The President's Daily Brief - June 8th, 2022. Special Brief: Biden Lifts Tariffs Against China Helping Them Continue to Steal Our Economy

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

It’s June 8th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. I’m your host and former CIA Officer Bryan Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. On Monday, Joe Biden waived tariffs on foreign solar panels. Now that didn’t get a lot of press probably because, well, it’s about solar panels. Not exactly the stuff of great consequence. But actually it is. It’s a really big deal. And I’m going to explain why. Why this decision about foreign solar panels is really about the future of America.  And it’s a future that doesn’t look bright because of a massive political failure in this country. You see, those foreign solar panels used to be made here. Or could have been. That is, until their patented designs were stolen through espionage — taken by Chinese spies back to Beijing many years ago, and given to their solar companies to make panels there. So join me this morning on a special brief, one not just about solar panels. But the very future of America.  All up next on the President’s Daily Brief. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's June 8th. You're listening to a special edition of the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. The brief you're about to hear is in the same spirit of the actual President's Daily Brief, which is a top secret summary of the most critical events in the past 24 hours, all delivered to the president each day by the nation's spymasters. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am your spy and this is your brief. Here's what we're going to be talking about this morning. on Monday, Joe Biden waived tariffs on foreign solar panels. Now, that didn't get a lot of press, probably because, well, it's about solar panels, not exactly the stuff of great consequence.

But actually, it is. It's a really big deal. And I'm going to explain why. Why this decision about foreign solar panels is really about the future of America. And it's a future that doesn't look bright, all because of a massive political failure in this country. You see, those foreign solar panels used to be made here, or could have been, that is, until their patented designs were stolen through espionage, taken by Chinese spies back to Beijing many years ago, and given to their solar companies to make panels there. So join me this morning on a special brief, one not just about solar panels, but the very future of America. All up next on the President's Daily Brief.

Friends, welcome to this special edition of the PDB. On Monday, Joe Biden announced that he would waive tariffs on solar panels from four Southeast Asian countries. The waiver will last for the next two years, meaning that a backlog of solar panels sitting in Cambodia and Thailand and other places can now be shipped to America, no questions asked. To understand why this is a shocking, development and why it's so important to you and to America, we need some background on this

issue. So let's start. In 2012, then-President Obama slapped tariffs on Chinese solar panels. The reason was that Beijing was cheating. The communists were giving manufacturers and their country very favorable loans and outright grants to operate. And that allowed those companies to sell their products at really cheap prices, products like solar panels. Now, American and European companies didn't get those same sweetheart deals. So their panels cost more to consumers like you, a lot more. And that was Beijing's plan. By selling cheap solar panels, more consumers would buy those instead of the expensive ones.

And over time, that would bankrupt their American and European competition because they'd lose too many sales. And that means that America would lose our manufacturing base. So President Obama decided that tariffs would help. even the playing field. But that didn't stop the Chinese government. As it turns out, Beijing isn't just good at cheating. They're also very good at stealing. In 2014, just two short years after Obama's tariffs, the Department of Justice charged hackers working directly for the Chinese military of hacking into a whole bunch of American companies, all to steal their trade secrets. So Westinghouse

was one company, Alcoa was another. U.S. Steel also hit. Finally, solar world. It's a manufacturer of solar panels. China's goal here was very simple to hack into the computer systems of all those companies, to then find the secret corporate plans, those clandestine manufacturing processes, the special chemicals, the patented designs, and take all of that and pass it off to Chinese companies. And with those trade secrets in hand, the Chinese companies could then start making their own versions. It was a great deal for the those companies, by the way, they didn't have to do any research. They spent zero dollars hiring scientists and engineer to design anything. They just stole it all. And then they started manufacturing

it. Plus, if you add in all those sweetheart finance deals that I mentioned earlier from Beijing, well, you add that up and you've got an incredible advantage. And that means big market share, which is just a fancy way of saying, you're taking all the customers. So that's what China was doing all the way back in 2012 and 14. And by the way, they did it before then, too, when George Bush was president. And here's the key. They've been doing it ever since. There was a report done by the U.S. Trade Representative's office in 2018.

And they looked at China's thievery of all this intellectual property or trade secrets. And they found that Beijing was stealing upwards of $600 billion each year from us. That's 600 billion with a bee. and all that also means that we've lost jobs, millions of them. Because for every trade secret stolen, that means that factories go bankrupt or they don't get built at all. And in turn, people don't get hired to make all of those products. Now, everybody in Washington, D.C. has known about this problem for 20 plus years. George Bush, as I mentioned, he talked about it when he was President Obama, obviously laid down those tariffs.

And as I briefed you on previously, Donald Trump launched. a trade war in 2017 specifically to get back at China's theft. But obviously something's not working because do you remember the brief that I gave you on regarding the Chinese spy who worked for Coca-Cola amongst other companies? To refresh your memory, she was convicted just last month of stealing a chemical formula that protected the inside of cans and she was taking that information back to Beijing. So the point of that brief and why it's so important for this one, is that China is still stealing our stuff. Nothing that we have done has stopped them.

So that suggests that whatever the penalties that we've levied, they've been meaningless. Obviously, China has just shrugged them off. But beyond that, we also know that China has started playing shell games to cheat and steal in just a bit of a different way. So let me explain that. After D.C. slapped those tariffs on Chinese goods like Obama did back in 2000, or Trump did in 2017.

Well, Beijing's companies did one of two things. First, they'd ship their products like solar panels from China to warehouses in nearby countries like Vietnam, mostly, but also Thailand and Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia. And once those products arrived from China into those other nations, these Chinese companies would put a maiden Vietnam tag on it and then ship off everything to the United States. So tariffs avoided. The other trick that they'd play is moving their factories to some of these countries like Vietnam or Thailand, but then send all the profits back to China. They also used a little bit of hoodwinking when it comes to sending parts and pieces from China into these factories.

So they got around things one way or the other. So all these games, the stealing of trade secrets, the sweetheart financial deals, the lack of meaningful penalties from D.C., well, that has a lot of meaningful penalties from D.C., Well, that has made the communists in China very, very rich. 20 years ago, China's economy was pretty modest in size. We had a trade deficit with them, that's true. It was about $80 billion back then. But after all that stealing and cheating, the $80 billion deficit, which was bad enough,

now stands at $400 billion each year. Said differently, ladies and gentlemen, they've gotten away with economic murder. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.

All right, let's recap this brief so far. For the past 20 years, China has been stealing our trade secrets through computer hacks and espionage, and that's made them incredibly rich. and here's how they did it. The communist took stolen trade secrets from the United States and Europe and gave all of that to its government-backed companies. In turn, those companies made much cheaper versions of those stolen products because, well, obviously, they didn't have to pay for research and development.

Now, once Beijing's companies manufactured all those cheap stolen products, they were able to sell them back to the world at pennies on the dollar as compared to American manufacturers. Now, never mind that it was those American companies that the Chinese stole from, regardless, the result was that American manufacturers couldn't compete with China. Some of those companies, manufacturers in your hometown and mine, well, they went out of business. In other cases, they weren't even able to open up factories to begin with. They could never compete.

And that cost American workers. And it also cost our communities, a lot. Good job markets, strong tax base, didn't happen. All the while, the meager consequences that Washington, D.C. slapped on Beijing. Well, obviously, they were far too small to be of any kind of real deterrent because Beijing just kept stealing and still does. And all of that takes us back to Joe Biden, waving tariffs on Monday. Now, officially, those tariffs were on solar panels being manufactured in four Asian countries. Again, it was Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

But as you now know, Chinese companies often slap fake tags on their products to avoid tariffs. Or sometimes they move their factories to countries like these, also to avoid tariffs. So Congress knew about these schemes, and they passed a law saying that the Commerce Department had to launch an investigation if any American company could reasonably claim that one of these schemes was happening to one of their products.

And so a solar panel manufacturing company in Arizona did just that. So as of early this week, an investigation was underway. And by all indications, the answer was going to be yes, China was up to shenanigans, using these other countries to dump their solar panels or the bits and pieces that go into making them. But Joe Biden put a stop to that investigation on Monday. Or, well, let's be more accurate, he ripped the teeth out of that investigation. because, you see, investigators will continue to do their work, but even if they find that these Asian countries helped China cheat, it won't matter. Joe Biden used a different law to remove the

tariffs. In other words, he removed the teeth, or, if I might say, China wins again. So why do you think Joe Biden did this? Because after all, he was the vice president back in 2012 when the original tariffs were first put in place for China's cheating. Well, here are the official answers, and I've got two of them. First, climate change. Second, Vladimir Putin. So let's talk first about Vlad. On Monday, Joe Biden said that he was lifting the tariffs

and effectively gutting the investigation against China because, quote, with a stronger clean energy arsenal, the United States can be an even stronger partner to our allies, especially in the face of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. I'll let you decide if that makes any logical sense because I'm going to be honest with you, to me, it just doesn't make any sense at all. But it's that part he said about clean energy that gets to the heart of why he did what he did. Biden was getting tremendous political pressure by his allies

to show progress on climate change and on the production of renewable energy. But the investigation by the Commerce Department into those four Asian countries, well, that was a major hurdle to those goals. And that's because most of America's solar panels come from those four countries, anywhere from 50 to 80%. Now, we have plenty of installers of all those panels, and they have a very big lobby in Washington, D.C. But we don't have many manufacturers of solar panels. And now you know why. It's because of Chinese shenanigans, both now and years gone by. All right, let's relax our brains for a second and think of an analogy that really drives home the point. I want you to imagine this morning that you are a bank robber

and maybe you dye your hair, you put on some dark sunglasses, and you pull up your COVID mask to hide your face. And then you go to a bank and you bust in and the dead of night, you crack the safe and you take the loot home with you. Now imagine the next day you're sitting on the couch, you invite me over naturally, we're drinking our sweet tea, and a lawman knocks on our door. And he says to us,

Now friends, I know that you all robbed that bank last night. night and that's really bad of you. So please don't do it again. But go ahead and keep the money and have a great day. Now, at that point, we would both be scratching our heads because that's not normally how this story ends. So of course, we're going to be sitting back and thinking to ourselves, we just got away with bank robbery. I'll be darned. You know, let's try it again. So we rob another bank and we get another visit from the lawman and he says more or less the same thing. The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that this story about robbing banks with no consequences, it's bonkers. It sounds bonkers, right? But it is, roughly speaking, what has been happening in this country for the past 20 years.

China keeps robbing us blind and breaking our laws. And the lawman, in this case, the president, Republican and Democrat alike, keeps slapping their hands. There are never any material consequences. Let's set aside our bank robbing and even the solar panels, just for a moment. Because there's another development that you need to know about. Joe Biden at this very moment is considering whether to lift a bunch more tariffs against China because he claims, without evidence, that it might lower inflation because we'll be flooded with cheaper products from China. Cheaper products that, by the way, may have been first stolen from us years ago. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for

today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Must be 21 to enter. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon.

Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. All right, we are now at the point of the brief where we ask what should we do about this? Because I think it's pretty clear why you should care. There are companies bankrupted this morning that shouldn't be.

There are jobs lost that we should have. And there's a future economy that won't be built in America all because China has stolen it from you. So here's my counsel. First, we must say loudly and without reservation that the Chinese government is a thief. And they have been for a very long time. They've been stealing solar panel designs. Yes, that's but one thing. We know that they take $600 billion each year of our trade secrets.

The facts are on our side here. Second, we must understand that China will not apologize for what they do, nor will they ever try to make it right. And that's because the thievery and the cheating is fundamentally about weakening us economically and otherwise. Look, I wish I could share some classified information and knowledge that I have on this, but you're just going to have to trust me when I say that if China can weaken us, they can replace us. No amount of negotiations will ever fix that because our destruction, is their plan. Finally, folks like you, voters, we have to start telling our elected representatives that all of these things are true and that it matters to us, that the communists in Beijing are thieves.

They want our destruction and negotiations aren't going to stop that. Our only way forward is to treat them like the enemy that they are and strike back. Now, what that looks like? Well, we ought to have a very robust debate about it. And I welcome your thoughts, as always, you all know the email address. It's PDB at thefirsttv.com. But meanwhile, you should ask your politicians if they agree with this assessment, and if they do, for a very specific plan of attack, if you will, economically, certainly.

Use your computers and phones and go to house.gov or senate. Call your area politician or your senator, your representative, and ask what they think. And better yet, tell them to tell Joe Biden to say, stop repealing tariffs on China. And whatever their responses and whatever you feel about it, remember all of it when the midterm elections come around next November. One final point. When Joe Biden was running for president in 2020, he stopped in Iowa City to talk to lots of folks. He spoke about China there and specifically what he thought of the government. He said, quote, they aren't bad folks, folks.

He went on to say they're not competition for us. I'll leave it up to you this morning to decide whether the facts support Joe Biden here. And ultimately, whether that is the leadership that we need in America to fight this battle. Because ultimately, as you now know,

this is not about solar panels. It's about the very future of this country. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your special. brief. As always, we close out the show, reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free. Good day.