OPINION:
As the baseless impeachment proceedings grind on, the president is demonstrating his leadership and negotiating skills with the first steps of a trade deal with China. That has forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to — finally — agree to approve the Canada-Mexico-U.S. trade agreement (USMCA) she has sat on for a year to America’s detriment.
But lest we become giddy over improved trade relations with China, we must deal firmly with and recognize the commitment to communism of China’s President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders. Besides their interference in the Taiwan presidential election, they have — sometimes violently — attacked Hong Kong protesters who have voted overwhelmingly for freedom. And they have suppressed religious freedom throughout mainland China, as they have pursued military dominance in the South China Sea.
These communists are China’s “bad actors,” according to Roger Robinson Jr., a former National Security Adviser to Ronald Reagan. He calls for America to impose monetary and capital-access discipline similar to what we imposed on the Soviets in the 1980s.
In a recent speech at Hillsdale College in Michigan, Mr. Robinson, who served on Reagan’s National Security Council with Bill Clark, outlined how Reagan brought down the Soviet Union.
In 1982, the Soviets were spending far more than their revenues, and proposed to supply Western Europe with Russian natural gas, seeking Western capital to build the pipeline. Reagan and his White House team blocked Western financing sources, stopped the pipeline project and its flow of cash to the Soviets and brought down a bankrupt Soviet Union.
We are confronted with a similar threat to world peace and the rule of law from Communist China. We know of China’s continuing theft of intellectual property from many of America’s companies doing business there. We thought that admitting China to the World Trade Organization, which President Bush supported some 18 years ago, would mollify the Communist leadership and move China toward greater freedom. But that has not happened, as China has maintained its suppression of its people and now uses facial imaging techniques for greater control.
All of this has been made possible by allowing China access to American capital markets. China has more than 700 companies in our stock and capital markets, including nearly 150 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and another 500 in the “over the counter” market, Mr. Robinson explains.
He continues: “This sounds difficult to believe but it is an empirical fact: The majority of American investors are unwittingly funding Chinese concentration camps, weapons systems for the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and more (emphasis added). This is because the U.S. has no security minded screening mechanism for our capital markets, which have roughly $35 trillion under management.” We must stop such capital access and infusion for China, as we did for the Soviets through capital-access controls.
In another part of the world, through the control of financial and trade policies, President Trump is already near to bringing down the Khamenei-led Islamic dictatorship in Iran, possibly restoring a Persian secular government, as we had with the shah of Iran mid-last century. This is possible through the no-nonsense trade and financial restrictions Mr. Trump has imposed as part of his tough foreign and trade policies.
This would go a long way to ensuring peace in the Middle East, as Iran — with its breach of our deal on production of weapons-grade fissionable material — is the principle threat to stability in that part of the world. The popular uprisings and demonstrations for freedom in Iran recently have only been contained and suppressed by the vicious Khamenei-led government’s Revolutionary Guard.
Similarly, the incredible protests, the latest being the 800,000 strong “family” march on Dec. 8 and the popular vote for freedom in Hong Kong, are challenging the Beijing Communist “bad actors,” who have frequently met the freedom seekers with increased violence. Mr. Trump has recognized this by signing U.S. legislation condemning Communist actions in Hong Kong, and joining a United Nations resolution condemning Communist persecutions of religious sects in China.
It is Mr. Trump’s careful integration of foreign policy objectives with trade negotiations and financial disciplines/capital controls that are keeping our adversaries off balance and improving world peace, as Ronald Reagan did before him with the Soviet Union. Thank you, Roger Robinson Jr. for reminding us of the Reagan roadmap that can help us solve similar world problems 40 years later.
• Lewis K. Uhler is founder and chairman of the National Tax Limitation Committee and Foundation. Peter J. Ferrara is a senior policy adviser for the Foundation and teaches economics at Kings College in New York.
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