A speech arguing that decades of U.S. trade openness while other countries used tariffs, currency manipulation, and IP theft devastated American industry and threatened national security. The speaker says the era of unilateral economic surrender is over.
Chapters
For decades, the United States slashed our trade barriers on other countries while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products and created outrageous non monetary barriers to decimate our industries. They manipulated their currencies, subsidized their exports, stole our intellectual property, imposed exorbitant VAT taxes to disadvantage our products, adopted unfair rules and technical standards, and created filthy pollution havens. This all happened, happened with no response from the United States of America. But those days are over. But such horrendous imbalances have devastated our industrial base and put our national security at risk. In the face of unrelenting economic warfare, the United States can no longer continue with a policy of unilateral economic surrender. We have to take care of our people, and we're going to take care of our people first.