This country boy sees the Trump Tariffs as plain and straightforward – righting wrongs. If not now, when and at what price?Prices go up, and some call it a hidden tax. However, the only goods affected are those we buy from nations facing tariffs. Buy American, and there’s no tariff to pay. The real hidden tax is what we’ve been paying for years—cheap foreign goods that undercut our industries, destroy jobs and make us dependent on nations that do not have our best interests at heart.
For decades, the U.S. allowed Europe to protect its industries with tariffs while we let their products flood our market for free. That imbalance, a leftover from the Marshall Plan, should have ended long ago. China, however, never played by any rules. It built its economy on unfair trade, forced technology transfers, and labor practices that violate fundamental human rights.
The words of Bob Newhart now ring true and should be our rallying cry to Communist China – “STOP IT!!!”
China’s Game: Control Through Trade
China’s goods are cheap for a reason. They exploit forced labor—Uyghur Muslims in work camps and child workers in factories. But it’s not just about cheap products. China plays a long game.
• When developing nations can’t repay their Belt and Road loans, China takes over their ports, power plants, and natural resources.
• Sri Lanka lost Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease when it defaulted.
• Peru’s Chancay Port is now a $3.5 billion Chinese-controlled gateway into South America.
• Chinese companies own energy grids, telecom networks, and infrastructure across Latin America, expanding their influence.
Ports built under Chinese contracts could easily be repurposed for military operations, giving China a strategic foothold close to U.S. shores. This isn’t just bad trade policy—it’s a national security risk.
Fentanyl, Open Borders, and Economic Strain
China’s influence doesn’t stop at trade. It fuels the fentanyl crisis, shipping precursors to Mexican cartels that flood U.S. streets with poison. Mexico and Canada do nothing to stop it. Meanwhile, billions of U.S. dollars sent by illegal immigrants go back to their home countries, disrupting our labor market and suppressing wages. Big corporations benefit—cheap labor keeps profits high while American workers are squeezed.
Asylum fraud isn’t about work—it’s about working the system. Migrants arrive not just for jobs but for free benefits—housing, healthcare, and entitlements funded by your tax dollars. Crime rises, communities bear the burden, and the cycle continues.
Tariffs: War by Another Means
Carl von Clausewitz said, “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.” The same can be said for tariffs. They are not conflict but a tool to restore balance without bloodshed.
Wall Street panics at a trade war, but short-term losses mean nothing if they secure long-term security, jobs, and economic independence. America cannot remain the world’s marketplace, the world’s piggy bank, or the world’s dumping ground.
The Path Forward
This is not about isolation—it’s about fairness. Trade must be reciprocal. Borders must be secured. Industry must be protected. Americans have a choice: Keep funding the system that exploits them, or take the hit now to reclaim control.
Change can be without conflict. But without change, conflict will come.