In his widely anticipated announcement on Nov. 15 of his entry into the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald Trump described an economic rivalry between the United States and China that has steadily intensified before, during, and after his victory in the 2016, and argued that his policies are the only ones that can keep America competitive and prevent the Chinese regime from taking over as the world’s leading power.
“Remember, economic security is national security. And that’s what it is we need economic security. That is why we will launch an all-out campaign to eliminate America’s dependence on China, we will bring our supply chains, which are a disaster right now,” Trump told a crowd at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
Prior to his election in 2016, the communist regime was moving aggressively to try to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy, Trump said, citing Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” industrial policy that sought to transform China into a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse by the year 2025.
But Trump noted that he took the regime to task for its unfair trade practices by slapping tariffs during the U.S.-China trade war, which enabled American industries to run at full gallop.
The result was the U.S.-China trade war, during which the Trump administration slapped up to 25 percent tariffs on more than $300 billion in Chinese imports. Much of these tariffs are still in place today, with the Biden administration currently weighing whether to remove or reduce them.
In his Nov. 15 announcement, Trump described the dramatic impact of his trade policies on China and the competition between the powers.
“For the first time in memory, China was reeling and back on its heels, you’ve never seen that before,” the former president said.
A New Direction
Trump called this “America First” approach a sharp break from all previous U.S. administrations.“No president had ever sought or received one dollar for our country from China until I came along. And we were getting hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said.
“Many people think that because of this, China played a very active role in the 2020 election—just saying,” Trump added.
He continued, “Instead of jobs and factories leaving America for China, they worked for the first time, leaving China for America.”
In Trump’s analysis, the edge that the United States gained as a consequence of his policies suffered a setback as a result of the coronavirus that, not coincidentally, originated in China and spread quickly throughout the world.
“And then COVID started coming in from China. We call it the China virus. Some people call it other things. But it was devastating,” Trump said.
The former president praised the show of unity among Americans of differing political stripes when faced with the challenge of overcoming COVID-19, and called for a patriotic stance toward the continuing threat that China poses.
Remaining competitive vis-à-vis China is impossible with the energy policies of President Joe Biden in place, Trump argued. Upon a hypothetical inauguration in January 2025, Trump would reverse such policies, he pledged.
“On day one, we will end Joe Biden’s war on American energy and you will see, when that happens, you will see energy costs come down and because energy is so big and so important, you will see inflation dropping,” he said.
The green energy policies of the Democrats are not conducive to success in the struggle with a power that does not have any scruples when it comes to energy, Trump argued.
“China’s building a coal plan every week. Every week, they open up another and then they talk about all of the things that they do environmentally, they’re watching us die with a Green New Deal, with our windmills and with our solar that doesn’t have the power to fire up our great factories and our great plants,” Trump said.
