets are comparable.

India is a different story. The median Indian worker earned just $3,925 last year. For the price of one American, a company could hire 16 Indians. That wage gap makes offshoring to India almost inevitable in labor-intensive industries. Cheap labor wins.

But wages aren’t the only issue. Legal systems, tax regimes, geography, infrastructure, language, climate, cultural norms, business ethics, and demographics all create market asymmetries that domestic policy can’t overcome.

Take China. American companies operating there face rampant intellectual property theft. Westerners assume legal systems deter crimes like fraud and theft. In reality, cultural norms prevent most bad behavior long before the courts get involved.

China doesn’t share America’s cultural regard for property rights — especially when it comes to outsiders. Since 2001, China has stolen an estimated $5 trillion in American intellectual property. Chinese courts have refused to hold anyone accountable. This isn’t an exception. It’s standard practice.

Doing business in China isn’t like doing business in America, Canada, Australia, or Europe — where common values and legal recourse create a relatively level playing field.

Free-trade advocates can slash tariffs and harmonize regulations all they want, but they can’t fix these deeper, structural imbalances. They can’t rewrite culture or eliminate corruption. These asymmetries make truly free trade impossible.

Spot the differences

In my book “Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring Our Jobs Home and Revive the American Dream,” I argue that American workers are among the most productive in the world — more productive than their counterparts in Germany, Mexico, or almost anywhere else.

That’s why the U.S. typically runs trade surpluses — or small deficits — with developed countries like the Netherlands, Australia, and the U.K.

So why do highly productive American factories shut down and relocate to China, Mexico, or India — where it takes more labor to produce the same output?

Because productivity doesn’t equal price.

The price of a good reflects more than just labor. If a Chinese manufacturer steals its technology instead of inventing it, it can undercut American competitors who spent years funding research and development.

That’s not a free market. It’s rigged.

Tariffs defend more than jobs

Global free trade is a myth. Nations can’t trade freely while market asymmetries persist. The only way to achieve true parity would be to unify the world’s economies, legal systems, cultures, and political structures. That’s the goal of the European Union, World Trade Organization, and World Economic Forum. Coincidence? Hardly.

America doesn’t just need tariffs to protect jobs and industries. It needs them to defend its sovereignty. Globalism doesn’t level the playing field — it sells it to the lowest bidder.

Rand Paul’s anti-tariff crusade was doomed — and rightly so



Earlier this week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) launched a short-lived attempt to block President Trump’s new tariffs. Fortunately, in this case, he lost. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.

Paul played all of the libertarian greatest hits, from calling tariffs “taxation without representation” to claiming they represent big-government tyranny. He ignored one key fact: Donald Trump ran, and won, on an explicitly pro-tariff platform. The American people voted for this.

If Paul really wants to reduce the size and scope of government, he has no choice but to support Trump’s tariffs.

The reality is that tariffs are the form of taxation most compatible with small government. That’s why America’s founders — and every president on Mount Rushmore — supported them.

How tariffs promote small government

Tariffs shrink the power of government in three ways. First, they reduce foreign demand for U.S. debt, limiting borrowing. Second, they promote full employment, reducing welfare dependency. Third, they protect American businesses from foreign state interference.

America has run trade deficits every year since 1974. The cumulative total, adjusted for inflation, approaches $25 trillion. In 2023 alone, the trade deficit in goods and services neared $920 billion.

We didn't pay for that deficit with domestic production. Instead, we sold off assets — real estate, stocks, and bonds. China and its trading partners ship us goods, then buy up our future in return.

That includes our debt. Foreign demand for Treasury bonds has exploded because countries like China must recycle their trade surpluses somewhere. This artificial demand makes it easier — and cheaper — for Washington to borrow without raising yields.

Foreign entities now hold $8.5 trillion in U.S. public debt, about 29% of the total. The explosion started in 2001 when China joined the World Trade Organization, and our deficits soared.

The result? Washington spends recklessly. And the cost of servicing that debt — over $300 billion in interest payments to foreign creditors — bleeds out the economy. That’s roughly equal to our annual trade deficit with China.

Higher tariffs would shrink the trade deficit and lower foreign demand for American debt. That would limit Washington’s access to cheap credit — exactly what fiscal conservatives should want.

Long term, if tariffs replaced the income tax as the government’s primary revenue source, federal borrowing would face a hard cap. Unlike the income tax, tariffs are avoidable. If rates rise too high, people buy domestic. That reality places a natural limit on tax revenue and borrowing capacity.

In short: Tariffs enforce fiscal restraint.

Tariffs favor work over welfare

Since 2001, the U.S. has lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs — along with the service jobs that depended on them.

Offshoring gutted labor’s bargaining power. When employers can threaten to send jobs to China, wages stagnate. Productivity no longer guarantees compensation. Workers take what they can get, or they’re replaced.

This “race to the bottom” helped erode middle-class wages and drive up welfare dependency. Over 10 million Americans now qualify as chronically unemployed, with many dropped from the labor force entirely.

As I explain in my book “Reshore,” mass job loss carries political consequences. Unemployed citizens are more likely to vote for higher taxes, expanded social programs, and even socialist policies. Poverty breeds dependency — and dependency fuels government growth.

Even if you buy the libertarian argument that tariffs “distort” markets, the result still favors liberty. The jobs tariffs protect are real. They preserve dignity, reduce welfare rolls, and shrink government.

Work is cheaper — and better — than welfare.

Good fences make good neighbors

Paul argues that tariffs let government “pick winners and losers.” He wants the market to decide.

Well, sure. That would make sense — if America competed on equal footing. But we don’t. Chinese businesses don’t operate under free market conditions. They’re backed by the Chinese Communist Party, which props them up with subsidies, below-market financing, land-use preferences, and outright theft — up to $600 billion per year in American intellectual property.

U.S. small businesses can’t compete with state-sponsored enterprises. That’s why entire American industries, towns, and families have disappeared.

Tariffs serve as economic fences. They shield American firms from foreign governments — not just foreign competitors. That protection restores actual market competition inside the United States, where private companies can go head-to-head without facing a communist superstate.

And economic competition isn't just about firms. It happens at every level: workers vying for jobs, companies for customers, nations for global influence. Globalism collapses these layers into a single, rigged marketplace where the biggest government wins — and right now, that’s Beijing.

Tariffs restore order by separating national economies enough to maintain fair play. They enhance domestic competition while preserving international boundaries. Most importantly, they keep the CCP — the world’s largest and most authoritarian government — from dominating American markets.

If Rand Paul really wants to reduce the size and scope of government, he has no choice but to support President Trump’s tariffs.

America’s faith in ‘free trade’ empowered China’s apartheid machine



Like the “Free Tibet” campaign of the late 1990s, concern for China’s Uyghur population has faded into the background. In the mid-2010s, Beijing faced a short-lived wave of international criticism after General Secretary Xi Jinping created a vast network of internment camps. Nearly three million Uyghurs have been detained and subjected to brutal conditions.

Republicans looking to push back against anti-tariff Democrats should take note. This humanitarian catastrophe continues today, yet receives little sustained attention. It ranks among the most severe human-rights abuses on the planet — and American free-trade policies may have helped enable it. For decades, U.S. leaders embraced open commerce with China while ignoring the costs. That strategic blindness now carries a moral price.

Has our refusal to implement strong tariffs created a monster?

Beijing has long portrayed Xinjiang separatists as Islamic terrorists. This year marks a decade since their last major act of violence — a brutal knife attack at a coal mine that left 50 people dead, mostly Han Chinese workers and police. Horrific as it was, critics argue the assault, like previous incidents, reflected a desperate backlash against the Chinese state’s colonial-style repression.

Since Xi Jinping’s crackdown, no similar attacks have occurred. But the sheer scale of the regime’s response pushes China into apartheid territory — arguably beyond.

Reports estimate that up to three million of China’s 10-million-strong Uyghur population are now detained in so-called re-education camps. These camps aim to strip the Sunni Muslim minority of its identity and recast them as loyal subjects of the Chinese Communist Party.

Other reports indicate that many Uyghurs held in China’s re-education camps are forced to work in factories under conditions tantamount to slavery. Even more disturbing, some evidence suggests that, after “re-education,” Uyghurs are sold online in batches to employers across the country. Xinjiang produces one-fifth of the world’s cotton, and estimates say half a million Uyghurs are forced to pick it. That “free labor” gives Chinese manufacturers a competitive edge — one reportedly tied to the bankruptcy of major U.S. retailer Forever 21.

Democrats may oppose forced labor in theory, but where is the push to penalize what amounts to a 21st-century plantation economy? Would they stay silent if Russia did the same?

One of the most chilling aspects of Beijing’s ethnic campaign is its attempt to re-engineer Xinjiang’s population. This isn’t new. Seventy years ago, Mao Zedong launched a mass migration project to dilute the region’s Uyghur majority. The “Great Leap West,” introduced in 2000, revived the strategy — this time using financial incentives to bring Han Chinese into Xinjiang and offering jobs reserved for Han applicants outside the region. The policy remains in effect, along with forced out-migration of Uyghurs to other parts of China.

Even Western media outlets — usually quick to denounce any effort to reduce immigration — have expressed alarm over Beijing’s demographic engineering in Xinjiang. Many now acknowledge the regime’s mass Han migration into the region as a deliberate attempt to dilute the Uyghur population and strip the minority of any political influence.

More disturbing still are reports of mass sterilization campaigns. Chinese authorities have allegedly targeted Uyghur women to suppress birth rates. In 1990, hundreds of Uyghur men stormed a government building to protest forced abortions — a clash that ended with nearly 20 people dead.

The demographic consequences are staggering. In 1955, Uyghurs made up 90% of Xinjiang’s population. Today, they account for less than half.

Pro-Trump conservatives should grasp the strategic value of highlighting China’s use of migration as a political weapon. Doing so forces the left to confront a reality it usually denies: replacement-level immigration exists, and it carries consequences. Group identity rights don’t just apply to favored minorities — they apply to everyone, including the West.

Consider the demographic parallels. America’s historic, European-descended majority has dropped from 90% after World War II to 57% today. The left has openly — and at times grotesquely — celebrated that decline.

Like Beijing, the Democratic Party understands that demography is destiny. China aims to dominate its non-Han regions. Democrats aim to secure permanent political dominance over what they call “our democracy.”

By exposing the left’s selective outrage — condemning China’s demographic manipulation while applauding similar trends in the West — conservatives can force a reckoning. If it’s wrong in Xinjiang, it’s wrong here, too. And no amount of rhetorical gymnastics can cover up the left’s inconsistency, arbitrariness, and odious bigotry.

China’s mass enslavement of millions should spark outrage at least equal to what the West once directed at apartheid South Africa. That regime was boycotted into submission. Why shouldn’t the same standard apply to Beijing?

As President Trump has rightly asked: Why did we admit China into the World Trade Organization in 2001? What made anyone believe it would ever play by WTO rules — rules it had already vowed to ignore behind closed doors? Was George W. Bush’s administration, along with the now-defunct neoconservative GOP, truly naïve enough to think trade would transform China into a democracy?

More to the point, have we — not just our leaders, but the American people — enabled this? By enriching China through free trade, have we given it the means to carry out apartheid-level abuses against its Turkic Muslim minority?

And has our refusal to implement strong tariffs created a monster?

The anti-Trump, anti-tariff chorus must answer these questions. Its blind faith in globalization didn’t just cost us factories and jobs. It helped fund a regime that builds camps, crushes dissent, and rewrites humanity in its own image.

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'Unfair to U.S.'

Trump’s tariffs hit China where it hurts — more must follow



Donald Trump’s first term reshaped American politics. Against all odds, he upended the establishment’s consensus on trade, immigration, and foreign policy. He redefined the Republican Party’s platform with an "America First" agenda and proved that conservative populism is not only viable but dominant.

But resistance to his presidency was fierce. From day one, entrenched Washington elites and career bureaucrats worked to undermine him. Even within the Republican Party, many clung to outdated, donor-driven priorities instead of embracing the agenda voters demanded.

The United States must fully decouple from China, starting with a ban on Chinese ownership of American land and critical industries.

As a result, key elements of the MAGA movement — securing the border, dismantling the administrative state, and reducing dependence on China — faced obstruction from politicians more concerned with preserving their own power than delivering on their promises.

Better team, clearer vision

A second Trump administration cannot afford to be held back by the same forces. This time, there are no excuses. The lessons have been learned, and the roadblocks are clear. The next four years must be marked by decisive action, free from outdated GOP orthodoxy and bureaucratic sabotage. Fortunately, the Trump White House now has a team fully aligned with this vision.

To make any of the proposed changes meaningful, we must address the cultural decay that has worsened over the last four years — and that the GOP’s inaction allowed to fester for much longer. Cultural battles are just as important, if not more so, than economic or foreign policy. In his first term, President Trump reshaped the judiciary, defended religious liberty, and resisted the left’s radical cultural agenda. But the left’s extremism has only intensified — targeting children with gender ideology, undermining women’s sports, and weaponizing the legal system against conservatives.

This time, we must go further: defunding left-wing indoctrination in schools, banning irreversible gender-altering procedures on minors, and enshrining parental rights in law. Thankfully, President Trump has already signed executive orders banning biological males from competing in women’s sports and protecting children from the transgender medical industry, taking key steps to dismantle the radical left’s agenda for good.

We must overhaul the federal government to serve the people — not leftist NGOs and special interests that thrive on taxpayer-funded slush funds. One of the greatest threats to the nation comes from the unelected ruling class in Washington. To counter this, the Trump administration launched the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending. This initiative is streamlining operations, cutting bureaucracy, and ensuring taxpayer dollars are used effectively.

Tackling China

With strong leadership and a clear path to a revitalized America, we must also use the new MAGA consensus to address the greatest external threat to U.S. prosperity: China.

For decades, the political class sold out American workers, offshoring jobs and manufacturing in pursuit of cheap labor and corporate profits. Trump’s first term reversed this trend by renegotiating trade deals and imposing tariffs that revitalized American industry.

But the job isn’t finished. The United States must fully decouple from China, starting with a ban on Chinese ownership of American land and critical industries. Trump’s tariff proposals mark an important first step, but this moment demands bold action. A pollution tariff would be a powerful tool, forcing China to pay for its lower environmental standards while leveling the playing field for American manufacturers.

In 2020, then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer proposed to the World Trade Organization that failing to enforce minimum environmental standards should qualify as an “actionable subsidy,” allowing the U.S. to counter it with tariffs. Now, freed from officials who prioritized cheap Chinese imports over American workers and environmental concerns, the United States must ensure that domestic manufacturing and production take precedence over globalist interests.

Momentum for this shift is already growing. Lighthizer’s successor, Jamieson Greer, recently observed, “There’s an unlevel playing field, and I think other countries take advantage of a total lack of environmental regulation. ... How do we actually address that issue? I think we do have to think of creative notions on how to do it.”

As Lighthizer’s former chief of staff, Greer understands the challenge and is well-positioned to take real action against China’s cheating this time around.

Global elites are content to let America decline, effectively handing the future to Communist China. But with strong leadership, this century can and will belong to the United States. A second Trump term is the best — perhaps the only — opportunity to fully implement the "America First" agenda and secure American dominance for generations.

No more half measures. No more bureaucratic sabotage. No more pandering to the old GOP establishment. A second Trump administration must act boldly, decisively, and relentlessly to make America great again. The stakes are too high for anything less.

Trump’s tariffs expose the real price of ‘free trade’



“We’ve been ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth,” President Trump declared in his address to Congress on Tuesday. “Countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them. … This system is not fair to the United States and never was.”

Trump’s solution? Reciprocal tariffs. “Whatever they tax us, we will tax them.” No longer will foreigners be free to sell their goods in America while simultaneously shutting the doors to American products.

Free trade is far from free. Friends and foes alike use predatory trade practices against the United States, exploiting American apathy and weakness.

The president is right. Unfair trade with the Third World has ballooned the trade deficit and led to the great looting of America. Our lands are sold to the highest bidder. Our corporations are bought by foreigners. Our industrial secrets and advanced technologies are stolen or shipped abroad — all to pay for the never-ending smorgasbord of “cheap” imports.

The cancer of globalism has metastasized into every facet of America’s economy. At this point, tariffs are no longer just a question of economic necessity — America needs them if we are to survive as an independent people and a sovereign nation.

What’s good for the goose …

To begin with, global free trade is anything but free. American industry fights an uphill battle across the globe. As the president aptly summarized:

India charges us auto tariffs higher than 100%. China’s average tariff on our products is twice what we charge them. And South Korea’s average tariff is four times higher. Think of that, four times higher. … They do nonmonetary tariffs to keep us out of their market. … They are, in effect, receiving subsidies of hundreds of billions of dollars.

This is obviously true. Foreign tariffs price out U.S.-made goods from foreign markets. Meanwhile, foreign businesses are free to sell their products in America. This explains why European countries like Germany and Italy run enormous trade surpluses with America — despite American industry being much more efficient.

If the playing field were level, American goods would be cheaper than European goods, and we would dominate their markets. The Europeans know this, so they tilt the playing field in their favor.

Foreign nations not only tax American goods but also create various nonmonetary barriers to trade.

China, for instance, routinely violates the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and multiple World Trade Organization agreements. It imposes unreasonable and often unclear regulations, engages in dumping — selling large quantities of products below cost to eliminate local competitors and then raising prices once it holds a monopoly — and suppresses labor rights for Chinese workers. These practices reduce labor costs in China by an estimated 47% to 86%, depending on the industry.

China also provides extensive subsidies for its exporters. Consider that between 2000 and 2006, roughly 33% of Chinese exporters sold over 90% of their goods abroad. For context, only 0.7% of American exporters did the same during this period. This period is relevant because China joined the WTO in 2001. Essentially, China “cheated” to get an early advantage over America.

This has snowballed into the greatest wealth transfer in all human history. In fact, America’s cumulative trade deficit with China since 2001, in 2024 dollars, is over $9.23 trillion. This is money that should have been reinvested in America but instead went to fund China’s rise.

President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs will help to level the playing field. May the best man win.

Survival of the fittest

America faces growing threats from unfair and imbalanced trade relationships that allow foreign economies to outcompete U.S. industries. These practices not only damage the American economy but also endanger the nation’s long-term survival.

Researchers across diverse fields — including political science, economics, evolutionary biology, pathology, botany, zoology, psychology, philosophy, and mathematics — have examined the optimal levels of cooperation between groups. Depending on the context, these groups may consist of different species, genetically related plants and animals, corporations, or nations.

Despite the varied contexts, researchers have reached a common conclusion: The most effective survival strategy combines cooperation within a group with indifference or hostility toward out-groups.

Groups that focus on sharing resources exclusively among their own members — a practice often associated with nationalism — enhance their chances of survival. In contrast, groups that share resources freely with all others — a hallmark of globalism — end up boosting the survival chances of both themselves and their competitors. As a result, nationalistic groups consistently outcompete globalist groups in the long run.

A study conducted by McGill University used simulations to model in-group competition with different cooperative strategies. In the study, the nationalistic approach was labeled “ethnocentric,” while the globalist approach was called “humanitarian.” The results showed that during early stages, when competition was minimal and resources were abundant, both strategies performed equally well. As competition intensified and resources became scarce, however, ethnocentric cooperation proved to be far more successful, ultimately outcompeting all other strategies.

In-group cooperation focuses benefits exclusively on a specific group, whether it’s a family, corporation, or nation. This approach strengthens the group’s survival prospects by prioritizing its interests above those of outsiders.

Since 1974, America's trade policy has followed a globalist, or humanitarian, approach. This strategy involves trading with all nations, even when they do not reciprocate. In contrast, most other nations — particularly China — adhere to a nationalistic or ethnocentric strategy. They trade with us, but only on terms that benefit them.

In the long run, America’s commitment to international free trade — like all globalist strategies — is a death sentence. It cannot succeed in a world where other nations can exploit our openness without offering anything in return.

“Free trade” is far from free. Friends and foes alike use predatory trade practices against the United States, exploiting American apathy and weakness. By allowing this, we force American companies to compete against foreign state-backed enterprises and workers earning near-slave wages.

This is neither a free market nor a fair fight. President Trump recognizes that economics is politics and that money is power. Tariffs are a tool to restore balance.

To thrive, America needs tariffs to encourage domestic cooperation and protect our national interests. We need tariffs to reshore industries, create jobs, and revive the American Dream.

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