America's Predatory Trading Partners

America runs large and persistent trade deficits. Our partners figure out how to make lots of things we want, and we can’t figure out how to produce an equal amount of stuff they want—or are permitted by their governments to buy.

So it is good news that at last American industry has something the Chinese want to buy. Well, not buy exactly. “Extract,” or “appropriate” would be better words, “steal” being a bit harsh. Their Russian counterparts also want a piece of this particular action. It seems that U.S. technology is something that neither of these trading partners can duplicate without the help of our government—which has to issue export licenses for militarily sensitive items—or of our CEOs in Silicon Valley.

The American business community has long been in the forefront of the lobbying effort to prevent retaliation against China for its currency manipulation and its subtle and not-so-subtle barriers to imports. In return for access to China, big business was expected to plead the regime’s case whenever an issue arose that might put a strain on U.S.-Chinese relations. In a sense, big U.S. firms became lobbyists for the Chinese government, their fee being access to China’s markets and its low-paid workforce.