16 Feb Leo Gerard – Trade 101: How China Exploits the US Economy
Top U.S. trade officials are in China this week in high-stakes negotiations to curb China’s illegal trade practices and restore American vigor. They are scheduled to meet Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. They’re talking tough, which is appropriate since no previous agreement and no previous penalties have even dinged China’s free-market-defying trade regime. But then, President Trump let slip earlier this week that he would consider postponing a tariff increase scheduled for March 1 if no deal is reached. Delay means nothing but additional strength shorn from America.
The white-shoe bankers and lawyers on Wall Street don’t see it, and few politicians in Washington, D.C., care. But voters in America’s industrial heartland suffered the consequences of China’s massive and persistent trade violations. Good, family-supporting manufacturing jobs disappeared. For those lucky enough to retain jobs, pay has stagnated for more than two decades. Once-thriving communities decayed as China drained American wealth.