OPINION:
Color me very skeptical of the current trade talks with China and what might come out of them.
Don’t get me wrong — President Trump is absolutely doing the right thing. No other politician would have had the guts to confront the globalists the way he has. Nobody else would have stood up for the little guy in flyover America.
The wild card here is not Mr. Trump’s fortitude. It’s the clear calculation that tyrants around the world have made that they can wait out the next two years and then have a quiescent new American president, one who will once again allow them to exploit Americans, humiliate them and take away their livelihoods.
I’m not just talking about the usual suspects such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. I’m also talking about the globalist corporate leaders in our own country who are salivating at the prospect of getting their cheap labor back once Mr. Trump is gone.
The Chinese are falling back on their classic techniques of subterfuge and deceit when dealing with a perceived enemy, and we are clearly an enemy in their eyes. We are the enemy because they want to control the world, whether it’s trade, land or people. The Chinese believe they are on the road to victory and will to do anything to get there.
If they can appease President Trump and his able negotiators for a couple of years, temporizing until his wrath is a thing of history, then they will do so.
In the current round of talks, I expect Beijing will make some promises, buy whatever American goods it needs to cover the next few years, and maybe even temporarily halt some forced technology transfers — all the while ramping up economic espionage activity and waiting for the chance to go back to its old ways.
Iranians are doing much the same thing: getting as much economic support as they can from the Europeans in order to squeak by over the next few years until their nightmare in the White House is, they hope, swept from power in 2020. They are getting encouragement from Democrats like former Secretary of State John Kerry, who are equally eager for the post-Trump era to start.
Iranians might even get a few new loads of cold, hard cash in an unmarked plane in the middle of the night if they play their cards right. Then they can really go after Israel without worrying about blowback from Washington.
You can go down the list.
Russians are hoping the U.S. doesn’t fully withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty while they set up military bases in the Caribbean. North Korea will ask for another summit and make more empty promises. China will keep militarizing the South China Sea while playing nice with trade.
This is why, once again, the 2020 election will be so important for the future of Mr. Trump’s revolution. We’ve had a breather the past two years from the left’s fever dream of driving a stake through the heart of U.S. values such as self-reliance, free markets, secure borders and limited government.
The clock is ticking. Mr. Trump and his team must strive to do all they can to lock in the reforms and policy shifts they have implemented. Overhaul the judiciary, repeal job-killing regulations and, yes, build the damn wall. That also goes for the China trade deal, which must have powerful protections to prevent Beijing from employing its classic bait-and-switch tactics.
We can only hope — and make sure we vote in 2020.
⦁ L. Todd Wood is a former special operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, and has contributed to Fox Business, The Moscow Times, National Review, the New York Post and many other publications. He can be reached through his website, LToddWood.com.
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