The world will not soon see a man like David Horowitz again..

One of the great Americans of our age, David Horowitz, died on Tuesday at the age of 86.

David Horowitz was one of the towering intellects and most perceptive thinkers of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first; he was also a man of unusual courage and remarkable vision. Though few people today realize it, David Horowitz was also one of the most influential people of our time, as he was one of the first leftists of any prominence to leave the leftist ranks and become a stalwart warrior for freedom.

Multitudes followed in his wake, often without realizing who it was who had blazed the trail for them. We are all in his debt not only for blazing that trial, but for the fact that after he established himself as a voice for freedom, sound values, and patriotism, David Horowitz spearheaded efforts to seize the intellectual and moral initiative from the left, and to articulate a vision for an America that really is the land of the free and the home of the brave.

After decades of the left’s cultural hegemony, David Horowitz played a massive role in establishing a large-scale movement of American patriots who refused to accept the claims of self-anointed “progressives” that their victory was inevitable, that they were on the right side of history, and that surrender was wiser than resistance. Today, that movement is broad-based, and one of its foremost exponents is in the Oval Office. Trump himself called Horowitz his “great friend.”

Stephen Miller, one of Donald Trump’s key advisers, was in his college days the president of the Duke chapter of David Horowitz’s Students for Academic Freedom; Miller’s uncompromising, unapologetic and deeply informed response to the left’s propaganda machine (that is, the establishment media) is redolent of Horowitz’s influence.

Even just a few years ago, Miller’s robustly pugnacious approach to the media propagandists would have been unthinkable. It was taken for granted that American conservatives let the left define the parameters of the public discourse and control the debate over any controverted issue. If the left denounced any voice for freedom on the right, which it did on a regular basis, establishment conservatives fell dutifully into line and denounced the target themselves.

These establishment conservatives were ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that Saul Alinsky, a man who had been a socialist activist like David Horowitz but who had never heeded the better angels of his nature and broken with the left, taught that radicals could defeat their foes by isolating a target, demonizing and destroying that target, and then proceeding onto the next target by first denouncing him for associating with the first target.

David Horowitz not only refused to play along with this game; he broke its power. At the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s flagship publication, Front Page Magazine, he did not let the left set the agenda; instead, he set his own. He didn’t shun figures who enunciated unpopular truths that the left wanted desperately to conceal; instead, he gave them a platform. He articulated an American conservatism that was not defensive, not reactive, not imitative of the left, but providing a vision for our nation’s future that is a genuine alternative to what the left has forced upon Americans for so long, and which preserves and strengthens what has made our nation great.

Nowadays, when patriots seek out pundits and political analysts who articulate what they themselves want for our country, and they encounter a strong and self-assured patriotic movement, this is to a great degree the fruit of the tireless labors of David Horowitz. When he and his longtime friend and colleague Peter Collier left Ramparts magazine, which was at the vanguard of the leftist movement in the late 1960s, and embraced the patriotism and love for freedom they had previously fought so energetically against, the American left lost two of its foremost thinkers; it has never recovered.

If free people prevail in this great struggle in which we are now engaged, and if an honest history of our turbulent age is someday written, David Horowitz will stand as one of those who shone forth most brightly when the darkness seemed all-pervasive and invincible.

It has been an immense honor for me personally to have known David for twenty years, and to have fought for freedom alongside him as part of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. At the Center, we are now determined to continue David’s fight for freedom and to keep on carrying the torch for freedom that he lit, until we prevail. May his memory be eternal.

Robert Spencer, frontpagemagazine.com

Ukraine is ready to sign an agreement that would give the U.S. access to its valuable rare minerals in the hopes of ensuring continued American support for Kyiv in its grinding war with Russia, senior Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

Ukraine’s economy minister and deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, flew to Washington on Wednesday to help finalize the deal, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said during an appearance on Ukrainian television. Although the main part of the agreement had been settled, there were still hurdles to overcome, said a senior Ukrainian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

For Ukraine, the agreement is seen as key to ensuring its access to future U.S. military aid.

Truly, this is a strategic deal for the creation of an investment partner fund,” Shmyhal said. “This is truly an equal and good international deal on joint investment in the development and restoration of Ukraine between the governments of the United States and Ukraine.”

President Donald Trump indicated in February that he wanted access to Ukraine’s rare earth materials as a condition for continued U.S. support in the war, describing it as reimbursement for the billions of dollars in aid the U.S. has given to Kyiv. But talks stalled after a tense Oval Office meeting of U.S. and Ukrainian leaders, and reaching an agreement since then has proven difficult and strained relations between Washington and Kyiv.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House that the Trump administration was ready to sign off on a deal, but that there was still work to do.

“The Ukrainians decided last night to make some last-minute changes,” Bessent said when asked about reports that Ukraine was ready to agree to the pact. “We’re sure that they will reconsider that. And we are ready to sign this afternoon if they are.”

He didn’t elaborate as to the late changes he said Ukraine made.

The U.S. is seeking access to more than 20 raw materials deemed strategically critical to its interests, including some non-minerals such as oil and natural gas. Among them are Ukraine’s deposits of titanium, which is used for making aircraft wings and other aerospace manufacturing, and uranium, which is used for nuclear power, medical equipment and weapons. Ukraine also has lithium, graphite and manganese, which are used in electric vehicle batteries.

After Kyiv felt the initial U.S. draft of the deal disproportionately favored American interests, it introduced new provisions aimed at addressing those concerns.

According to Shmyhal, the latest version would establish an equal partnership between the two countries and last for 10 years. Financial contributions to a joint fund would be made in cash, and only new U.S. military aid would count toward the American share. Assistance provided before the agreement was signed would not be counted. Unlike an earlier draft, the deal would not conflict with Ukraine’s path toward European Union membership — a key provision for Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Cabinet was expected to approve the agreement’s text before it could be signed in Washington. The deal would then need to be ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament before it could take effect.

The negotiations come amid rocky progress in Washington’s push to stop the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin backs calls for a ceasefire before peace negotiations, “but before it’s done, it’s necessary to answer a few questions and sort out a few nuances,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin is also ready for direct talks with Ukraine without preconditions to seek a peace deal, he added.

“We realize that Washington wants to achieve quick progress, but we hope for understanding that the Ukrainian crisis settlement is far too complex to be done quickly,” Peskov said during his daily conference call with reporters.

Trump has expressed frustration over the slow pace of progress in negotiations aimed at stopping the war. Western European leaders have accused Putin of stalling while his forces seek to grab more Ukrainian land. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory since Moscow’s forces launched a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

The American president has chided his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for steps that he said were prolonging the killing, and he has rebuked Putin for complicating negotiations with “very bad timing” in launching deadly strikes on Kyiv.

Trump has long dismissed the war as a waste of lives and American taxpayer money — a complaint he repeated Wednesday during his Cabinet meeting. That could spell an end to crucial military help for Ukraine and heavier economic sanctions on Russia.

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday tried again to push both sides to move more quickly and warned that the U.S. could pull out of the negotiations if there’s no progress.

“We are now at a time where concrete proposals need to be delivered by the two parties on how to end this conflict,” department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce quoted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as telling her.

Russia has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and full 30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt to Ukraine’s mobilization effort and Western arms supplies to Kyiv.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed Wednesday that Ukraine had accepted an unconditional truce only because it was being pushed back on the battlefield, where the bigger Russian forces have the upper hand.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded in attacks every day this year, according to a U.N. report presented Tuesday in New York.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said in the report that in the first three months of this year, it had verified 2,641 civilian casualties in Ukraine. That was almost 900 more than during the same period last year.

Also, between April 1-24, civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 46% from the same weeks in 2024, it said.

The daily grind of the war shows no sign of letting up. A nighttime Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, wounded at least 45 civilians, Ukrainian officials said.

Also Wednesday, the Ukrainian Security Service claimed its drones struck the Murom Instrument Engineering Plant in Russia’s Vladimir region overnight, causing five explosions and a fire at the military facility. The claim could not be independently verified.

Newsmax/AP

The tax collection data shows that April was the month Trump’s campaign of tariffs started to make a real financial impact. Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs against all U.S. trading partners ranged from 10% for many countries to 145% for Chinese products. That came on top of previous tariffs, including a 25% duty on foreign cars that went into effect that month.

Trump’s stated goals for his import taxes include raising revenue to fund the government, restoring U.S. manufacturing by protecting it from foreign competition, and pressuring foreign governments to make trade deals favorable to the U.S. Economists have warned the tariffs are likely to drive up the cost of living, and risk plunging the economy into a recession.

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Let’s Never Forget: Free Trade Requires Free Nations

According to a report from the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of Tues. Sept. 24, 2024, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has “made it abundantly clear that diplomacy and free trade should be America’s tools for reducing tensions, not more counterproductive heavy-handed government mandates and sanctions.”

Let’s not forget to emphatically add, that free trade among free people is not only a good thing, it’s a great thing.

However, if you’re trading with someone who lives in a country ruled by totalitarian fascists labelling themselves Communists or “Democrats,” it’s anything but free trade.

By the way, you’re deluding yourself if you don’t agree.

By its very name, free trade denotes free individuals doing the trading.

In America, at least under President Donald Trump and the better members of the GOP, you are free, at least in relative terms.

Not so for people living under the socialist regimes of Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan, or under the totalitarian regime of China.

They are not free.

They operate only with permission of their governments and on the terms set by those governments. To be clear, Sen. Paul and other free market advocates are mistaken when they uncritically accept the premise that what we have is free trade in a world with overwhelmingly unfree countries.

Oppose Trump’s tariffs if you wish, but opposing them on the false assumption that free trade is universal doesn’t comport with global harsh realities.

Trading and dealing with people in totalitarian countries is like dealing with the Mob.

It’s not that the people in those countries are necessarily bad; but their rulers most certainly can be — and frequently are.

China is not a free nation, it’s totalitarian.

Workers in China are borderline (if not actual) slaves. They work not for their own benefit, but their rulers’ welfare.

They operate only with the consent of the government.

If you reside in a free country, it’s an absurd delusion to claim you are “trading” with slaves. You are never trading with workers or businesspeople in a Communist or fascist country, like China; it’s all an illusion perpetrated by the totalitarian government.

The only appropriate policy of a free country toward a slave country’s government is to do everything possible (economically or even militarily) to undermine or destroy that government.

At the least, you don’t trade with them, because it’s no different than doing business with the Mob. It will come back to bite you. Everything Trump is doing to the Chinese government at present is morally justified and long overdue.

Before you get free trade, you must first have free nations. I’ll again state the obvious: China is not free.

Nobody would say that Ayn Rand, the author of the classic “Atlas Shrugged” and an unyielding defender of unhampered capitalism and individual rights, is opposed to free trade.

Yet . . . during the Cold War she supported a form of economic intervention against the Soviet Union even stronger than what President Trump is doing today with China.

At the height of the Cold War, Playboy magazine asked Ayn Rand, “Would you actively advocate that the United States invade Cuba or the Soviet Union?”

The author’s response?

“Not at present. I don’t think it’s necessary. I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott.

“I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia. And you would see both of those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life.”

Rand understood that Communist countries are not free markets. You don’t apply the principle of individual rights to countries disrespecting individual rights.

It’s beyond naïve and gullible to think that the legal and economic status of people in countries like China are anything like ours in America.

If you want to trade with the people of these countries for mutual benefit, then you’ve got to get rid of their governments.

Or, as Ayn Rand suggested, undermine those governments enough that they’d collapse and perhaps the people will then become willing and able to embrace freedom, including free market capitalism.

With its citizenry as property of the state, nations like China have no regard for individual rights.

Obviously that structure does not comprise freedom.

The government of a truly free country merely upholds contracts and private property rights. The government doesn’t decide who gets to have what property; the government doesn’t get to decide how much is or isn’t a reasonable profit.

Once again, our nation’s 47th commander in chief is merely the messenger.

Pointing out the obvious: China isn’t fair to the U.S. China is a totalitarian Communist government. Totalitarian governments are not, and never have been, fair.

Increasingly, we let China’s government-run system:

Produce our pharmaceuticals.
Our computer parts.
All things we require for living.

Additionally, we’re letting the red giant:

Buy up our farmlands.

Remember, the Chinese government can cut us off at any time. Even starve us.

At some point, they’ll be able to overtake our military (that is, unless Trump’s policies prevail); that means they’ll threaten to cut off our internet and devices if we don’t comply.

It’s only a matter of time.

Punishing China isn’t thwarting free trade.

It’s treating a Communist country in exactly the manner it deserves to be treated.

It’s a matter of stern, strong foreign policy.

And yet again, President Trump is right.

Why?

Because he lives in the reality of global realpolitik, seeing it for what it is, unlike so many supposed leaders.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Founder of Frontpage Mag and his Freedom Center, David Horowitz, has died. According to his website:

On behalf of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, we are very saddened to announce the passing of the Center’s founder, David Horowitz. After a lengthy battle with cancer, David passed yesterday at the age of 86.

The Freedom Center’s founder and guiding force was a relentless conservative warrior who survived a previous brush with death (chronicled in his book Mortality and Faith), confrontations with the Black Panthers, campus radicals, government investigations, death threats, and hate campaigns, some led by his former friends and allies, without ever considering giving up or letting up. Nothing short of the end that comes for us all could silence his voice. He continued writing, working, and steering the Center to the very last; his final article, “The Biggest Lie of All,” appeared earlier this month.

Although he was a giant in the conservative liberty movement for over 40 years, David was raised a Marxist and was one of the leading intellectuals of the New Left movement at Berkeley in the 1960’s. But David, along with his writing partner and Freedom Center co-founder Peter Collier, eventually had a political epiphany and joined the side of freedom in the early 1980‘s. They committed the second half of their lives and work warning Americans of the dangers of the Progressives whose intellectual roots and totalitarian aims they understood better than many Leftists themselves.

David’s legacy is vast and the number of people that he inspired, mentored, and impacted is incalculable. That we live in a world today where there is a fighting chance of defeating the Leftist utopians who would enslave us is due in no small measure to the rare courage and unflagging passion that exemplified David’s work these past 40 years.

Over the years, David became something of a Saul Alinsky for the conservative movement, shaking a complacent Right out of its sleep and reinventing it as a war machine, laying out the strategies and principles for defeating the Left in too many bestselling books, articles, and pamphlets to count.

***Support The Liberty Daily and Mike Lindell — use code TLD at MyPillow.com and get up to 66% off!***

David’s message to the conservative movement was that it needed to abandon its habit of embracing noble failure and instead fight to win. Indeed, Donald Trump’s MAGA movement was shaped and guided by David and his disciples like Stephen Miller. And while his passing is an incalculable loss, David lived long enough to see his ideas and tactics become the heart and soul of a new movement to take back America.

The post on X announcing his death includes a tribute video:

On behalf of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, we are very saddened to announce the passing of the Center’s founder, David Horowitz. After a lengthy battle with cancer, David passed yesterday at the age of 86.

Mark Carney defeated conservative challenger Pierre Poilievre in Canada’s 2025 federal election to become the next Prime Minister of America’s 51st state. What exactly does he have planned for The Great White North?

Nine improvements Carney is bringing to a Canada near you:

1. Shorter wait times for assisted suicide: If you need a hip replacement, however, you might have to wait several years.

2. All parents will be required to trans their kids: There’s no better way to show solidarity with the trans community.

3. The means of maple syrup production will be seized for the proletariat: A classless society can only be established by the equitable redistribution of maple syrup reserves.

4. Change national anthem to “The Lumberjack Song” by Monty Python: Much more appropriate for modern Canada.

5. Double the size of Canada’s military to 12: It’s important for Canada to be ready in case Trump attacks.

6. Establish a war victory monument in case Canada ever wins a war: You never know.

7. More unnecessary “u”s will be added to words: In addition to “humour” and “colour,” we’ll also get “elevatour,” “authour,” and “dictatour.”

8. Will advance several exciting new hoaxes against the Catholic Church: What fun!

9. Will work closely with President Xi to bring Canada under the watchful protection of the glorious People’s Republic of China: Having a big brother is so comforting.

Wow! These are exciting. Maybe Canada is finally back.

Babylon Bee

Democrats: at least as bad as the Nazis or the Communists. With a far greater capacity for destruction. They control half the state and local governments in the country, nearly all of the media, key elements of the military, all of the Deep State agencies, and literally all of our government-subsidized education system. The Nazis, Communists and other enemies of America were homicidal. Democrats are suicidal-homicidal, and have both the power and the will to do it right to our faces. We had better step up the efforts to destroy this party, because if we don’t, the next time they seize power at the federal level, they will eradicate absolutely everything.

President Trump’s victory and subsequent efforts to “drain the swamp” are courageous and impressive, but the magnitude of the evil we are up against requires far more than DOGE or arresting a couple of low profile judges. Until or unless we treat the Obamas, Bidens, Soros family, Faucis and all the other top-level Democrats as the war criminals and traitors they literally are, I fear we are going to lose the war to save America. Don’t let it go.

*******

Big Dictator Putin vs Little Dictator Zelensky. Who the hell cares about either of them? Let them demoralize and (best case) destroy each other. President Trump is wasting his time trying to end this war. Our only obligation: Stop funding it. Translation: End the Biden gravy train (money laundering) and stop funding Zelensky’s wife’s shopping sprees.

*******

A reader reminded me of what I wrote in the spring of 2020:

“…Mandatory quarantines for the healthy is a bizarre and twisted concept. Immunologists and physicians outside the government swamp will tell you that. It’s really about self-sacrifice. Decimation of the entire world economy for the sake of a small number of sick people is not something we have done with any other illness, contagious or not…”

It was true in 2020 when almost nobody agreed with me, and it’s still true 5 years later, where only the truly dense and dishonest don’t see the truth.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Disrupter, firebrand, or provocateur – call him what you will – but in the first 100 days of his second and last term, President Donald Trump has shaken and stirred American progressives to their core. His commanding presence is not for the faint of heart, as he proceeds at breakneck speed to fulfill his campaign promises. Today (April 29), which marks the 100th day of his presidency, is cause for reflection. And unsurprisingly, satisfaction with his priorities, projects, and plans has fallen along party lines.

Tariffs, immigration, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headline the start of Trump’s second time around as commander-in-chief, and all three have caused hysteria on the left – and that’s not an exaggeration. Progressives have been reduced to firebombing Tesla dealerships, keying cars, assaulting Tesla owners, and more. The reason for this appears to be the leadership of billionaire Elon Musk, who stands at the helm of DOGE. The fact that Musk was a former darling of the left seems to be lost on them, as is the reality that their actions signal what — that they support government waste, fraud, and abuse?

At this writing, the website DOGE.gov reports $160 billion in savings from a “Combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.” According to DOGE calculations, the bottom line is a saving of almost a thousand dollars per taxpayer. That the left finds this reason to protest is unfathomable.

100 Days of Immigration Reform

The first few months of the Trump presidency have demonstrated – beyond any reasonable doubt – that the United States was never in need of additional immigration legislation to defend US borders, but rather a chief executive who had the courage to enforce the laws already on the books. Many Americans intuitively knew this, but somehow it got drowned out by all the Swamp noise. So how has the president performed thus far?

Border Czar Tom Homan, not one to be trifled with, asserted yesterday, “Well, today as I’m standing here, we have the most secure border in the history of this nation and the numbers prove it.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in the White House briefing room yesterday that illegal immigration has been down 95% in March of this year compared to 2024. She also reported that more than 85 miles of a new “border barrier” is now in various stages of construction, with “75 additional miles of temporary barriers across the southern border.” Both Homan and Leavitt maintain this massive reduction in crossings has severely limited fentanyl distribution in the United States, and deaths of women and children trying to make their way across the southern border have been almost entirely eliminated.

The progressive response to the crackdown on illegal immigration has been the rabid defense of one suspected MS-13 gang member who lived in Maryland. This sparked a coalition of Democratic lawmakers to travel to El Salvador seeking the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Their chief aim was to return him to the United States. Yet another example of tone-deaf hysteria, considering roughly three-quarters of Americans support the removal of illegal gang members from US shores.

Tick-Tock, It’s Tariff Time

Perhaps the most controversial move in his first 100 days has been Trump’s ratcheting up US tariffs worldwide. It’s a policy in its early stages that needs time to play out. And this is what has many so jittery, especially on Wall Street. Still, the president is moving forward with renegotiating long-standing unfair trade deals one country at a time. Where this change in policy lands could be Trump’s most significant victory or his most agonizing defeat. However, it is a necessary move for the future of US economic stability and the one systemic economic problem that no other president has been able to rectify. The simple truth is that the United States is bathed in red ink, mired in an untenable situation that cannot last much longer.

The economy, immigration, and government spending make up the trifecta of Trump’s first 100 days in office. Changes are coming fast and furious, and the chaos of such large-scale shifts in US policy has reduced the left to ironic and, many maintain, laughable actions. The legacy media still stands athwart these presidential priorities, bashing them daily with front-page headlines and negative political analysis.

Remarkably, the president does not seem to care. He’s acting very much like a man on a mission who will not be diverted from what he believes is right for the United States and what he contends Americans voted for when they put him back into the Oval Office against all odds. But, above all, President Trump’s first 100 days have been a wild ride, and if the past is prologue, tough days lie ahead for the status quo and those who support it.

Leesa Donner, Liberty Nation

Peaceful solution to America’s civil war? I don’t think so. Speaking for myself: I will not live peacefully under the rule of these people. They do not seek peace; they want mass coercion. They want COVID fascism times 1,000 — forever. Applied to every aspect of human life … control, control, control. By woke, crazy, always leftist totalitarians. They do not want to leave anyone alone. They want to impose their ideas of socialism, gender psychosis, racial supremacy and censorship on the rest of us. Millions of us will never, ever give in. But I know the ruthlessness of their leaders and the sickness of their minds will never quit. Looking beyond Trump, I see no solution here. Our differences are irreconcilable — and unsustainable.

Every single Trump policy is being overturned by a leftist lower court judge. Does this mean when Gavin Newsom or AOC become President that a Trump appointed judge may repeal open borders, 90 percent tax rates, censorship, state-run genital mutilation of children and gun confiscation? Of course not. The Democratic Party is not Constitutionalist. It’s a raw, unhampered dictatorship movement. Leftists lack rule of law, objective arguments or any sense of justice. We know it; and they know we know it. They simply do not care. That’s why Democrats should not be permitted to hold office. They swear to uphold the Constitution and in practice they obliterate every part of it — laughing while they do so. This should disqualify them for any office. If New York and California wish to secede, fine — let them go. If “democracy” means the right to vote away the inalienable rights guaranteed you by your Constitution, then how can you uphold the right of open totalitarians to hold office?

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

The free trade brigade obsesses over economic minutiae—they cry that tariffs will raise the cost of plastic spatulas by 50 cents! What a disaster!

The reality is that trade with China is not in America’s interests because it funds our greatest rival. Here’s how America funded China’s rise, and why tariffs will help keep America safe and free.

A Dragon Fed: How America Funded China’s Rise

Economists say freer trade benefits everyone—even trade with China. America gets cheap goods and China gets money. Win-win.

Even if we assume America benefits, which is a false assumption as proven in my book Reshore, China has clearly benefited more. For example, China’s economy has grown by an average of 8.12% since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001—about four times greater than America’s. China and America benefited asymmetrically from trade.

Asymmetry may not be a problem economically, but it is a problem politically. Why? Power is zero-sum. The stronger China grows, the weaker America becomes relative to China. As such, trade with China is also a political issue. The question we should be asking ourselves is whether cheap goods are worth surrendering America’s political dominance.

To be clear, trade is not the only way that America has funded China’s rise. There are three primary ways that America enriches and empowers China: investment, trade, and theft.

First, America invested directly in China by building factories—offshoring 60,000 factories does not come cheap. The total value of American investment in China is unknown. According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, cumulative foreign direct investment (“FDI”) totalled $2.7 trillion in 2023. Just 2.1% of this investment was categorized as American.

The reason that this amount is so low is because American investment is usually routed through intermediaries, mostly Hong Kong, Singapore, and the British Virgin Islands. This is why Hong Kong—a city smaller than Shanghai—owns 68% of FDI in China.

Not coincidentally, Hong Kong is a major recipient of FDI from the U.S. and from the British Virgin Islands—a tiny banking archipelago that is itself capitalized by the U.S. and the City of London. Because of this shell game, we cannot know the actual amount American companies have invested in China, but if we assume that FDI correlates with the relative size of China’s trade surpluses, then America’s investments total $972 billion.

This estimate is probably low. Why? China runs trade surpluses with countries that clearly contributed no investment, such as most countries in Africa and the Middle East. Given the level of economic integration, I would hazard an estimate that most FDI ultimately originated in America or the City of London, funneled through their banking havens.

Second, America indirectly funded China’s rise through the trade deficit, buying more Chinese goods than we sold. The cumulative trade deficit with China since 2001 is roughly $6 trillion, after accounting for inflation. Not only were the Chinese able to spend these profits, but they were also able to borrow against the revenue, greatly multiplying their access to capital.

Third, China has stolen an almost unquantifiable amount of American technology. In 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative estimated that China steals intellectual property worth between $225 and $600 billion per year, more than the value of the annual trade deficit. If we use the low estimate and do not adjust for inflation, the value of stolen technology would be at least $5.4 trillion.

Interestingly, the above numbers actually undervalue the quantity of this theft. Why?

The other vector is through Sino-American corporate partnerships. Basically, American companies that build factories in China are forced to partner with a local Chinese company, a corporate clone. The plant is staffed by Chinese workers, who are taught America’s industrial processes and how to replicate American technology.

Providing China access to American technology is actually the price to enter China’s market—American companies cannot operate in China without giving up their technological and industrial secrets. Yet they do it anyways because the Chinese make it worth their while.

In my view, the value of America’s stolen technology was priceless.

Remember, mainland China’s economy was largely preindustrial—about as productive and technologically advanced as the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolution. Now, China has reached technological parity with the U.S. Theft allowed China to skip 200 years of technological and economic development.

America funded China’s rise. This has not only impoverished America, but it has also ended America’s superpower era. We now live in a multipolar world, bought and paid for by America’s corrupt politicians and Wall Street.

Spencer P. Morrison, American Greatneess