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• Rich Lowry: China Trade Has Been a Bust
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• Gary Bauer: America’s Leading Anti-Semite
• Marc A. Thiessen: Babies With Down Syndrome Have a Right to Life

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.

Opinion in Brief

Rich Lowry: “President Donald Trump’s prospective tariffs on steel and aluminum have put renewed focus on China trade, although the tariffs are a comically inept misfire if their true target is China. … A better approach begins with acknowledging that China is a unique problem. For all of Trump’s complaints, Mexico isn’t pursuing a well-honed strategic agenda of exploiting the global trade system at the same time it undertakes an aggressive neoimperialist foreign policy. Only China is doing that. China isn’t the first developing country to adopt a policy of maximizing exports. What makes it different is its sheer ambition and its size, which gives it leverage over foreign companies and considerable international influence. … By no means should we emulate China. We should continue to pursue free trade as a policy, not as a theology that prevents us from acknowledging that there is such a thing as unfair trade. … Trump can have emotionally satisfying tariffs to scratch his protectionist itch, or he can have a strategy to muster an alliance of truly free-trade partners to pressure China. He can’t have both — and you can be sure China knows which option it prefers.”