America is under economic attack. For decades, Washington politicians looked the other way while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) flooded our markets with artificially cheap goods, wiping out American jobs and entire industries. Thanks to President Trump, that era of willful blindness is over.
China’s Economic Attack
The CCP uses a destructive economic weapon called dumping, which occurs when a country subsidizes the production of a good to flood another country with cheap goods, cratering their domestic production capacity. This practice is anti-free market because it uses government funding to produce goods beyond consumer demand and distort prices.
President Trump has taken action, signing the America First Trade Policy Executive Order, directing his administration to review existing tariffs and duties on Chinese goods to ensure they are strong enough to stop the cheating. The Trump administration is also using tools given by Congress, such as Sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, to impose tariffs on products being imported with the intent to harm a domestic industry.
The industries under CCP attack represent the backbone of American industry: steel and aluminum, automobiles, critical minerals, fertilizer, food products, lumber, textiles, furniture, and chemicals. These sectors employ tens of millions of Americans. When Chinese companies dump underpriced, subsidized products into our market, American manufacturers cannot compete.
A Deliberate Strategy
The CCP’s goal is to infiltrate the largest economic markets in the world, take out the competition, and make the United States and Europe dependent on China’s manufacturing supply chain. China controls roughly 60% of the world’s rare earth mining and nearly 90% of refining capacity. The Trump administration has launched an investigation into structural excess capacity in Chinese steel production, with global excess capacity expected to hit 721 million metric tons by 2027.
China also controls 60% of the world’s supply of glyphosate, a chemical critical to herbicide production. If America becomes dependent on China to grow its food, the national security consequences are obvious and alarming. The auto sector is not safe either, as China increased car chassis exports into the EU by 327% to weaken European manufacturing.
The Trump administration has rightfully realized the seriousness of the problem and has imposed tariffs, launched trade investigations, and put America’s economic sovereignty back at the center of U.S. foreign policy. No president in modern history has done more to expose and confront the CCP’s rigged trade playbook, and American manufacturers, steelworkers, farmers, and families are better off because of it.
Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
