Richard Stern, Miles Pollard
Americans are already skeptical of the renewable-energy mandates that the Biden-Harris administration has been foisting on them for the last 3½ years. Imagine what they’d say if more of them were aware that their tax dollars are enriching the world’s biggest producer of electric vehicles: China and its Communist Party leaders.
A recent Heritage Foundation report, “How the Forced Energy Transition and Reliance on China will Harm America,” exposes how America’s growing reliance on China for renewable energy is not just an economic misstep, but a strategic blunder that compromises our national security and economic stability.
China’s decades-long strategy of economic manipulation and intellectual property theft has allowed it to dominate and exploit global markets, often at the expense of human rights, property protections and global economic stability. In 2023, for example, the U.S. government estimated that China steals $600 billion in American intellectual property annually—a clear sign of the economic warfare being waged on the United States.
Central to China’s strategy is a massive government subsidy regime that directs nearly 5% of its gross domestic product—about $400 billion annually—into its industrial sectors. These funds, now managing over $1.5 trillion in assets, are designed to secure technological dominance and China’s manufacturing supremacy.
Chinese Handcuffs
Although this approach comes at the expense of a slowing economy and burdening nonsubsidized sectors, China hopes that the strategic gain will pay off in the long run.
The United States should use Section 201, 232 and 301 tariffs to counter Beijing’s subsidies and reduce dependency on Chinese products, and to encourage reshoring or near-shoring of key industries. Those efforts should focus on industries with national or economic security concerns, such as semiconductor manufacturing. But as the Heritage report notes, that isn’t enough.
Long before China set out to destroy our economy, the federal bureaucracy did. If the United States is to win this new Cold War, » Read More
https://www.heritage.org/china/commentary/breaking-chinas-handcuffs-safeguard-americas-industrial-might