CHINA MEETS ITS MATCH – WINNING THE 20 YEAR TRADE WAR

By Stephani Scruggs,Contributor,The American Dossier

Media pundits are abuzz with chatter that President Trump has started a trade war with China, but the reality is just the opposite. China’s entire modern trade policy has been a multifaceted attack against the United States. The fact that past US Presidents chose to ignore China’s attack does not change the reality that China has been conducting a trade war for a very long time.

China was permitted entrance to the World Trade Organization, (WTO), in 2001 on the condition that it would execute fair trade policies. But from the beginning, China flagrantly ignored those rules, devising ways around them when possible and breaking those rules completely when it suited them. The very first year China joined, WTO members found themselves forced to file a record 67 trade violation cases against their newest member; indicating that China never had any intention of offering free trade, but instead was using the WTO as a battering ram to force entrance into markets and rob the occupants within.

For nearly two decades China has used its own government owned enterprises and encouraged private Chinese businesses to target very specific foreign market sectors, including steel, manufacturing and technology. Combinations of currency manipulation, dumping, intellectual property theft and other forms of financial cheating undercut all other producers, driving competitors out of business and enabling China to become the market leader in many sectors.

Past US Presidents unwisely chose to ignore China’s ever-increasing unfair trade practices, leaving any kind of enforcement up the WTO. However, the WTO served as a toothless dog, making noise but with little to no effective action. Like a naughty child left uncorrected, China grew bolder in its economic attacks with every year that passed. As of 2019, China has more than double the amount of pending WTO disputes against it than all three of its next highest GDP trading partners, (Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom), combined. In the most basic of terms, after years of being allowed to cheat a little, China has redoubled efforts and cheats a lot; costing WTO member nations, and especially the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars in lost trade, wages, jobs and technology.

President Trump’s strong stance in protecting American businesses and workers against China’s Trade War is absolutely necessary if America intends to retain a prosperous middle class. With jobs and manufacturing plants newly wrestled back from the ill-conceived and economically crushing NAFTA, Americans have cast a justifiably jaundiced eye upon the weak-kneed economists who once promised that playing dead would keep us safe and giving away the farm would make us rich.

Instead of wreaking havoc, President Trump’s decision to fight back against China’s trade war is paying off; markets are strong, confidence is up and most importantly, the Chinese are beginning to cry Uncle. Each week comes with news of China lowering trade barriers and agreeing to lower the astounding $375.2 billion trade deficit. In a triumph akin to selling ice to an Eskimo, Trump even got China, the world’s largest rice producer, to agree to buy American rice.

President Trump may not have started the Chinese Trade War, but it is clear he intends to win it.

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Stephani Scruggs

A noted writer, speaker and political analyst, Stephani has advised several Presidential candidates, a United Nations Ambassador, several Attorneys General, Congress and the current Administration on developing pro-growth policies, international trade, currency manipulation and budget issues, as well as prolife and cannabis policies.

Follow her @StephaniScruggs