By Laurence F. Sanford

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tariffs and trade restrictions against the United States are a significant component of China’s unrestricted warfare for world domination.

China is pursuing a “mercantilist” national economic policy designed to maximize exports and minimize imports. This results in a massive accumulation of resources to develop China’s industrial and military complex. Fusing civilian and military organizations is a key strategy in maximizing China’s strength.

The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2024 was $295 billion. U.S. imports totaled $439 billion, while U.S. exports totaled $144 billion. Over the past five years, the trade deficit totaled $1.6 trillion, averaging $323.5 billion annually.

President Bill Clinton’s advocacy for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 was one of the most calamitous policy decisions in U.S. history.

Clinton argued that by agreeing to adopt the WTO’s open-market-oriented approach to international trade, China would move toward greater freedoms and global economic prosperity. On the contrary, China has reduced personal liberties with increased domestic surveillance while harming American workers and hollowing out American factories.

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) report of 2022 noted, “China also has a long record of violating, disregarding, and evading WTO rules to achieve its industrial policy objectives. China continues using numerous and constantly evolving unfair, nonmarket, and distortive trade policies and practices to pursue harmful and anticompetitive industrial policy objectives.” At the same time, China has sought to frustrate WTO oversight mechanisms, which were designed to address good-faith disputes. The CCP does not act in good faith.

Trade restrictions utilized by the CCP to access Chinese markets include mandates for technology transfers and limited access to markets. Intellectual property theft has an estimated value of $600 billion annually. One in three American companies doing business with China claims that the Chinese have stolen intellectual property from them.

Summary

The CCP has been a predator and has engaged in criminal acts against America and humanity. The CCP won the civil war in 1949 and assumed control of mainland China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have died from communist policies, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the One Child Policy.

China’s joining the WTO on the promise of opening markets and personal freedoms was a lie. The sad part of the story is that American leaders knew China was cheating, yet did nothing about it until now. There was a consensus among the American elite in Washington, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood that trade with China benefited both countries and, of course, the elites. However, the elite forgot about those in Middle America who lost their jobs and whose children were poisoned by fentanyl and TikTok.

The Trump administration has imposed massive tariffs on Chinese goods entering America. The “de minimis” tariff loophole, which allowed one billion packages a year to enter the U.S. duty-free, has been closed. China has retaliated with its own tariffs.

Action

1. Immediately lift tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Unfair trade restrictions should be negotiated.
2. China is an existential threat to the U.S. and should be treated as such with high tariffs.
3. The WTO is to remove China’s “special status” as a developing nation.
4. Establish an anonymous American tip line for individuals pressured into intellectual theft by the CCP.
5. Establish a U.S. government legal fund to sue Chinese entities that steal intellectual property.
6. Countries that are friendly to American interests should have low tariffs. Any unfair trade restrictions against U.S. goods are to be negotiated.
7. Countries that are not friendly to American interests should have high tariffs.

Reciprocity should be the foundation of U.S. foreign policy.

Laurence F. Sanford is a senior analyst at the American Security Council Foundation.