President Trump is launching a tariff bombing in the world for a reason: China.
China’s economy is based on a system that distorts free trade.
Determined to grow at any cost, China has a bone overproducting everything. Start with roads and rail lines, then moved to apartments and mansions, and now they are cars, refrigerators and semiconductors.
These goods are thrown into foreign markets, even in the United States. Trump tariffs can be harmful, but they can fulfill a function, which forces a global realignment that is very late.
Since the early 2000s, China has launched cheap labor and lax environmental standards to flood the world with low -cost goods, displacing US industries. More than 3.5 million American jobs have lost to China.
In 2023, a Chinese company, Ching Tai Wire and Cable, announced a new factory in Dongguan, while, a year later, the National Standard of Michigan, a leading cable manufacturer, closed after 117 years in business.
During the last decade, China’s economic model accelerated, using “transferred” technology of Western companies to expel competitors, which cost American companions between $ 225 billion and $ 600 billion a year.
The theft of intellectual property and other unfair practices allowed China to advance low quality goods to the manufacture of high technology in areas such as computer science, robotics and semiconductors.
China aims to dominate global markets through “non -market” strategies, such as subsidies, manipulation of foreign exchange, monopolies and restrictions in foreign companies operating in China.
These policies driven by the State have led to a manufacturing tree in China.
The ByD Chinese company is now building a factory in Zhengzhou that will be extended more than 50 square miles, the size of San Francisco and 10 times the largest factory size in Tesla.
In 2021, China produced almost a third of the world’s assets, and experts predict that it could increase to 43% by 2050 without intervention.
China’s strategy has fundamentally damaged the United States industrial sectors, but we are not alone.
European, Japanese and South Korean companies also meet Chinese champions that manufacture entire supply chains: screens, semiconductors, memory chips, batteries, cameras and cases, even mining and process critical minerals such as lithium or gallium in which those parts depend.
China’s export spill has also harmed economies worldwide, from Brazil to South Africa. Half or all discharge investigations last year were directed to China.
Only countries that are traditionally allies of China, such as Russia, are feeling the impact. After Western companies left Russia in 2022, Chinese cars imports increased, which led Russia to impose new commercial barriers on Chinese imports.
It is true that China’s overproduction and government subsidies have left their vulnerable economy. Inemployle young people are high, municipalities are drowning in debts, and the real estate market is in crisis.
Despite this, the China Government is not willing to stop production. For the second consecutive year, the Communist Party has established a growth objective or approximately 5%, which means more production: more cars, more steel, more dishwasher, regardless of demand or market conditions.
Central planning cancels market signals and earnings incentives.
While Trump’s tariff policies may seem erratic, they could succeed if they unify the world against China.
As the Secretary of the Treasury said, Scott Besent, on Wednesday: “We can probably reach an agreement with our allies … and then we can approach China as a group.”
This is the correct approach. Allies are essential, but the United States also needs.
Now is the time to implement a global tariff regime that blocks the avalanche of cheap Chinese exports, challenges China’s threats against Taiwan and fights their efforts to spread economic instability worldwide.
Our supply chains should be wired again for allies, not adversaries. Only a very necessary resurgence of American manufacturing will need global partners to process minerals, supply components and assemble products.
Together, the world could build a better, more fair and more open global economy.
China must be forced to adapt, or fend for itself.
Elaine Dezenski is a senior director and head of the Center for Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
