China has been cleaning America’s economic clock ever since Bill Clinton let the country into the WTO with no assurances that it would cease its state subsidies, its repression of free worker organizations, or its theft of U.S. intellectual property. According to Clinton and kindred spirits, as China became more quasi-capitalist, it would become more democratic. Instead, China has become more of a dictatorship. And China’s mercantilist displacement of U.S. industry has only increased.
The toxic impact of U.S. reliance on China became more visible with the supply chain crisis. As our colleague David Dayen reported, virtually 100 percent of containers used in ocean shipping are made in China. The Biden administration has embraced the once-forbidden idea of industrial policy and vowed to bring production back to America.
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