president no issue dominates our
attention more these days than our
growing rivalry with China and rightly
so it's a historic challenge it's one
that I think we waited way too long to
recognize and now we're scrambling to
make up for that but I think in that all
the attention that's being paid to this
I think it's important that we remember
or at least recognize that that the core
and Central issue here is not China per
se and by itself the core issue here is
a decades-old bipartisan consensus
that's entrenched in our economic and
and our economics and in our politics a
consensus that said that economic
globalization would deliver wealth and
freedom and peace it was almost a
religious faith in the power of the free
flow of people and money and goods
across borders as the answer to
virtually every problem that faced the
world and that's how we built our
politics that's how we built our foreign
policy and you know what for about 50
years after World War II it generally
worked and the reason why generally
worked this because we didn't actually
have a global market if you looked at
the economy that we were engaged in even
through free trade and the like during
that period of time it was primarily a
market made up of democratic allies of
countries that shared common values and
common priorities for the future and
even when the outcomes during that time
were not always in our benefit even when
maybe some industry left to a country in
Europe or maybe during the time that
Japan challenged this in some sectors
from Asia at least the beneficiary even
though it may have harmed Us in the
short term the beneficiary of that
outcome was not the Soviet Bloc the
Soviet Union or some geopolitical
competitor that the beneficiary was
another
democracy and an ally in in our
confrontation with Communism during that
period of time the point is it generally
worked during that time because by and
large the interest of the global market
and the interest of our country never
got out of balance too far and then the
Cold War ended and our leaders and I say
our leaders because this is really a
bipartisan thing our leaders became
intoxicated with hubris I remember you
know the Lexicon was it's the end of
history and the world will now be flat
and every country is now going to
naturally become a free enterprise
democracy and economic liberalization
would always result in political Freedom
right you flood a country with
capitalism and that country will not
just get rich but they're going to turn
into us or some version of one of our
Democratic allies and so in pursuit of
of that historic gamble which had no
historic precedent we entered into all
kinds of trade deals and treaties and
rules and regulations on an
international scale and we invited into
that all kinds of countries that by the
way were not democracies did not share
our values and did not have the same
long-term goals for the world as we did
their long-term goals in fact were
incompatible and of all the deals that
were made none has had a greater impact
than the decision that was made in the
first year of this Century to admit
China into the World Trade Organization
they opened up our economy to the most
populous nation on Earth controlled by a
Communist Regime and they did it not
because anybody argued that would be
good for American workers or remember
they made the argument that eventually
it would be but they weren't arguing
this is going to help us in the short
term this is good for our Industries
they did it they are one of the
arguments the essential arguments behind
doing this with China was we think
capitalism will change them okay they're
going to eat Big Macs and drink
Coca-Cola and they're going to literally
ingest democracy and it will transform
them okay they argue that capitalism was
going to change China now we stand here
23 years later and realize capitalism
didn't change China China changed
capitalism they're they they opened up
their doors and said come on in and they
attracted with cheap labor they said we
have cheap labor cheap workers and it
flooded millions of American jobs
important industries factories flooded
into China and they did it with the
promise of an Allure and American
investors American money poured into
China all of it with the promise that
you can make a lot of money in this huge
Market very quickly huge rates of return
and obviously for the countries for the
companies lower labor costs and
therefore more profits for them and we
lost jobs and factories closed and towns
were gutted but the leaders at that time
said don't worry they're only taking the
bad jobs the jobs that have left these
are not the good jobs these bad jobs are
going to be replaced by good jobs better
jobs Americans are going to be able to
have those jobs and those Chinese
workers that took your jobs they're
going to get richer now and with that
money they've started to make they're
going to do two things they're going to
start buying American products and they
are going to turn they're going to
demand for democracy and freedom and
they're going to change China well I
don't think I'm going to spend a lot of
time today explaining that that did not
work out that is not how it played out
China allowed our companies in but you
know what they did they forced every one
of these companies to partner with a
Chinese company a small one at the time
they forced you to partner with them and
they stole your trade secrets so they
invited them in they learned how to do
whatever it is you did and when they no
longer needed you they kicked you out
their company took over and in many
cases they put the company that taught
them how to do it or that they stole the
secrets from they put them out of
business that's what they did they used
it to build up their own economy their
own companies the Chinese middle class
also grew at a historic rate but ours
collapsed an almost inverse effect the
numbers are stunning if you look at the
the destruction of these American
working class jobs and the rise of the
middle class in China they happen at the
same time and almost at the same scale
China did get rich they most certainly
got rich but they didn't use that money
to buy our products they used that money
to buy the products that are made in
China and they didn't become a democracy
either now what you have is what was
once a poor Chinese Communist party now
you have a rich Chinese Communist party
that has tightened its grip on the
country and it's actually started going
around the world trying to export their
authoritarian model they literally go
around telling countries democracy
cannot solve problems our system is so
much better at solving problems we can
move quicker we don't have to have a
town hall meeting before we do
everything we can have strategic 20-year
plans and we can solve your problems and
for developing countries around the
world potentially has some appeal the
fact is that we're now confronted with
the consequences of this historic and
catastrophic mistake and it's important
to understand what some of these are and
they'll be familiar to you because we
see them every day they play out not
just on the floor of the Senate they
play out in our society and our politics
on television first we're in Nation
that's bitterly divided and it's easy
and lazy to say where we're divided
Republicans Democrats liberals
conservatives this division is frankly
the biggest division Americans are not
even ideological per se they seem to be
attitudinal and largely they seem to be
along the lines of affluent class of
people that work in jobs and careers and
in Industries and live in places that
have benefited from this rearrangement
of the global economy they do jobs that
pay well and that work in a system like
this divided against the millions of
working people who are left behind by
all these changes and live in places
that are literally hollowed out once
vibrant communities that have been
gutted by the way remember when they
would say don't worry those people will
move to somewhere else in the country
for those new jobs they didn't move
because people don't like to leave their
Community they don't like to leave their
extended family they don't like to leave
all the things they've ever known and
supported them that didn't work that way
it's left us a country that's addicted
we are addicted to cheap exports from
China and we are dependent on Chinese
Supply chains on everything from food to
medicine to advance technology we just
had a pandemic that reminded us of this
and what does that mean these long
Supply chains dependent on a
geopolitical competitor it means we're
vulnerable vulnerable to Blackmail
vulnerable to coercion you know what
else it left us with an economy that is
highly concentrated and fragile our
economy is primarily based today on two
sectors what's all the news about turn
on the financial networks let's see what
the all the discussion is about
primarily two sectors Finance meaning
people that take your money and invest
it somewhere else they don't make
anything they invest your money it's
fine that's a legitimate business but
finance and big Tech and those two
industries that are now the pillar of
our economy are controlled by just a
small number of giant multinational
corporations the same ones that by the
way Outsource their jobs and these
multinational corporations they have
more power than the government in many
cases they have more power than the
government and they have no loyalty to
our people or to our country their
interest is not the national interest
they're multinationals in fact they're
owned by shareholders Builders and
investment funds from all over the world
this idea that globalizing our economy
would prevent great power competition
between nations was always a delusion
and I think the people of Hong Kong and
Taiwan and Ukraine can tell you that
this idea that free trade always and
automatically leads to peace that isn't
true either none of us have ever lived
in a world where America was not the
most powerful Nation on Earth I um I
grew up I was born into and grew up in a
world where you know two superpowers
were faced off in this long cold and
dangerous cold war between communism and
freedom between the Free World and
people who lived enslaved behind an iron
curtain and then I came of age literally
came of age 89 91 18 to 20 years of age
First Years in college I came of age and
suddenly I watched the Berlin Wall fall
and I saw the Soviet Union collapse and
let me tell you if you had told me 10
years earlier you told anybody the
Soviet Union is going to vanish off the
face of the Earth there'll be no more
wouldn't have believed it it was a time
whenever you know truly historic work
and unprecedented but now three decades
later we find ourselves once again in a
rivalry with another great power and
this rivalry is far more dangerous and
our rival is far more sophisticated than
the Soviet Union ever was the Soviet
Union was never an industrial competitor
the Soviet Union was never a
technological competitor the Soviet
Union was a geopolitical and a military
competitor but the near peer rival in
China that we have now they have
leverage over our economy they have
influence over our society they have an
army of unpaid lobbyists here in
Washington unpaid lobbyists because
these are the companies and the
individuals that are benefiting from
doing business in China and they don't
care if five years from now they won't
even be able to work there anymore
they're making so much money off their
Investments their factories and their
engagement there now that they Lobby
here for free on their behalf and by the
way this is a rival that has perfected
they have perfected the tactic of using
our own media our own universities our
own Investments funds our own
corporations against us they've used it
against us every day but and all this
focus on China and look I've talked
about as much about China as anybody
here going back five six years now but
this is not the story of what China has
done to us what China has done is they
saw a system that we created they took
advantage of its benefits they didn't
live up to its obligations you know why
because China was trying to build their
country they were making decisions that
was in China's national not in the
interest of the global economy or some
fantasy about how if two nations are in
business and there's a McDonald's in
both countries they'll never go to war
this is not the story what China's done
to us this is the story of what we've
done to ourselves because we've allowed
the system of globalization to drive our
economic policies and our politics and
it remains entrenched even now people
who agree that we have to do something
about this we'll tell you but we can't
do that we can't do that because it will
hurt exports they'll put a tariff on
some industry China will kick us up none
of this is going to matter in five six
years they won't they won't need the
Tariff Farm goods from the United States
don't own the farm they're already
buying up Farmland you don't have to
worry about the investment funds won't
be able to make a return on their
investment in five years they won't need
their money anymore so this system was a
disaster and the result of the system
was not Global Peace and Global
Prosperity the result was not the World
Without Walls in which we were all part
of one big happy Human family the
reality was people live in Nations and
Nations have interests and by and large
for almost all of human history Nations
have acted in the interest of their
Nations and now we see what happens when
one side does that and the other does
not the result has been the rise of
China and big business the two big
Winners and all of this is the
consolidation of corporate power in the
hands of a handful of companies in key
Industries and the rise the rapid and
historic rise of China at our expense
China is a populist country they're
always going to be a superpower they
were always going to be one but they did
it faster because they did it at our
expense they didn't create these jobs
they moved them they didn't create these
industries they took them we buy solar
panels from China who invented solar
panels we didn't they lead the world now
in battery productions for these
electric vehicles we invented it they
make them they perfected they now leave
the technology I can go on and on
they're building more coal-fired plants
than any country on Earth today China
has more Surplus refining capacity for
oil than any Nation on the planet this
era has to end now it's not about just
taking on China it is about changing the
way we think it's not 2 000 anymore it's
not 19.99 anymore this is a different
world and in a series of speeches over
the next few weeks I'm I'm going to
attempt to outline a coherent
alternative moving forward in the hopes
that we don't just sit around here all
day trying to outdo each other about
who's going to ban this and who's going
to block that going to China this is
about a lot more than just Banning this
and stopping that there's about a
coherent approach to a difficult and
historic Challenge and look it's a
complicated one and complicated problems
rarely ever have Simple Solutions but
the simplest way I can describe how I
think we should move forward and I'll
have to describe it obviously in more
detail is we need to fundamentally
realign the assumptions and the ideas
behind our economic and foreign policies
we need a new system of global economics
where we enter into global trade
agreements not with the goal of doing
what's good for the global economy but
what's good for us if a trade deal
creates American jobs or strengthens an
Amer a key American industry we do that
deal if it undermines us we don't do the
deal just because it would be good for
the global economy or because in the
market free market lab experiment it's
the right thing to do we don't live in a
lab we're human beings a flesh and blood
will live in the real world in a lab
when a factory leave and an economic
theory when Factory leaves and a job is
lost it's just a number on a spreadsheet
in real life when a factory leaves and a
job is lost a dad loses his job a mom
loses a single mom for example loses the
ability to support her family and a
community is gutted so we'll need to
enter into global trade agreements we're
not talking about isolationism here but
the great the criteria for every
agreement needs to be is it good for our
Industries and workers or is it bad it
sounds pretty simplistic I don't know
how who anyone could disagree that we
should not enter into trade agreements
that are bad for American workers and
bad for key Industries we also by the
way need to enter into uh foreign policy
alliances that reward our allies and
strengthen those who share our values
and our principles and that also by the
way helped create American jobs and
strengthen American industry and if it
can't be here then strengthen the
ability of an ally to be the source of
our supplies but I will tell you this on
the outset it will not be easy because
those who have prospered and flourished
under the status quo they still have a
lot of power and they will use it to
protect that status quo but we have no
choice but to change direction because
our success or our failure is going to
define the 21st century
foreign
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