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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