Tariff Critics Have No Answer To Trump’s National Security Arguments About Chinese Manufacturing

If the status quo in global trade were to persist, would America remain the world’s dominant power, or would we more likely be eclipsed by our worst adversary, Communist China?

That is the key question the globalists, financiers, and their corporate media mouthpieces who ginned up hysteria and market panic in the days following President Donald Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs on dozens of trade partners should have to answer.

For they have developed and been the primary beneficiaries of a distinctly unfree and unfair trade architecture that has left America reliant on other nations, namely China, for critical military components and the necessities of life. They have also eroded our dominant position in manufacturing and industry, created vulnerable supply chains, and hollowed out our country’s heartland with generational consequences for our people.

While this de facto China First policy has played out, the U.S. has continued to provide a security umbrella to myriad countries that have not only slapped tariffs and imposed non-tariff barriers on us but have also grown more economically and politically intertwined with Communist China and other foes.

Trump laid much of this out in his “Liberation Day” executive order and subsequent amendment to it, justifying reciprocal tariffs on the grounds that the trade deficits resulting from the status quo “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.” His critics have largely failed to grapple with this argument, suggesting a bad-faith position that favors their own self-interest over America’s national interest.

The administration has dramatically ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods. It has also threatened to impose significantly higher rates on other trade partners, only to freeze them at 10 percent as a reported 75-plus countries rushed to the negotiating table. These maneuvers have made clear the three goals of Trump’s trade policy.

First, the president wants to develop a bloc of genuine free-trade partners not only to benefit America’s economy but to serve our geopolitical aims by forming a unified front against China. The threat of heightened tariffs effectively separated the wheat from the chaff in this regard. As the president noted in his April 9 executive order modifying the tariff regime, the clamoring of dozens of nations, including those in China’s immediate orbit, “to address the lack of trade reciprocity in our economic relationships and our resulting national and economic security concerns” constituted a “significant step by these countries toward remedying non-reciprocal trade arrangements and aligning sufficiently with the United States on economic and national security matters” (emphasis mine).

Second, and relatedly, in breaking and rebalancing the global trade architecture that has served China’s grand strategy at America’s expense, the administration is isolating Communist China and creating great pressure on its regime. To what end, we will have to wait and see. The president is a dealmaker and values flexibility. But if there is no deal to be had that would leave America better off, we could well be looking at meaningful decoupling, which the tariff policy should only accelerate — a decoupling in which America is far better positioned to thrive than it would be under the status quo.

Third, the president wants to incentivize the reshoring of critical industries and reassert American dominance in manufacturing as an economic and national security imperative — while tilting toward Main Street over Wall Street. This is about ensuring American independence, which our freedom rests on, and doing right by those wronged under the globalist policies of the last several decades.

It is worth remembering that the president’s use of tariffs to drive freer and fairer trade and secure our vital interests comes amid a slew of other policies aimed at unleashing America’s economic might in the way of tax, deregulatory, and energy policy. For the same people who promised us the trade policies of the last several decades would not lead to substantial job losses, an eroded industrial base, or the empowerment of China to now claim with certainty that Trump’s trade policy will lead to cataclysmic effects represents a total lack of self-awareness and continued hubris.

We simply do not know how all the administration’s bilateral trade negotiations will shake out, nor what the collective effects of the president’s policies will be on our economy and national security. But we do know that the prevailing policies he inherited have threatened America’s viability.

To be sure, any attempt to restructure a trade architecture built up over decades will rankle markets to some extent by creating uncertainty and causing significant shifts in how companies operate. But that short-term or even medium-term dislocation is a small price to pay if it ensures America’s long-term ability to thrive.

The onus is on those whose favored policies have left us so imperiled to present a better plan than Trump’s to defend America’s economic and national security interests. Their unwillingness to do so suggests they are content to subordinate such interests, a position that would put us on the road to ruin.

Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications.

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The onus is on those whose favored policies have left us imperiled to present a better plan than Trump’s to defend America’s interests.