The President's Daily Brief - September 5th, 2022. China Continues its Slave Labor Practices. Joe Biden Asks for More Money From Ukraine.

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

It’s September 5th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ It’s Labor Day — lots of us are relaxing and celebrating. But not one group of workers they’re 6,000 miles away in China, toiling in fields and factories by force. We’ll discuss what we know, how it got this bad, and what we might do to help. As always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, the Biden Administration is set to ask Congress for another $11.7B for Ukraine after burning through the $40B authorized in May. Second, Mexican workers in the US are sending money back home in record amounts — over $5B just last month. And finally, the last thing before I let you go. We’ll talk about the science of why it’s good to be alone with your thoughts on holidays like today — to just sit back and think. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's September 5th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. First up, it is Labor Day. Lots of us are relaxing and celebrating, but not one group of workers. They're 6,000 miles away in China, toiling in fields and factories by force. We'll discuss what we know, how it got this bad, and what we might do to help. As always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, the Biden administration is set to ask Congress for another $11.7 billion for Ukraine, all after burning through the $40 billion authorized in May. Second, Mexican workers in the U.S. are sending money back home in record amounts over $4 billion just last month. And finally, the last thing before I let you go.

We'll talk about the science of why it's good to be alone with your thoughts on holidays, like today to just sit back and think. But first, let's get started with today's main brief. It is Labor Day, the day where America celebrates the working man and the working woman, because after all, you all built this country into the exceptional place that it is. So, kick up your feet and relax. But as we celebrate workers today, about 6,000 miles away is another set of workers that aren't allowed to celebrate at all, unless their government authorizes them to do so. Now, to understand this story, I have an unusual request for you. When you can, go to your closet or your dresser. And I want you to take a look at the tags inside of your shirts and jeans

and whatever clothing you might have. If it says made in China, well, I have some bad news for you. Slave labor almost certainly picked the cotton that makes up that article of clothing. And probably slave labor put it together too. It doesn't matter the brand. Today we are going to explore the story of why we know that's true, and it's a conversation sparked by a long-away to report from the United Nations, was released last Friday, all focused on human rights abuses committed by Beijing against one of their country's ethnic minority groups, a group called the Uyghurs. We're also going to talk about how you can help these people just by being mindful about what

you buy. So let's dive into it. If you've got a world map on your computer or phone or in your mind, I want you to find the country of China. If you look at the eastern side of the country, you'll see cities like Beijing and Shanghai and the infamous Wuhan. These are all cities dominated by the nation's ethnic majority, called the Han people. But our story today requires us to leave that eastern region and go west, far, far west,

to a mostly desolate province called Xinjiang. And it's in this province that we are going to find some of the people who are making those shirts or jeans in your dresser. They belong to an ethnic group of about 12 million people called the Uyghurs. Now, Uyghurs are very different than the people of Eastern China. They look physically different, they don't share a common culture, or even speak a similar language unless they're forced to. Plus, most Uyghurs are devout Muslims, while the rest of China is largely atheist.

Now, all of these differences are actually a big thing. part of the problem. The Uighurs are and always have been viewed as outsiders in China. They first came under direct Chinese rule back in the 1700s, and at first, the Chinese rulers took sort of a live-and-let-live approach to these folks. But over time, the relationship became increasingly tense, and there were occasional outbreaks of violence. Then things went from bad to worse when the communists took control of China in 1949. Things got so bad because the communist demanded conformity. You were not encouraged or allowed in some cases to be a distinct ethnic or religious group. That meant that the Uyghurs became a favorite target of the regime.

Many of the mosques were destroyed or converted into Communist Party buildings. Muslim religious texts and Uyghur language books were confiscated and burned. Any resistance was met with swift and brutal justice to include death. Obviously, not surprisingly, the Uyghur people did not respond kindly. There were demonstrations, uprisings, and even bombings. Now, depending on your perspective, that violence was either justified or were acts of terrorism. Regardless, the violence went back and forth until it led to the Chinese government embracing an official crackdown back in 2014. They called it the, quote, strike hard campaign against violent terrorism, end quote. So this campaign was framed as a

national security issue. It's an effort to snuff out Muslim extremism. But what it translated to was not a targeted campaign against specific bombing suspects, but rather the detention of millions of people for the crime of being Uyghur. A key part of the campaign was the establishment of a system of internment camps. Critics called them concentration camps or genocide camps. Beijing, however, calls them vocational education and training centers. All right. So what are these camps like? Because that could help us decide exactly what to call them and how bad it really is. Well, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. workers receive little to no pay. They are not allowed to leave, and they have virtually no communication with family members.

And when contact is allowed, it is heavily monitored and censored. Meanwhile, when the Uyghur detainees are not working, they are forced to learn Mandarin Chinese and undergo communist indoctrination. But it's not just the U.S. government saying this. Other countries and organizations all around the world say exactly the same. And in fact, we can now add the United Nations to that list. A U.N. report came out on Friday finding that these camps are engaged in, quote, severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights. it goes on to call for an investigation into allegations of torture, sexual violence, forced sterilization, as well as forced labor.

So based on all of that, you can decide what to call these camps, but the battle over what to call them is driven in part because China won't allow virtually anyone inside of these camps to really see what's going on. That said, here's how the Chinese ambassador to India once described them. They are set up to, quote, root out extreme thoughts, enhance awareness of the rule of law, improve vocational skills, and create employment opportunities, end quote. Now, it's that last part, the employment opportunities.

Well, that's where you and I come in as unwitting consumers participating in the Uyghur plight. So China has a pretty big cotton industry that accounts for about 25, 26 percent of total global cotton exports. and a full 84% of China's cotton comes from this area with the Uyghurs. Well, you can probably guess who picks all that cotton and then works in the textile factories to make the clothes. Yes, of course, it is the Uyghur people. They are absolutely essential to ensuring that you and I

and all sorts of global consumers can go to the store or online and buy clothing made in China. And that's why odds are, some of the clothes in your dresser or closet come from this, area and these enslaved people. Research from the British Broadcasting Corporation found that in 2021, one in five cotton garments on the global marketplace came from this forced labor or this cotton. And it's not just the cheap stuff that we might pick up at, say, Target or Walmart. For years, virtually the entire fashion industry has used this cotton and those textile companies,

brands like Adidas, Puma, and Hugo Boss. In total, at least 80, three major international brands have been implicated in the use of this Uyghur labor and this slave cotton. Now, in their defense, a lot of these companies have tried to decouple themselves from Chinese cotton, and many nations, to include ours, have placed sanctions on exports from this area. But these efforts have not been particularly effective, and that's in part because of cotton laundering. So here's how that works. Garment manufacturers in countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, well, they secretly buy their cotton from this forbidden region, but they slap a new label on it. They say it's from somewhere else. Now, depending on how corrupt the customs and

immigration officials are, these textile manufacturers get away with it. And so even if your clothes, say, made in Vietnam or made in Cambodia, they might actually be sourced from slave labor and slave cotton too. I should also mention that some brands have tried to stand up against Chinese cotton and slave labor to do so publicly and loudly. But when they did, the government in Beijing cracked down on them, and I mean hard. For example, China effectively banned the Swedish company H&M from domestic sales, and they encouraged Chinese citizens to attack this company on social media and to stop buying any of their clothes.

So all in all, ladies and gentlemen, we have a real pickle of a situation. Slave cotton from China remains widespread throughout the global marketplace. despite U.S. sanctions and corporate boycotts, and as of last Friday, a very damning report from the United Nations. As a consumer, it's really tough to avoid buying this stuff, because it's not just clothes with the made-in-China tag. Shady textile companies throughout Southeast Asia secretly buy and sell this stuff, too. So if I were briefing you in the White House this morning, I'd offer three key takeaways. The first two about broader policy, and the third, about what you can do as a consumer.

First, let's just keep this advice very simple. The Chinese government is bad, and we need to stop buying stuff from that country. That's really the bottom line here. We need to get to a place where buying Chinese goods is just a non-negotiable, non-starter. You shouldn't be allowed to do it. To get there, frankly, we're probably gonna have

to name and shame and tariff Western companies out of China. But that can't be the end of the conversation. Because as we just discussed, it's also about ensuring that these same businesses don't just set up in countries like Thailand and Vietnam and Cambodia. And then these folks cheat, slapping on fake labels to hide the Chinese hand. But as we know, from cotton to solar panels, that's really hard. These nations in Southeast Asia are corrupt or friends of Beijing or both, which leads to the second key takeaway.

For the past 25 years, America engaged in a much. massive experiment of globalization. Economists and politicians in Washington, D.C., said that if we just engaged in more global trade, in other words, we shipped off our jobs to cheap foreign workers abroad, well, that would do

three things. It would encourage democracy, it would discourage war, and it gives us really cheap consumer products. Well, as it turns out, China is still a communist dump. Russia has decided to invade Europe. China, by the way, would love

do the same with Taiwan. And those cheap products, well, they are so cheap because they are made by slaves or by children or corrupt governments. We have seen this now time and time again, in China and throughout Southeast Asia. So folks, I will let you decide if that record of globalism is working or has failed. And if it's failed, we need to be very loudly honest about that failure. But whichever way you fall on that decision, there is one final takeaway for you to consider. If you're enjoying Labor Day and looking for some good Labor Day sales, take a close look at the tags or the manufacturing labels on each and every one of those items. And if it's not made in America, especially clothing,

you are running the very real risk of supporting a pretty awful industry 6,000 miles away. So instead of buying Chinese goods, search for American friendly options, especially clothes. There are absolutely great choices out there, relatively inexpensive ones at that. And for what it's worth, I'm trying to get some of these folks to advertise on this podcast so you have good options to consider. Because that's how we change things, each of us doing our small part, one purchase and one podcast at a time.

Coming up, ladies and gentlemen, a closer look at what's on my radar. Two quick briefs for you, one on Ukraine and the other on Mexico. We'll be right back. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history.

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Kayak. Got that right. Welcome back to the PDB. As always, I'm watching a few other stories this morning. Put these two on your radar. First, the White House is set to ask Congress to provide additional aid to Ukraine starting October 1st. The amount, hold your hats, is $11.7 billion. Now, you may be wondering, hey, didn't Congress already give Joe Biden $40 billion last

May for this war in Ukraine? Well, the answer is, yeah. Yes, they did, and he has spent all of it, or he will in the next 30 days. That's according to the Office of Management and Budget, which released a statement last week, that roughly 75% of the 40 billion in aid has already been dispersed or committed. The remaining 25% should be gone by the end of the fiscal year, which starts October 1st. So, with the money running out, but the war going on, Joe Biden wants to turn the spigot back on from Congress. So we are talking about $7.2 billion for the Department of Defense, another $2.7 billion for

miscellaneous military intelligence and defense support, somewhat curious. Nevertheless, $4.5 billion as well to keep the Ukraine government running, in other words, their salaries, their pensions, and paying down their budget deficit. One final note here, and it's a sneaky one, this latest $7.2 billion is just for three months of support, October, November, and December. The Biden administration expects to ask for at least another $7 to $10 billion for the quarter beyond that, and for every three months for the foreseeable future. Of course, that's all deficit spending.

We don't actually have any of that money. We are just issuing debt, debt that your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have to pay for many, many decades to come. Second, and speaking of record-breaking amounts of money, the total cash that Mexican workers are sending from the U.S. back to Mexico, well, that reached a record high again last month. So these monies called remittances came to $5.3 billion last month. That's according to the Mexican Central Bank, which announced the number last Thursday. And this marks the third consecutive month that remittances reached a record number following

highs in May and June at just over $5.1 billion. So here's the bottom line number for you. The Mexican Central Bank said that remittances should reach $60 billion by year's end, which is a massive number that dwarfs entire industries in Mexico. Now, this will come as very good news for the leftist president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. His economy is in the toilet. Inflation is at a record high, and his policies have encouraged a massive spike in cartel crime. So the reason that I flagged this for you is because of a debate that we

discussed some number of months ago. Should we tax these remittances to pay for our border security? Maybe those record remittances to Mexico should pay for the record illegal migration from Mexico. So this tax on remittances has been proposed before, around 2% or so is the proposal, but it didn't pass Congress. Yet these latest numbers, well, perhaps we should rethink that debate. But as always, I defer to you. And with that, one more thing before I let you go. A listener comment, as always.

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Shop quality Western goods in store or online at Toccovas.com. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I've got one more thing before I let you go this morning. Lucinda from Boise, Idaho wrote in with an actually really sweet comment. She suggested that I take Labor Day off and relax, but she wanted to know how, do CIA officers relax? Well, Lucinda, I will say that a fair number of my fellow officers follow the example of our British cousin, James Bond, and probably do things that, well,

get us into trouble. I'll let your mind wander on that one. But actually, the mind wandering part is what we should all be doing. In fact, that's what I like to do on my time off. There's a ton of great research that shows that just sitting with our thoughts in a fishing boat or on the back porch or in prayerful reflection, it's really important. Not only does it lower stress, but those quiet times have been shown to help people solve really tough problems to enhance creativity and sometimes even find meaning in life. Now, some of us might find this a bit boring to just sit there with our thoughts. But there was a study that came out about a month ago, published by the American Psychological

Association that says, well, you just might be surprised. It's not that boring. In a series of six experiments with a total of 259 participants, the researchers compared people's predictions of how much they would enjoy just sitting and thinking with their actual experience of doing it. Most participants, by the way, said that they would be bored out of their minds. But afterwards, researchers found that people actually enjoyed spending time with their thoughts significantly more than they expected, and this held true across variations of the experiment. So if any of you were looking for scientific justification to put,

down your phone and just stare into space, well, now you got it. Just make sure you aren't driving. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning 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