Last week, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping declined an invitation to attend President Trump's second inauguration.
It's easy to see why. Trump returned to office promising to address the huge China issue raised by President Xi Jinping. Continuous military build-up. An astonishing theft of our intellectual property and technology. Predatory Trade Practices. Corruption in our institutions. Chemical warfare with fentanyl that is killing hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens.
Some of the Chinese government's aggressive actions require large-scale and costly countermeasures. Others can be done cheaply and, in some cases, at no cost to the taxpayer.
China will not play according to international standards. The Chinese Communist Party is at risk of being cut down a thousand times.
Combined with other actions, large and small, the United States will send an unrelenting message to the Chinese government.
Selecting, implementing, and repeating thousands of these cuts requires lateral thinking that helps develop a mindset that helps squeeze the Chinese Communist Party's revenues at every corner of every transaction with China.
A reduction of 1,000 personnel could overwhelm the Chinese Communist Party with a swarm of relatively small counterattacks, none of which would necessarily be offensive and few of which would be significant on their own. .
One of those thousands of cuts is that President Trump has ordered a number of American universities to participate in the Chinese Communist Party, which is believed to have been used to rate, compromise, and act as spies on Americans. This was when there was pressure to close down the Confucius Institutes. His China Initiative precisely targeted academics and researchers who support the Chinese Communist Party. He has imposed narrow tariffs on Chinese solar panel component makers, hurting American companies and blocking some Chinese Communist Party-linked investments.
If President Trump resumes 1,000 job cuts and combines it with “Make America Healthy Again,” it will cost China billions more in losses in U.S. trade while reducing the number of Americans who will be forced to lose their jobs from ingesting Chinese-made chemicals. can be protected.
President Trump has already threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods until the country's leaders stop the smuggling of fentanyl that continues to cross the U.S. border. But the problem goes far beyond that.
Half of China's male population smokes cheap cigarettes to death. This is a huge source of revenue for the central government, representing about 7% of the Chinese Communist Party's annual budget and roughly equal to the official military budget of $214 billion. But that's a China problem. It's not ours. On the other hand, electronic devices that replace smoking are our big problem.
The Chinese Communist Party actively discourages its citizens from vaping. E-cigarettes are not popular in China, and the government has banned all flavors except tobacco. Meanwhile, China is flooding the American market with these illegal e-cigarette products.
This hits American companies twice. Domestic products cannot compete with cheap imports from China. They cannot compete in China because the Chinese government has imposed a 36% tariff on foreign e-cigarette products. On top of that are the Chinese Communist Party's ironclad regulations and other non-tariff barriers that keep American products out.
But we're not talking about opportunities for American e-cigarette companies. We are talking about thoroughly clamping down on the Chinese Communist Party.
The US e-cigarette market is $7 billion annually and continues to grow. Most of that market is cheap Chinese products, and most of those products are illegal. Although actual numbers are elusive, it's safe to say that Americans are funneling at least $5 billion a year to communist China to support their vaping habits. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives seems to be obsessed with firearms, giving the Chinese Communist Party free rein to flood the country with e-cigarettes.
China is saturating our market with exports of unhealthy and mostly illegal or illegal e-cigarettes. This effectively excludes American companies from the Chinese market. The Chinese Communist Party is poisoning Americans with flavored carcinogens that it won't allow its own people to consume. This one practice generates $5 billion in revenue annually.
It's time to cut out cash.
Unfortunately, we often become our own worst enemy in trying to hold the Chinese accountable. A patent dispute currently pending before Biden's International Trade Commission could give China an even bigger share of the U.S. e-cigarette market by eliminating some U.S. competitors. Of course, this is a big mistake. If we want to confront strategic adversaries, we must take a whole-of-government approach and consider the potential strategic implications of each action.
A mutually beneficial approach with China with DOGE in mind would accomplish one of two things. This is a major blow to the U.S. e-cigarette industry, but it's not a national security issue. Or, more importantly, it would close the injection port of China's chemical warfare against American consumers, locking billions of dollars a year out of Chinese Communist Party-controlled profits.
Combined with other actions large and small, the US will send a relentless message to Beijing: “Until you change your behavior, we will give you a thousand cuts with billions of dollars of needle sticks.” Dew.
