An Informative Lesson in Disparity

US has Run Up $5.5 Trillion in Trade Deficits With China

4/29/2020 - Terry Jeffrey Townhall.com

Since 1985, the first year for which the Census Bureau has posted this nation's bilateral merchandise trade deficits on its website, the United States has accumulated $5.5 trillion in trade deficits with China.

No other nation comes close.

In 2019, America's seven top trading partners -- when measured by the total dollar value of the bilateral trade in goods -- were Mexico ($614.5 billion), Canada ($612.4 billion), China ($558.9 billion), Japan ($218.3 billion), Germany ($187.8 billion), South Korea ($134.4 billion) and the United Kingdom ($132.3 billion).

By far, however, the least balanced relationship -- both last year and in recent decades -- has been with China.

In the 35 years from 1985 through 2019, according to Census Bureau data, the United States ran a cumulative merchandise trade deficit with China of $5,501,227,400,000.

Among the seven nations that were our leading trading partners as of 2019, the second-largest cumulative deficit over that 35-year period was the $2,240,119,400,000 deficit the United States ran with Japan.

Thus, the cumulative trade deficit with China over the last 35 years was almost 2.5 times as large as the cumulative trade deficit with Japan.

The cumulative trade deficits with Mexico ($1,276,017,400,000), Germany ($1,222,887,800,000), Canada ($1,065,139,400,000), South Korea ($410,304,300,000) and the United Kingdom ($33,598,300,000) were much smaller.

In fact, in 16 of the 35 years on record, the United States actually ran a merchandise trade surplus with the United Kingdom.

But China is an outlier.

Of the approximately $558.9 billion in goods traded between the United States and China last year, only $106.6 billion were exported by the United States, while $452.2 billion were imported.

The result: The United States ran a $345.6 billion merchandise trade deficit with China.

America's next-largest merchandise trade deficit last year was with our top trading partner, Mexico. But that deficit was only $101.8 billion -- less than one-third the $345.6 billion deficit with China.

The United States ran only a $27 billion trade deficit in 2019 with our other neighbor and second-largest trading partner, Canada. America's $345.6 billion trade deficit with China was more than 12 times the trade deficit with Canada.

Despite having much smaller economies and populations than China, both Mexico and Canada managed to buy far more American-made goods than China did.

China, according to the CIA World Factbook, has the largest GDP in the world ($25,360,000,000,000). Mexico's ($2,463,000,000,000) is less than one-tenth that size, and Canada's ($1,774,000,000,000) is less than one-fourteenth.

China, meanwhile, has by far the world's largest population (1,394,015,977). Mexico's population (128,649,565) is less than one-tenth that size, and Canada's (37,694,085) is about one-thirty-seventh that size

It is a fact, then, that even though China has both a GDP and a population that is about 10 times larger than Mexico's, Mexico, in 2019, purchased almost 2.5 times the American-made goods when measured in dollar value ($256.4 billion) as China did ($106.6 billion).

Similarly, even though China has a GDP that is about 14 times larger than Canada's and a population that is about 37 times larger, Canada purchased about 2.7 times the American-made goods ($292.7 billion) that China did in 2019 ($106.6 billion).

Can geographical proximity explain all of that disparity?

The United States normalized relations with China in 1979 but did not grant China permanent normal trade relations until more than 20 years later.

"President Bill Clinton and China's then-leader Jiang Zemin both came to see benefits in expanding bilateral economic ties, including working together to bring China into the WTO (World Trade Organization)," explains the Congressional Research Service.

"On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law P.L. 106-286, granting China permanent normal trade relations and paving the way for China to join the WTO, which it did in December 2001," says the Congressional Research Service.

What has been the trajectory of U.S. economic relations with China?

In 1985, the first year reported by the Census Bureau, the U.S. merchandise trade deficit with China was $6 million. In 2001, when China joined the WTO, it was $83 billion.

The next year, the U.S.-China trade deficit jumped to $103 billion. By 2005, it was $202 billion. By 2012, it was $315 billion.

In 2018, it peaked at $419 billion.

What is the United States buying from China?

In 2019, according to the Census Bureau, the top six imports American consumers purchased from China were "cell phones and other household goods" ($64.5 billion); "computers" ($42.3 billion); "toys, games, and sporting goods" ($26.5 billion); "apparel, textiles, nonwool or cotton" ($24.4 billion); "telecommunications equipment" ($24.4 billion)" and "computer accessories" ($18.7 billion).

The State Department's 2019 report on human rights in China begins with these words: "The People's Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the paramount authority. CCP members hold almost all top government and security apparatus positions."

But this authoritarian state run by the Communist Party provided the labor to produce tens of billions of dollars in cell phones and computers that were sold last year in the United States of America.

America ought to deliver a very simple message to the authoritarians in Beijing: As long as you are not a free country, you will not be able to freely sell your products here.

Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSNews.com.

A Recipe For Disaster

Elected Officials Reward Illegal Aliens While Ignoring Struggling Veterans

4/22/2020 - Casey Ryan Townhall.com

More than a million veterans who served this great nation struggle to make ends meet. Worse yet, tens of thousands of them are living on the streets homeless, and thousands more are constantly at risk of losing their homes. Many of them fail to receive the proper health care they deserve. This tragedy should be a top priority for our nation’s lawmakers. However, too many politicians today seem more concerned about offering handouts to illegal aliens who have no legal right to be in this country than they are about the plight of America’s heroes: Our Veterans.

Sadly, more than 37,000 veterans in the United States are homeless, according to a recent report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). More than a quarter of them – nearly 11,000 – belong to the sanctuary state of California, with other sanctuary jurisdictions like Washington and New York harboring thousands more.

And the troubling statistics don’t stop there. Approximately 1.2 million veterans are either unemployed or underemployed, meaning they are struggling to provide for themselves and their families. Included in that figure are 27 percent of the men and women who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and now aren’t even sure how they will put food on their tables. Meanwhile, 7 million illegal aliens are working in jobs that should belong to these veterans and other Americans. That should anger any American who understands the sacrifice veterans made for this country.

Unfortunately, many of this nation’s elected officials seem completely unaware and/or unbothered by the plight of our nation’s heroes. In fact, their actions have made the situation worse. Rather than support veterans with financial aid until they get back on their feet or provide them with training programs to prepare them for the workforce, elected officials in sanctuary jurisdictions like California have spent millions of dollars ensuring that illegal aliens feel safe and comfortable in the United States and have free access to legal services when they need to fight deportation.

For example, elected officials in Oakland created a $300,000 fund to protect illegal aliens from federal law enforcement in 2018. Los Angeles has an even larger program that has spent approximately $7 million so far. The Golden State has the largest number of homeless veterans in the nation. But rather than do something about the problem, elected officials are funneling millions of dollars to illegal aliens while ignoring their homeless and underserved veterans.

California, in fact, has become the nation’s case study in how to not treat your veterans. Veterans often wait several months before receiving the proper medical care that they deserve. The veterans living in San Jose wait an average of 50 days before receiving vital treatment at a primary care Veterans Affairs clinic, and the wait time in other areas can be almost twice as long. How did California’s elected officials react to this problem? They passed a law last year to provide health insurance for illegal aliens between the ages of 19 and 25, which is expected to cost taxpayers nearly $100 million in the first year alone.

With just the money California is allocating to illegal alien health insurance, the state’s elected officials could give every single homeless veteran nearly $10,000 per year. That kind of money could go a long way toward fully eliminating the Golden State’s homeless veteran epidemic.

Other states have also copied California’s playbook. In Maryland’s Montgomery County, a proud sanctuary jurisdiction, elected officials created a similar $370,000 fund to protect their local illegal alien population from federal law enforcement in 2018. Despite the fact that at least eight illegal aliens were accused of rape within the span of a month last year, the county continues to provide free legal services to illegal aliens while refusing to hand over those who should be removed to federal officials.

Overall, the United States spends a total of $132 billion every year providing goods and services to illegal aliens. At that price tag, you could make every homeless veteran in the United States a millionaire! It’s a shame that many of this nation’s leaders spend more effort ensuring that illegal aliens feel comfortable breaking the law than they do providing basic services and aid to the veterans who risked their lives defending our freedom. When the United States has more than a million veterans struggling to put food on their table and tens of thousands remaining homeless, there is a real crisis on our hands. It’s far past time for our elected officials to realize this and act now before it’s too late.

Decision Time Nears

We Are Approaching COVID-19 Gut-check Time

4/16/2020 - Victor Davis Hanson Townhall.com

We are a few days away from a rendezvous with some tough conclusions about COVID-19.

A number of concurrent developments are coming to a head. Most will bring light where so far there was only heat.

Greater information about the virus might cause as much acrimony as conciliation. Some experts will be discredited, others reaffirmed.

Antibody testing is expected to get under way shortly. Soon, several representative studies will give the country an accurate idea of how many Americans have been infected in the past few months.

With a more trustworthy denominator to compare against known deaths, we will finally learn just how lethal the virus is and whether comparisons to a severe annual flu are legitimate or still inapplicable.

Likewise, there will be greater precision in distinguishing those whose deaths were exclusively virus-related from those who were afflicted by serious chronic illnesses along with the virus. That will also help provide better data about the actual toxicity of the virus.

Those with antibodies will likely be able to return to work with little risk. Arguments will arise over whether their status should be cataloged and banked, or whether such classification would institutionalize creepy two-tier categories of citizenship.

The prior pessimism of most epidemic models will either be confirmed or refuted, depending on the percentages of Americans who have already weathered the virus.

If past predictions are proven too gloomy, their authors will still claim that their doomsday prognoses at least prompted needed social distancing. Critics will counter that their paranoia caused untold social and economic damage.

If other experts are discovered to have unduly played down the deadliness of the virus, they will be derided as callous and partly responsible for the outbreak's mayhem.

There are ongoing trials to determine the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. President Trump and some health officials have touted the controversial anti-malarial drug as a possible treatment. Other health officials are skeptical.

But soon, the formal trial results should determine whether the drug offers only false hope or speeds recovery and saves lives. Lots of reputations are on the line.

The weather is warming as we reach mid-spring, and summer approaches. Still another debate may soon be settled. Will rising temperatures slow the epidemic, as some confidently predicted based on other viral outbreaks? Or are skeptics right that the coronavirus will still spread and is hardier than the seasonal flu?

Some parts of the country are now nearing a month of shelter-in-place policies. The economists warn that we are already in full recession and the current lockdown is not sustainable for much longer. 

Their mounting worry is not just about economic devastation but about a greater loss of life than COVID-19's toll through wrecked livelihoods, stress, substance abuse, suicides and the inability to address medical issues.

The somnolent economy is analogous to a patient who is to be brought back from a forced coma. No one quite knows how, or even if, the economy will fully awaken -- only that the chances it might not increase the longer it stays comatose.

In the coming days, the president will have to make a lose/lose decision to either inaugurate a graduated return to work or keep the country locked down for weeks longer.

Economists will likely urge him to restart the economy as fast as possible. Epidemiologists will warn of a second viral spike if millions go back to work. Trump will either be praised for saving the American economy or damned for dooming thousands.

Timelines grow shorter. The virus and the draconian reaction to it are wearing down a quarantined America.

Thousands of scientists worldwide are running a frantic Nobel Prize race to discover a vaccine for COVID-19. Each week, we will hear that they are either getting closer to discovery or learning that the code of the new virus is proving harder to crack.

China has never come clean about the origin and spread of the virus that broke out in Wuhan. But more information is leaking out. Soon, Beijing will have to decide whether it will become part of the answer to the mystery or continue its cover-up.

As the days pass, the November election also draws nearer. Every presidential decision concerning the epidemic will be inevitably politicized. Trump supporters will likely favor a quick return to work to avoid a November recession. His opponents prefer a longer shutdown.

Both sides know, but will deny, that politics plays a role in how they view the crisis.

Nothing about this epidemic was ever static. But we are on the verge of learning a lot more about the virus that will result in as much disagreement as relief.

Wise Words From Someone Who Knows

Border Security Is Coronavirus Security

4/13/2020 - Brandon Judd Townhall.com

Border security is crucial to our nation’s efforts to control the coronavirus, and President Trump has a proven track record of effectively protecting our borders.

Despite intense political opposition for over three years, the president has managed to significantly expand and strengthen the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — and we remain on pace to reach the goal of 450 miles of new barriers by the end of the year. He’s also used his executive authority to close loopholes in our immigration system that had previously been widely exploited by illegal immigrants. 

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people — in some years more than a million — attempt to illegally cross the southwest border into the U.S. Some of these people are violent criminals, drug smugglers, and human traffickers. Others are merely fleeing poverty or political dysfunction. None of them can be screened for contagious diseases if they aren’t intercepted by Border Patrol agents. 

Thanks to President Trump’s decisive actions, there has been a sharp decline in illegal border crossings since the caravan-drive surge of 2018, which translates to a lower chance of the highly-infectious novel coronavirus crossing the southern border into the U.S., and thus more American lives saved. 

As with the president’s smart and swift measure to stop travel from China into the U.S. early on in the outbreak, his commitment to border security has consistently been mischaracterized as “racist” and “xenophobic” by the same critics who refused to acknowledge the tragic deaths and human suffering inflicted by unfettered illegal immigration in the past. Anyone who has served on the front lines of immigration enforcement, however, knows that restricting travel and securing our borders are both smart and necessary actions. 

The Centers for Disease Control has also made it clear that illegal immigrants “present a serious infection control challenge and are a risk to public health,” endorsing the president’s decision to institute a temporary policy of returning all newly-apprehended illegal immigrants rather than detaining them.

Other countries have seen the need to close their borders as well. Both Canada and Mexico worked with the Trump administration to close our northern and southern borders to non-essential travel. Mexican citizens are now even forming their own makeshift blockades to prevent people from entering their country without being screened for the virus, while Ecuadorian officials physically blocked an airport runway to prevent a plane from Spain from landing with passengers who could potentially have the virus. 

Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security waived a series of regulations in order to speed up the construction of 91.5 miles of border wall in Arizona, as well as an additional 86 miles along other parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, complete with the installation of a linear ground detection system, lighting, and cameras. 

I’ve met with the president many times regarding the illegal immigration crisis — which long preceded coronavirus, and is now intextricably intertwined with public health concerns. I know how committed he is to border security, and how determined he is to protect America from preventable exposure to the invisible enemy of coronavirus. 

Brandon Judd is the president of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), the exclusive labor representative of approximately 16,000 Border Patrol agents.