Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 03/06/2026 5:10:00 AM PST by MtnClimber
It’s easy to forget that ten years ago, candidate Donald Trump was the only national politician who took China’s growing geopolitical power seriously. He talked about China so frequently and pronounced those two syllables so deliberately — Chi-na — that comedians and voters alike enjoyed doing imitations of the MAGA-man taking America’s geopolitical adversary to task.
On the stump, Trump called both Republicans and Democrats “stupid” for how they had permitted the Chinese Communist Party to devour American assets. He would list beautiful American buildings and historic American real estate that the Chinese had acquired since President Bill Clinton and both parties in Congress decided to ignore China’s past bad behavior (including the ’89 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square) and welcome it into the world’s premier economic clubs. He pointed to two decades of multinational trade “deals” that had resulted in the closures of industrial and manufacturing plants across the United States, as once-American companies shifted operations to China and took advantage of the communists’ disregard for workers’ safety or subsistence wages. He argued that China’s currency manipulation, organized theft of American trade secrets, and sidestepping of environmental and human rights treaties ensured that American wealth flowed in one direction: directly into the pockets of the CCP.
Trump couldn’t believe that American politicians could be so reckless, or worse, consciously willing to sabotage American economic interests for a traitor’s paycheck from Chinese-run lobbyists. He excoriated national companies for betraying Americans while profiting from slave labor on the other side of the world. His campaign for president was simultaneously a campaign against this percolating notion in the West that the twenty-first century belonged to China.
Remember how common it was a decade ago to hear pundits proclaim with certainty that this was “China’s century”?
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Is anyone in Hong Kong happy that Britain handed them over to the communist Chinese?
I’m thinking that Newscum is running Americans out of California so the Chinese can move in and take over.
The entire West Coast.
The new Department of Shield of the Americas should get Chicoms attention.
Trump has done a good job calling attention to the destruction of manufacturing jobs in the US going to ChYnah! He has yet to address the issue of tech and support jobs in the US going to IndeeeYah! The latest job figures are ugly.
Handed them over? The reality is Britain’s 99 yr lease of Hong Kong from the Chinese expired and unsurprisingly HK reverted to the Chinese, regardless of whether that fact made anyone happy or not. Your point is?
An interesting reaction from Beijing highlights an evaluation of risk from the lack of oil flowing from Iran.
According to most evaluated data, China was buying more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil. That’s according to data from 2025 as analyzed by Kpler and published in January by Reuters.
Iranian oil always had limited buyers due to U.S. sanctions. However, China purchased on average 1.38 million barrels per day of Iranian oil last year, according to Kpler. That represented about 13.4% of the total 10.27 million bpd of oil it imported by sea.
With President Trump previously cutting of discounted oil from Venezuela, two things unfolded. First, the Venezuela oil was no longer sold with non-petrodollar currencies; Venezuela oil is now being sold on the standard oil market. Secondly, with the Venezuela oil disrupted China would become even more dependent on Iranian oil shipments if they wanted to retain the discounted rate.
How big is the financial difference? According to Reuters, “Iranian Light crude has traded at around $8 to $10 a barrel below ICE Brent on a delivered basis to China since December.” … “That means Chinese refiners save about $8 to $10 a barrel if they buy Iranian Light rather than non-sanctioned oil.”
Additionally, as noted before Operation Epic Fury began, “Iran has a record amount of oil on the water, equivalent to around 50 days of output, as China has bought less because of sanctions and Tehran seeks to protect its supplies from the risk of U.S. strikes, Kpler said.”
Buying discounted oil from Venezuela, Iran and Russia resulted in billions of dollars saved by China. The only production venue not currently disrupted would be purchases from Moscow. This increases the dependency, but the purchase price may no longer carry any discounted value, at least not at the previous rate.
India was purchasing a significant amount of Russian oil for its own refinery use and sale back into the global market. China and India would now be bidding for what is likely a more valuable Russian export. No more discounts put the “teapot” refining operations in Shandong, China, into a squeeze. This also highlights the decision by China to limit refined exports.
[VIA NBC] – China’s government has told the country’s largest oil refiners to suspend exports of diesel and gasoline as an escalating conflict in the Persian Gulf disrupts the arrival of crude from one of the world’s largest producing regions.
Officials from the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner, met refinery executives and verbally called for a temporary suspension of refined product shipments that would begin immediately, according to people familiar with the matter. They asked not to be named, as the discussions are not public.
The refiners were asked to stop signing new contracts and to negotiate the cancellation of already-agreed shipments. The people said. An exception was made for jet and bunker fuel held in bonded storage and supplies to Hong Kong and Macau, they added.
[…] China has a vast refining sector, but much of its production is funnelled to serve domestic demand, meaning it is not a critical supplier. Across Asia, it ranks third for seaborne exports, behind South Korea and Singapore. However, Beijing’s precautionary curbs reflect efforts across the import-dependent region to prioritise domestic needs as the crisis in the Middle East deepens. (read more)
Everyone else were financially compromised I have no doubt. This is why Congress was and is happy with the status quo - both parties. Same in Canada where one of the best performing stocks is Dollorama.
It wasn't just the government and our companies that sold us out.
Does Wal Mart Mislead On What It Imports From China?
Post 2, "And the reason that I should lay awake nights worrying about what Wal-Mart imports is???"
Post 5, "Maybe. Why do I care? Is it illegal? Immoral? Unconstitutional? Would I get a better deal otherwise?"
Post 9, "yeah whatever....just go ahead and bash WalMart. This is how the world works and I kind of like the low prices myself...."
Post 30, "but the pseudo communists always come out of the woodwork in a WalMart thread...." (you have to follow the thread to get this one).
Post 33, this person turned out to be a prophet, "It is gonna be interesting when we need to make tanks to fight the Chinese? We have exported our manufacturing base."
Post 56, "Why is this even important? Why should we care what % of their inventory they import whether it be from China or any other country?"
Post 79, "Translation: I won't answer this because my answer would call for protectionism and this would lead to another debacle along the lines of that which occurred when Smoot-Hawley was enacted to "fix" the economy in the 1930's."
Post 94, in reply to post 79 above, "That sums up the mindset of the Wal-Mart bashing brigade here."
China June trade surplus swells five-fold
Post 255, "Why should I pay higher prices for any item, just to satisfy someone else's concept of fair trade."
Post 287, "This applies to the anti-free traders also. USA - we've got ours, screw you. No you can't have access to our markets, we want to keep you poor."
Post 301, "So far I have been accused of being a communist chinese plant to influence Free Republic for taking the free trade position. (So far) Now Free Trade advocates are being lumped with the Islamofacists? I'm building quite the resume!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.