President Donald J. Trump is taking a bold stand against China and unfair trade, and the results are unmistakable.
The stock market is soaring, inflation is nearly invisible, employment is holding steady, and American manufacturing is roaring back to life. The same economists who predicted collapse under Trump’s trade policies are now forced to confront an inconvenient truth: the United States is thriving precisely because we chose to fight back.
This is what leadership looks like. It is the courage to act when others only talk. It is the willingness to protect the people who built this country rather than the elites who sold it off.
Even as President Trump refines his tariff strategy with China, the message remains the same: America will never again be a dumping ground for foreign manipulation or cheap metals that undercut our workers. The debate is not about whether to stand up to China but how to do it wisely. That means keeping tough, targeted tariffs where they belong while avoiding unnecessary costs that fall on American families at the grocery store.
Take tinplate steel, the thin metal used for canned foods and beverages. Overly broad tariffs on this single input have already pushed grocery prices higher, with some canned goods rising by as much as fifteen percent, according to The Wall Street Journal. When ordinary Americans pay more for soup or vegetables because of poorly calibrated tariffs, that is not protection. It is punishment. Strategic leadership means knowing the difference.
For decades, China manipulated trade, stole technology, and dumped cheap goods into American markets. Their strategy was simple: hollow out America’s industrial core in Middle America and the Rust Belt and make us dependent on them for everything from makeup and minerals to semiconductors and steel. Politicians in both parties looked the other way because this benefited their favored constituencies. The result was shuttered factories, broken families, and hollowed-out towns across the Heartland.
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Now the tide has turned. Trump’s America First agenda has restored the dignity of work and the pride of production. Inflation has cooled to near zero. The stock market continues to set records. Wages are climbing, and consumer confidence is at its highest in years. Across every index that measures real prosperity, the United States is leading the world again.
The critics who once mocked Trump's tariffs have gone silent. They cannot explain why the same measures they once labeled dangerous and reckless are now fueling the strongest industrial revival in half a century. Do these elites even root for America anymore?
Look around. Who would have thought we would see companies like Apple building manufacturing facilities in the United States? That was once inconceivable. For decades, corporate giants insisted that producing high-end goods here was impossible. Today, they are proving that it can be done, profitably and proudly, on American soil. That is what confidence looks like when it spreads from leadership to industry.
The steel tariffs proved what happens when America refuses to be bullied. Our mills came back online. Workers who had been written off as relics were rehired. Towns that once depended on unemployment benefits and checks began to depend on paychecks again. Those victories did not happen by luck. They happened because the president was willing to act.
This same principle of strategic targeting must apply to key materials like tinplate steel, which supports tens of thousands of U.S. jobs and plays a critical role in food production and security. Domestic producers are ramping up, but they cannot yet meet demand at the required quality and volume. Tariffs must be calibrated to strengthen workers without pushing grocery prices even higher, as recent reports have shown. That is a smart, pro-worker policy.
China’s aluminum and steel exports are another matter. They are heavily subsidized, environmentally destructive, and designed to undercut competitors. That is where tariffs must bite, and bite hard. Precision, not excess, makes a policy strong. The president’s willingness to refine the aluminum and tinplate steel tariffs shows the discipline of a strategist.
The results of this strategy are visible across every sector. The dollar is strong. Unemployment is low. Industrial investment is climbing. Energy independence has returned, giving America leverage in global markets once again. The trade deficit is narrowing, and the balance of power is shifting back toward those who make and build.
The strength of today’s economy proves that patriotism and prosperity can coexist. Reagan knew it, and Trump is proving it…once again. When a nation protects its doers, its producers, invests in its communities and its workers, and demands fairness from its competitors and partners alike, growth follows.
China’s leadership is beginning to feel the strain. Foreign investment in their economy has slowed. Their stock market has stumbled. Their export numbers are declining. For the first time in decades, Beijing is discovering that the United States will not tolerate aggression disguised as diplomacy and trade. That is what victory looks like in the twenty-first century.
The so-called experts still call this a “trade war.” They said the same thing when Reagan faced down Japan’s unfair auto practices. They said it when America insisted on intellectual property protections in the 1980s. Each time, the prophets of doom and gloom were wrong. Strong leadership does not destroy prosperity. It restores it. It preserves it.
Tariffs are not isolationist. They are a tool of negotiation. They tell the world that access to the largest consumer market on Earth - the United States - comes at a cost and with responsibilities. They remind foreign governments that America will not subsidize its own decline. And when used with this kind of precision, tariffs become an instrument of renewal rather than resentment.
Every American should take pride in what is happening. The comeback is real. The factories are humming again. The economy is growing faster than Europe, Japan, or the People’s Republic of China. Inflation, once a threat, has been tamed. The stock market reflects not speculation but confidence in American ingenuity and productivity.
President Trump has made it profitable to build in America again. He has proven that fairness in trade does not require capitulation and surrender. And he has reminded every adversary and ally alike that the United States remains the engine of global growth when it chooses to lead.
America is winning again, thanks!
Ken Blackwell is the President of the Council for National Policy and the Chairman of the Conservative Action Committee.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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