How Biden’s Blank Check For Ukraine Disastrously Bounced
Americans were told that, with enough help, Ukraine could liberate all of its territory. It was a murderous lie.Americans were told that, with enough help, Ukraine could liberate all of its territory. It was a murderous lie.Without tariffs, the US is defenseless in an economic war
The Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to bear arms. Many conservatives argue that this is the most important right. Why? Our other core rights — freedom of religion, speech, and assembly — are worthless if they cannot be defended. Firearms safeguard freedom.
Yet these same conservatives have viciously attacked President Trump’s recent 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, describing it as “political rent-seeking at its most brazen.” Some self-styled nonpartisan critics even claimed that Trump’s tariffs are an “unconstitutional power grab.”
America does not even manufacture the things it would need to use to manufacture more things.
These criticisms are not only unfounded; they are also completely backward. Why? The trade deficit is among the greatest — yet most ignored — threats to America’s freedom. America needs tariffs to eliminate the trade deficit and safeguard our national security.
A lovely bunch of coconuts
The trade deficit undermines America’s national security because of something called import dependency. Import dependency occurs when a country cannot sustain itself without imports. This often occurs when countries lack a specific natural resource.
For example, Iceland is too cold to grow coconuts and must buy coconuts from tropical islands. In this way, Iceland is import-dependent when it comes to coconuts. Import dependency may not sound important — coconuts are not vital to Iceland’s economy — but what if we replaced coconuts with oil? You can imagine that Icelandic winters would be much less hospitable without fuel.
Even less obvious is the threat posed by dependence on imported manufactured goods, like silicon chips. How could Iceland maintain a modern economy without access to computers? It could not. To make matters worse, it is obvious that whoever controlled the supply of computers into Iceland would wield enormous political leverage over the Icelandic people — do what we say or no computers for you!
The reality is that any country that depends on imports is vulnerable in this way. One of the best historical examples of the dangers of import dependence occurred during the American Revolution. Although this may come as a surprise, the American Revolution almost failed because the colonies could not manufacture enough cannons, firearms, and gunpowder to resist the British — our former supplier.
It was only when Britain’s European rivals, particularly the French and Dutch, started supplying the Continental Army that the tide turned. For example, France alone supplied the army with over 80,000 firearms, in addition to swords, knives, and uniforms. America depended upon British manufactured goods, and it was not until this economic dependence was broken that America could free herself from the imperial yoke.
President George Washington recognized this fact, writing that America would not be able to defend its freedoms unless the nation was “independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.” To this end, his first major piece of legislation was the Tariff Act of 1789, which raised taxes on imported manufactured goods.
One of the legislation’s key aims was to promote the development of America’s manufacturing industry. Even Thomas Jefferson — who initially supported free trade on principle — eventually agreed with Washington. In the wake of the War of 1812, Jefferson wrote:
Experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort: and if those who quote me as of a different opinion will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price [we would be well off] …
Both Washington and Jefferson realized that economics and politics are simply two sides of the same coin. Therefore, to safeguard America’s political independence, we must first maintain America’s economic independence.
My kingdom for a (Chinese-made) horse
The American colonies depended on European imports to wrestle our freedom from the British. Today, we depend on Chinese imports.
Consider that America no longer manufactures enough of the sorts of basic machinery necessary to make simple household items — never mind the sophisticated electrical components needed for computers and smartphones. In other words, even if we wanted to manufacture forks, we would probably need to buy the fork-making machinery from China.
This is made clear when we look at America’s production of machine tools. A machine tool is a piece of machinery that shapes its output by removing material by way of lathing, planning, drilling, milling, grinding, sawing, or pressing the output. Machine tools transform raw materials into something useful. They are the tools that make tools.
America used to be the leading manufacturer and global exporter of machine tools. Today, America imports of most its machine tools and only produces 7% of the world’s machine tools. For comparison, Italy produces 8%, while China makes 29%.
America imports over $500 billion worth of advanced technology products from China every year. Our industrial base has been hollowed out to the point where we could not maintain our economy without imported machine tools and semiconductors — never mind all the innocuous goods that we import like cutlery and baseball caps.
America is import-dependent upon China. This restrains America’s ability to act independently on the world stage and gives China leverage over America in any prospective military engagement.
What would happen if conflict erupted between America and China? Presumably, the United States would need to scale up its industrial production to build more weapons, vehicles, and computers. Just one problem: scaling up is just not possible — at least not immediately.
To manufacture more equipment, America would need to build more factories. But the United States imports almost all its industrial components and machine tools. That is, America does not even manufacture the things it would need to use to manufacture more things.
Worse yet, America’s workforce lacks the training and experience to manufacture critical goods. What would happen, for example, if China stopped selling microchips? Even if we assume that America has the tools to manufacture microchips — which we do not — we do not have the human capital to manufacture microchips on a large scale. Very few Americans know how to make microchips. For that matter, very few Americans have the skills to build the factories themselves.
If the United States were serious about national security, it would make reducing the trade deficit and restoring industrial self-sufficiency its top priority.
Taiwan’s chip monopoly puts US security and economy at risk
America has a Big Tech problem. An oligarchy of powerful, trillion-dollar companies wields tremendous control over the digital ecosystem, affecting the information we see, the products we buy, the candidates we vote for, and how we live our daily lives. Behind closed doors, these brand-name entities use their market dominance and deep pockets to protect their interests, not consumers.
Today, the U.S. faces another monopoly threat that involves the hardware that’s in virtually all modern electronics: semiconductors. Policy meant to generate domestic production of these vital components —that is, the CHIPS Act — inadvertently profited foreign suppliers and further entrenched the world’s largest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which received more than $6 billion in U.S. taxpayer subsidies.
TSMC’s global dominance is so massive — and its US presence is growing — that the only way to check its global monopoly is to level the scales for domestic chipmakers.
President Trump called out the flawed logic of giving taxpayer money intended to promote U.S. production to our biggest foreign competitor. “We put up billions of dollars for rich companies to come in and borrow the money and build chip companies here,” he told Joe Rogan last fall. “These chip companies, they stole. They stole 95% of our business. ... [And now] they want protection.”
TSMC dominates the global semiconductor market, and, to borrow a Trumpism, it is eating America’s lunch. TSMC commands over 60% of the total global semiconductor market and makes more than 90% of the world’s most advanced chips. Meanwhile, Intel — once a national icon and our closest answer to TSMC — has fallen sorrowfully behind and is a “shell of its former self,” despite receiving the largest chunk of CHIPS funding.
The lack of a domestic alternative — or any friendly alternative outside of Taiwan — is a huge risk for the world as China ramps up its rhetoric.
Semiconductors power the devices we use, from smartphones to washing machines, as well as major networks, like banking. More than one trillion semiconductors were shipped worldwide in 2021, and that number has likely grown since. TSMC’s choke hold on this vital industry has earned it the moniker, “The most important company in the world.” It would be more fitting to call it the most dominant monopoly in the world.
TSMC’s playbook is obvious: Secure major deals with America’s largest companies, dominate the market with its chips, and push out U.S. competitors that lack the same scale and resources. Just look at its contracts. Apple inked a deal with TSMC in 2023 to buy all of its three nanometer chips. Amazon’s AWS and AI chips are made exclusively by TSMC. And Nvidia is in talks with TSMC to develop its advanced chips.
We can’t build our own semiconductor industry from ground zero, our workers need the experience to do it. However, policymakers should be wary of any company that exerts such unilateral control over a commodity that touches every aspect of daily life. TSMC’s geography and geopolitics make it especially troublesome.
TSMC is headquartered in Taiwan, where as much as 90% of its production capabilities are located. China has long laid claim to Taiwan and refuses to acknowledge the country’s sovereignty. The Chinese government has conducted military exercises to test its “seizure power.” Just this month, a Chinese vessel cut an undersea fiber optic cable in an apparent act of sabotage, and in a New Year’s Eve speech, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said no one can stop China’s “reunification” with Taiwan.
It’s not a matter of if China acts but when. Whether military action, technological warfare and sabotage, or a combination of both, such aggression would inevitably disrupt, if not sever, the U.S. semiconductor supply chain. As two researchers opined in the New York Times recently, the result could be “a global economic crisis far worse than the shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
It’s time policymakers get tough and hold TSMC accountable to the geopolitical situation. Fortunately, President Trump has the chops to do it. He has been vocal about using tariffs to stop the flood of foreign-made chips and support U.S.-based manufactures. “You didn’t have to put up 10 cents,” he said on Joe Rogan's podcast. “You tariff [foreign chips] so high that they will come and build their chip companies for nothing.”
President Trump is right. He should encourage antitrust regulators to keep an eye on TSMC’s practices. TSMC’s global dominance is so massive — and its U.S. presence is growing thanks to the CHIPS Act — that the only way to check its global monopoly is to level the scales for domestic chipmakers. President Trump should ensure that TSMC’s practices in Arizona are in good faith. The company should make commitments to train American workers, honor collective bargaining agreements, and commit long-term to investing in facilities and advanced chip development in the United States — not just in Taiwan.
The federal government must also make a concerted effort over the next decade to ensure American companies are up to the challenge. We must invest in an educated engineering workforce and streamlined facilities and encourage capital investment in domestic manufacturing.
TSMC has steadily tightened its grip on the U.S. semiconductor market for decades. It’s time policymakers get serious and hold TSMC to higher standards and work to support our own struggling industries. Otherwise, America could face a supply-chain crisis and economic recession of China’s (or Taiwan’s) doing — which is hardly the time to be asking how to rebuild our domestic semiconductor industry.Biden wants to put a gloss on his foreign policy failures — these failures included
President Joe Biden, apparently keen to rewrite history before fading into it, will reportedly seize on the opportunity Monday to once again characterize his disastrous presidency and foreign policy blunders as successes.
According to the the Associated Press, the deeply unpopular 82-year-old Democrat is expected to claim in his capstone address regarding his foreign policy legacy that he and his administration restored American credibility on the world stage and strengthened critical alliances supposedly strained by his predecessor's prioritization of American citizens. Biden is reportedly also planning to suggest that he provided the world with a "steady hand" during his four scandal-plagued years in office.
Biden's Monday speech at the State Department's headquarters will bookend his first major foreign policy speech on-site where he suggested on Feb. 4, 2021, both that "the muscle of democratic alliances ... have atrophied over the past few years of neglect and, I would argue, abuse" and that the U.S. under President-elect Donald Trump had ceased to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and key partners."
In addition to promising to advance the security of the American people ahead of letting well over 10 million foreign nationals steal into the homeland, Biden said that he would be effective in dealing with Russia and counter communist China's "aggressive, coercive action," as well as end the war in Yemen, which is covered in the Obama administration's fingerprints.
Biden, Democratic lawmakers, and their devotees in the liberal media emphasized at the outset of his presidency that the "adults [we]re back in charge," President-elect Donald Trump serving as the point of comparison.
Trump, embracing Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" approach in his first term, previously
- brokered the formal normalization of diplomatic relations between various Arab states and Israel;
- made good on past administrations' promises to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem;
- whacked Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi;
- signed an executive order temporarily banning nationals from six Islamic terrorism hotbeds from traveling to the U.S.;
- pressured NATO allies to meet their financial obligations in the way of defense spending;
- put North Korea’s Kim Jong-un on notice with the threat of "fire and fury like the world has never seen";
- negotiated a new trade agreement with South Korea and an updated version of NAFTA with Canada and Mexico;
- withdrew from the 2015 Paris climate accord and United Nations Human Rights Council;
- largely defeated ISIS in Syria;
- pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement;
- reoriented the U.S. national security apparatus from a Middle Eastern focus to instead a focus on competing with communist China;
- levied tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods;
- re-established the Quad partnership with Australia, India, and Japan; and
- managed various other foreign policy successes, including breaking from his predecessor's longstanding custom of starting a new war.
With his alternatively "steady hands" on the reins, Biden steered Americans into danger and American foreign policy through embarrassment after embarrassment.
For instance, Biden botched the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Amid the confused exit during which the U.S.-backed Afghan government imploded, an Islamic terrorist — who reportedly had been released amid the chaos just days earlier from the Parwan prison at Bagram Air Base — detonated a suicide bomb on Aug. 26, 2021, at Abbey Gate, the last route open for Afghans into the Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing 11 U.S. Marines, a soldier, a sailor, and hundreds of Afghans, and leaving 45 other U.S. service members wounded.
Beside endangering service members and leaving multitudes of Americans behind, Biden also left the Taliban with over $7 billion worth of military equipment.
One intelligence assessment estimated that among the hardware left behind for the Islamic extremist regime were 2,000 armored vehicles and 40 aircraft, including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones.
Biden proved unable or unwilling to extend a steady hand to the hundreds of thousands of Christian Armenians of the former Republic of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, who were violently displaced in recent years by the Islamic Azerbaijani regime.
Azerbaijan, which the Biden administration has provided with military assistance despite its alleged war crimes and torture of Armenian prisoners, launched a blitzkrieg on the Armenian enclave in September 2023, killing hundreds of people, destroying churches, and forcing the Christian population to flee, in many cases on foot.
The apparent ethnic cleansing took place within days of a State Department official suggesting that the U.S. would not "countenance any action or effort, short-term or long-term, to ethnically cleanse or commit other atrocities against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh."
'The United States is in a worse geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.'
Azerbaijan was not the first aggressor nation to realize that Biden was big on talk and light on action.
Despite Biden's "steady hand" and foreknowledge of an imminent "incursion," Russia invaded Ukraine under the Democratic president's watch, this time on a scale far exceeding its previous invasion of Crimea during the Obama-Biden years. Biden has slapped Russia with numerous sanctions, poured over $175 billion into the occupied nation, and risked a direct shooting war with Russia by authorizing Ukraine's use of long-range American missiles, yet an armistice in the region remains out of his reach.
During a press conference ahead of the invasion where Biden suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin "does not want any full-blown war," the Democratic president stressed that Putin "is trying to find his place in the world between China and the West." It appears that with the Biden administration's persistent nudging, Putin has found a close friend in communist China — constituting another major foreign policy blunder.
Brahma Chellaney, professor emeritus of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, noted last year that:
It is U.S. President Joe Biden's foreign policy that has helped turn two natural competitors into strategic collaborators. A forward-looking approach would have avoided confronting Russia and China simultaneously, lest it drive the two nuclear-armed powers into an unholy alliance. But Biden has managed to lock horns with both Moscow and Beijing simultaneously, though it should be noted that his China policy is comparatively softer and more conciliatory.
Like other critics, Chellaney noted that U.S. sanctions on Russia have effectively transformed Beijing into Moscow's banker and more than doubled trade between the two nations.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said in October 2024 that Beijing's relationship with Moscow would be strengthened in the coming months, as Russian gas exports to China continue to surge and the BRICs organization continues to grow in strength relative to American-led economic organizations.
Just a year into Biden's presidency, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) noted that "the president's weakness on the world stage has only emboldened our adversaries to become more aggressive in their rhetoric and their actions."
Over the past four years, China, America's preeminent adversary, has ramped up its attacks on American cyber infrastructure and sovereignty, evidently thinking little of Biden and his occasional tough talk.
The Wall Street Journal revealed in September, for instance, that the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group Salt Typhoon compromised at least eight American telecommunications companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI said in a joint statement, "We have identified that PRC-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call records data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders."
Chinese hackers with ties to the communist government also stole at least 60,000 emails from State Department accounts during Biden's tenure; gained access to the computer networks of a major American transportation hub; and compromised Treasury Department computers.
Brushing Biden's "steady hand" aside, Beijing has also sent spy craft over the mainland U.S.; operated illegal police stations on American soil; threatened diplomats; and dispatched agents to execute espionage and political destabilization missions.
"The United States is in a worse geopolitical position today than it was four years ago," Stephen Wertheim, a historian and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recently told CBS News. "The United States is immersed in a massive war on the European continent with serious escalation risks; it's back to bombing the Middle East with no end in sight; and it has entered into a full-spectrum strategic rivalry with China."
"The United States cannot expect to prioritize China while remaining the leading military power in Europe and the Middle East. If the United States truly wants to prioritize China, it needs to pull back elsewhere," added Wertheim.
Biden told USA Today in an interview last week, "I hope that history says that I came in and I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America's leadership in the world."
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How Trump Can Deter Red China From Ransacking Taiwan
'If we don't get this right, Chinese socialism will be on the ascendancy throughout the world.'Communist China's plan for Taiwan — Trump NEEDS to prepare for THIS
The fight over Taiwan may be all talk right now, but Mark Levin of “LevinTV” is well aware that the small island off the coast of China is an inevitable flashpoint due to its location.
And in a recent segment on DW News, it was explained why the United States and China “can’t quit Taiwan.”
“In some ways, Taiwan’s strategic importance is about three choke points around the island to the West. There’s the Taiwan strait,” the narrator explained. “It’s a key trade route for both Beijing and Taiwan and also for everybody else.”
The world’s biggest container ships pass through the strait. And to the north is the Miyako strait, which runs through Taiwan and several Japanese islands. To the south is the Bashi strait.
These straits are China’s “key strategic gateways to the Pacific Ocean.” Meanwhile, the United States has military bases sprinkled near the border of China — and surrounding Taiwan.
“Now, the next question is what can we do about this.” Levin says. “With each passing year, less and less.”
“We’re building up our military presence there; we’re also strengthening our alliances there. But we’re not building it up to a point that they’re going to be able to rebuff China. China’s going to surround them. They’re going to choke them off economically. This is my prediction as the first of their strategy,” Levin explains.
“Surround them, choke them off, and then warn the United States or anybody else, ‘You fly planes over there, you drop them anything, we’ll shoot you out of the sky.’ I mean, they’re right next to China, you can see.”
“They will bombard it. They will attack it. They’re planning and planning and planning on this. Now, the Taiwanese are tough people. They have a strong little military — but nothing compared to what’s being built to attack them,” he continues, noting that now that Donald Trump has been elected, the plan could change.
“Obviously, they didn’t act while Biden was president because I don’t think they’re in a position to do so. Why? Because their economy sucks right now,” he explains. “But it’ll be back. And so what happens if they do attack Taiwan when Donald Trump is president?”
“I think they’ll suffer economically. In other ways too,” he adds.
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Trump Is The Right Man To Walk Us Back From The Brink Of Nuclear War
America’s enemies know the dynamic changes on Jan. 20 when Donald Trump walks back into the Oval Office.EVIDENCE China MIGHT take Taiwan before Trump's inauguration
China’s economy is collapsing, social unrest is on the rise, and the country’s government appears to be reverting to Mao-era practices — which Glenn Beck of “The Glenn Beck Program” warns is indicative of us entering a “wildly dangerous” time.
“What happens when a country like China or a country like America is in real trouble of civil unrest? What do they usually do? What unites a country?” He asks, answering, “I’ll give you one word. In China, it’s called Taiwan.”
"They are going back to Mao rules,” he continues. “He just issued an order that it’s local control of all civilian unrest. And so all the locals are going to be held responsible, so that could get bad.”
Part of the reason for this, Glenn believes, is that China needs a distraction.
“If I were China, this would be the time I would take it. What’s Donald Trump going to do? ‘January 20th? We’re already there, we’ve already taken it,’” he predicts. “You think Chinese Joe, who’s asleep, is going to do anything? You think this Pentagon will send a bunch of he/she’s over there to fight? No. It’s not going to happen.”
If China does decide to invade Taiwan, Glenn believes the president of the United States should follow his imaginary lead.
“I would already have my special forces there, honestly, working with their government or not, if they won’t do it. But I’d detonate. If there was an invasion, I’d detonate those labs,” he explains.
“So you’re saying, ‘Destroy the technology,’” Stu Burguiere comments.
“Destroy the technology, yes. So we all are standing at an equal chance of getting the super chips,” Glenn confirms. “They’ll have to rebuild. We have to rebuild. They’ll do it faster than us because they’ll do it.”
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