April 24, 2025 • 50 mins
Just the News No Noise with John Solomon and Amanda Head on Real America's Voice.
Segment A: CONGRESSMAN ERIC BURLISON ON TRUMP'S TARIFF POLICIES
Segment B: STEPHEN MOORE ON WHY PRESIDENT TRUMP WON HIM OVER ON THIS CURRENT ROUND OF TARIFFS
Segment C: GORDON CHANG TALKS HOW CHINA IS DEALING WITH TARIFFS
Segment D: BOBBY CHARLES WEIGHS IN ON THE STATECRAFT OF TARIFFS AND TRADE NEGOTIATIONS
Segment E: WRAPPING UP OUR TARIFF TALK
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good evening, America, and welcome to this just the News
Rail America's Voice special report Securing a More Fair Future
on Trade.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It sounds good, right.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We want to thank our partners at AMAC Association of
Mature American Citizens for joining us in this conversation. All
throughout tonight's show, we'll be taking a deep dive into
President Trump's tariff policies if they can be successful in
bringing back manufacturing to America, decoupling from the Chinese economy,
and creating fair trade around the globe, which means more jobs.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
And more economic growth in America.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
President Trump's deal making ability has and will be put
to the test. This is a big mission, right but
according to the White House, countries are lining up for
meetings with the administration the hammer new trade deals that
work for everyone, and we will talk about that all
throughout the hour with a great lineup of guests we
haven't included for you, including Missouri Congressman Eric Berlison, who'll
(01:11):
be breaking down what Congress can do to support President
Trump's agenda a free and fair trade around the globe.
We also have Steven Moore here, the great economists who
literally wrote the book on President Trump's economic policy. He'll
explain what the goal of the President's tariff's policy is
and how he can use them effectively in trade negotiations.
We'll also speak to China expert Gordon Chang. He is
(01:32):
absolutely the best on this issue, and he'll tell us
about what President Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods actually means
for their economy, something that doesn't get mentioned in the media.
The CCP might be talking very tough right now, but
they are only doing that to mask the pain of
what terrorists are causing on their side. I think it's
what a lot of our intelligence experts believe. And finally,
we'll have a candidate for governor of Maine and a
(01:54):
former Assistant Secretary of State as well as AMAX national spokesman.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
He's my good friend, Bobby Charles.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
He'll be here to break down how the state craft
of these tariffs actually work and how America can bring
even more nations to the table on free and fair trade.
But before we get to all that, I want to
bring in my co host for the evening. Usually we
have a Max CEO, Rebecca Weber here with us, but
she's on the road, and tonight we're lucky to be
joined by another very special guest, Senior Vice President AMAC,
(02:20):
Charles Stucklan. Charles, good to have you on.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Great to be on, John, Thank you so much, and
good evening everyone. I'm Charles Stucklin. I'm honored to join
tonight's special edition as your voice from AMAC, where we
don't just talk about America's future, we fight for it
every day. To our AMAC members watching, thank you so much.
You've carried this country on your back. You've worked the jobs,
(02:43):
you've paid the taxes, you've raised the families, and you've
built the communities that made America strong. Now you're watching
some of that hard work get chipped away by cheap imports,
disappearing jobs, and global policies that never seem to put
Americans first. So tonight we're having a conversation about tariffs,
but really it's about fairness. It's about the cost of
(03:05):
letting other nations play by their rules while Americans hey
the price. It's really about restoring the balance and bringing
back something that's been missing, respect for American work, American products,
and American sovereignty. And for those of you who aren't members,
if you're tired of being talked over overlooked or forgotten.
We hope you'll join us because at AMAC your voice
(03:26):
isn't just heard, it shapes what we do. So thank
you so much for having me tonight, John, looking forward
to the conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, child's going to be a blast. This is such
a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And AMAC has been on the forefront of this debate
long before it was in the news. They'd been pushing
for fair and free trade, something the word fair wasn't
in the last thirty years of American policy.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We're finally getting in tonight.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
We're going to dive in right away from a member
of Congress who's on top of this issue and trying
to back up the President in the halls of Congress.
All right, joining us now, man on the front lines
of the tariff debates in Congress, Congressman Eric Burlson, from
the great state there, Congress, And good to have you back.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
On the show. Good to be back, John. So I
want to.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Turn to tariffs and all the debates that we have
about them. But just a little breaking news today. President
Trump is putting into action new orders that will require
ActBlue to be investigated and for the government to develop
a whole of government approach to make sure that foreign
money doesn't seep in through online fundraising. You've been on
this for a long time. You know what the concerns are.
(04:25):
Your reaction to the fact that President Trump the Justice
Department are on the case.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Now, Yeah, something has to be done. I mean, look,
the amount of money that was that was the velocity
of money that was flowing in, and the fact that
I don't know if you saw the study that James
O'Keefe did where he went door to door and knocked
on the doors of people that have that from one
address have made you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars
(04:52):
in campaign contributions over over five thousand different individual contributions,
all attributed to one person at one address, and most
of the homes are people that clearly do not have
the funds to do that, and he again and again
would knock on those doors. So, look, those are anecdotal scenarios,
but something is wrong here, and so for there's smoke,
(05:14):
there's probably fire.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, good point, A great point. Anecdotally is one thing,
but when you have sort of a coordinated situation of
thousands and tens of thousands of micro transactions, it leads
you to believe there's some sort of coordination there. So
we appreciate that. But getting back to the tariffs, Congressman,
(05:36):
so we have twelve states that are now suing to
stop some of these tariffs. How should Congress respond when
state level actors challenge federal trade policy, especially when the
aim is to revive American manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, this is one of the I try to like
take a step back and think if if the shoes
were on the other feet, what would I do. I know,
if Joe Biden, if I was a state lawmaker and
Joe Biden had tried to do this, I would while
I may not agree with whatever he was doing, I
probably I would say he constitutionally has the authority. I mean,
(06:13):
I don't see what kind of grounds that they're making
when at the end of the day, this is clearly
in the purview of the federal government. And look, my
view on tariffs in general is that we want I
want tariffs and taxes to be as low as possible.
But I also think that the fact that we've had
(06:33):
an imbalance for decades is something that we need to address.
And I'm glad that Trump is trying to do something
that has not been done by previous presidents trying to
bring these other countries to the table and in some
of these trade imbalances that have been happening since World
War Two.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yes, definitely since World War Two. It's somewhat analogous. After
World War Two you had the reinvestment into places like Japan,
for example, auto manufacturers, places like Toyota, and then in
the eighties you saw similar style traffs from Reagan protecting
American workers. So it's really not the first time, it's
just the most excessive we've ever seen in history. Can
you speak, you know, when it comes to AMC members
(07:18):
are aging demographic, specifically constituents in Missouri. Can you talk
about the ag sector, the manufacturing sector, and getting away
from the tariff discussion, how hard have they been hit
from let's just say, not losing our middle class but
exporting our middle class overseas.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, look, unfortunately, the
way sold security is funded and the way that the
United States is working our economy is really dependent upon
upon a growing class of workers, and we have a
diminishing size in the workforce. You know, people are not
having children like they used to and so we definitely
(07:59):
want to We want more people in the labor pool.
We want to be a growing economy, and we need
those people to be able to support people that are retiring.
And so this is why so security is estimated to
go defunct in the next nine to eleven years. We
need to really figure out. This is a big question
(08:19):
that Congress needs to address. And at the end of
the day, we need to bring jobs into the United States.
How we fill those jobs. What level of immigration, legal
immigration that we do is another question.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, those are all big ones and things that Congress
can play a role on. What are the sentiments there
in Congress to help the president get through this period
and get to success and got ninety countries lined up
to make deals. China's playing pats or playing fancy behind
the scene with some negotiations. What can Congress do to
make this story a success story when it's all over.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
I think we're One of the things that we can
do is first just give the president the space to negotiate.
Give him that flexibility. I think he's earned it. I mean, look,
the gentleman, the guy took a bullet to the head
for this country. Let's give him the grace to carry
through on the things that he actually campaigned on and
the voters knew when they went to the polls to
vote for him. So let's give him that space. And
(09:14):
then also, I think we need to back him up
when it comes to this reconciliation package the President wants
to have. He wants to check a lot of boxes,
and I think that they're achievable if we cut spending.
So he wants to move towards a balanced budget, he
wants to reduce interest rates, he wants to reduce inflation.
(09:34):
All of that can be done, and we can pay
for the Trump tax cuts and make them permanent if
we can find the spending cuts that we need to find.
And Congress needs to do the difficult work of identifying
and cutting spending, just like Elon Musk and Doe's has
been doing.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Important absolutely, And when it comes to the comparison between
cutting the spending and the cottnment spending, I mean, that's
obviously the most important thing, right we can It's it's
been said that sort of what dog has found so
far as a drop it dropping the bucket on the overspending.
What's your take on the status of what's been sound
(10:13):
found so far, And are you optimistic that they're really
going to have a huge effect on the you know,
the government waste, the government fraud.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
I think that this is a question not about Elon.
I think it's a question of the willingness of the
other members of the cabinet to really put lean in
on their agencies and get them to cooperate.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
And this is there.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
I mean, what we're requesting is a sea change sometimes
in work policy and workflow. So I certainly think that
we there could be more done, but I don't want
to criticize the executive rates. They're doing a heck of
a lot more than Congress is doing. So we've got
to step up. And I think that one of the
ways that we can step up is to cut mandatory spending.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
In this reconciliation package.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
That means finding savings waste from abuse and medicaid. That
means eliminating the green new scam tax credits. Savings that
if we could identify, I think we could I do.
Jodi Arrington thinks has done the work. We could probably
identify five trillion or more in tax and I'm sorry,
in savings over the next ten years. But look, we're
(11:17):
not even I think the modest version of that is
a two trillion dollar savings over the next ten years.
If we can do that, it will. It will when
Congress reduce the spending, it will do a number of things.
It will drive down inflation, because inflation is when the
government spends more than it brings in. So it will
(11:37):
bring down inflation if we can. And it will also
reduce interest rates on the market, because when we're spending
more and we're taking out more debt, we're out there
buying debt from the market and we're driving up interest rates.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
It will it will go a long ways.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
If we could just figure out how to cut spending,
we will solve a lot of problems. And MacDonald Trump
the most successful president in the history in the United States.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So we got about a minute. Leftist A real quick
question China. You have been such an articulate voice on it.
Your state sued, held them accountable, won twenty four billion
dollars for COVID.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
But they attack us in many different ways.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
They do it through TikTok, they do it through flavored
covered vapes, they do it through fentanyl, and then they
do it by exploiting the trade privileges.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Do you think most Americans.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Understand that China has been getting a free ride for
most of the last four years from our country.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, I think most Americans recognize that China has not
been cooperating, that they have not been a noble actor
on the world stage. And I think that the United
I think this is long overdue. With President Trump, you know,
his posture towards China. It's my hope that other countries
like India and you know, countries around the world Western civilization,
(12:52):
that we all unite together. And I think that if
we do, and China comes to kind of a former
Soviet moment where they realize that they either must change
or they'll collapse. I think that this is Donald Trump's moment,
the same way that Reagan had that moment where he
pushed Russia to the the Soviet Union to the point
(13:13):
of collapse. I think that for Trump, this is this
is the moment with China.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, something we have to keep in mind that there's
so much short term focus, but the long term picture
is so much important to keep in the front of
our minds. You do that every day in the great
perch that you hold in Congress. Congressman Rick Burlson. Great
honor having a show, Tay, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Thank you guys, Yeah, I appreciate you. All Right, folks,
we're gonna take a quick corumercial break.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
When we come back, the man who wrote the book
on President Trump's economic policy.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Stephen Morri, will be here. I always love what he
comes on.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I always find like the economy gets a lot more
understandable what he talks about.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Before we do that, I want you to do me a favorite.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
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Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's like thirty one bucks a year. That's a steal.
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Speaker 2 (14:31):
Welcome back in America to this Just the News.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Reil America's Voice special report Securing a More Fair Future
on Trade, brought to you by AMAC. I'm still joined
by the senior Vice president from AMAC, Charles Stuck, and
he's going to be my coast for the whole hour.
And now I'm excited to welcome one of my favorite friends.
He makes the economy understandable, he makes it exciting, and
he always gives you the straight scoop. He is the
author of the Trump Economic Miracle and the co founder
(14:54):
of Unleashed Prosperities. Our good friend Steven Moore, Steve, good
to have you back on.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
Hello, gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Great to be with you. Good to be with you,
and good to be with you on this day.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
There's a lot going on, and you know, the market
seem to be a little schizophrenic. One day they're really down,
the next day they're a little bit up. But you
have been very confident. You've been sounding optimism that the
way Trump's going about this may be a real winner.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Why are you so positive?
Speaker 6 (15:20):
Well, you know, at the beginning I was a skeptic,
as you know, John.
Speaker 7 (15:23):
I thought, that's right, Trump, Trump has really gotten himself
into a thicket that he might not be able to
get out of with all the and you know, we
saw those big declines in the stock market and people
started to panic.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
But you know, Trump, really, this guy shrewd.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
He really is to to moves on the chessboard out
of everybody else. And right now I'm feeling pretty confident,
not entirely, and I'm not saying that the the you know,
the motion sickness that we've all had on the stock
market is over. I think we're gonna have updays and
down days based on the progress that's been made.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
But it sure looks a lot better than it did
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 7 (15:57):
And if we can get these major deals done, and
then John, if we can get keep moving forward on
the tax Billy boy, that's a double header that is
just unbelievable for the for the economy, and I think
you could see a real boom this summer in the
stock market.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Absolutely, and Steve, when it comes to the volatility, it
almost seems as Trump is setting the tone sort of
managing expectations there where with this level of volatility. If
we do come up with the tax bill, we negotiate
some fair trade deals, you know with Asia, European countries,
all it takes is a few pieces of good news,
potentially a reduction on some maybe corporate income tax. And
(16:36):
I mean, I'm assuming what you're thinking is just a
wealth of international investment into manufacturing in different sectors in
the US. Is that kind of best case scenario in
your mind?
Speaker 7 (16:47):
Yeah, Look, there's a lot of countries that we still
need to deal with. There's like six or seven, you know,
major countries that really matter, Canada, the UK, the Europeans, Japan, Korea.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
Et cetera.
Speaker 7 (16:59):
If we can get those deals done, you know, you
don't have to have a hundred countries. You just need
to have the you know, the G seven G eight
countries come to an agreement where they lower their terrorists,
then Trump will lower his terrorists. Now China is another
whole cattle of worms, and I think the strategy here
is to try to isolate China economically, which would be
(17:19):
good for our security and for our economy. I don't
know anybody else but Donald Trump who could pull this off.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
See if I know, for most of your career you've
been an advocate for free trade. You like free and
fair trade. But you came out my show a couple week,
he said something I think very profound, which is you
can be a free trade advocate, but you can also
realize there's a time to level the playing field with
someone that's been cheating or getting an unfair advantage for
a long time. When it comes to China, remind people
how China has sort of been treated as a third
(17:50):
world country when the rest of us have, you know,
when we've been giving away a lot, but we don't
get a lot in return from China.
Speaker 7 (17:57):
Well, you know, the short history of China is, you know,
they were a communist country. Owner Mau Mao was the
greatest butcher who ever lived on the space of the planet.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
He killed three hundred million people of his own own people.
Speaker 7 (18:08):
And then in the mid eighties or so, China went
on a very free market path and it looked really
good that they were going to become a freedom loving
and a free market capitalism country. And that's the key
way it was for about a decade. And so we
gave China the most favorite trade nation.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
We allowed them into the into the you know, the
all the gap and that's kind of thing.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
And I think that was a mistake because under President
g they've moved in the opposite direction. They are now
an evil empire and we've got to get in my opinion,
by the way, you guys are more of experts on
this than I am.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
But I think they're dangerous.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
I think they cheat, I think they steal, and we
we cannot continue to allow.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
That to happen.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Absolutely, we talked at length about currency manipulation, subs these regulations.
So what you touched on there also is not necessarily
just about tariffs. Can can you also talk to just
the trade barriers? Do you think there's any ongoing discussion
on not just the tariffs, but those other things that
are make it harder for American companies to export overseas
(19:16):
that aren't necessarily tariffs but are sort of wrapped into
the trade barrier system when it comes to regulation and
things like that.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
Yeah, the worst one of all to me is that
they steal our technology in our patents. Have you noticed
every time we come up with a new product, like
a new iPhones, you know, all the Chinese do come
and take pictures of it try to figure out how
they can copycat it.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
They do the same with our drugs.
Speaker 7 (19:38):
Our vaccines, are you know, all sorts of inventions that
we make and then they steal the processes and then
our companies can't make any money on it. So I
would put that very near the top of the list.
Other countries do that too, by the way, and that's
just not bare. I mean the Europeans, they don't pay
their fair share of the.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
Drug costs when we invent new drugs.
Speaker 7 (20:00):
So we got to get tough with these countries to
say pay your fair share.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, amazing, John.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I think it's estimated around half a trillion dollars a
year just in intellectual property theft. Exactly what you're talking there,
Steve on just the copying of our intellectual product property,
our products, our manufacturing processes, and in a lot of
ways sort of our own doing right. And that's that's
that's what we're talking about today.
Speaker 7 (20:25):
The other thing I wanted to mention John, if I could,
is that you know this tax bill is moving along
pretty well.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
They're now talking about fourth of July. I wanted a
Memorial Day, remember, John.
Speaker 7 (20:36):
I said we got to get them by Royal Day,
but now it looks like it might be fourth of July.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
And I want to see the fifteen percent business rate
that Trump was talking about during the campaign. Remember that
he said, maybe we can get the business rate down
to fifteen percent. My god, if he can do that
and then make all the trap tax cuts permanent, and yeah,
that's just it. That is like steroids for the US economy.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
No, there's no doubt that there's that moment on the
horizon if he pulls it all off, that the economy
could be booming like post World War two or the
good old nineties. Again, I want to ask about China.
You said something profound. If we get some of these
other trade agreements in place, China's isolated, and then there
are other tools once it's isolated that the president can use.
For instance, in twenty thirteen, Vice President Joe Biden, behalf
(21:23):
of President Obama, gave anmu to China, says, your companies
can be on our stock market, but they don't have
to comply with our regulatory options. If you start pulling
things like that off the table at thirty days, notice,
China really is in a much harder position to negotiate.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
Right, Is that for me?
Speaker 9 (21:42):
Yeah, that's for you, Steve, Yeah, yeah, so yeah, no, absolutely,
And you know, people don't realize the media, thank God
for people like you who are actually reporting what's happening.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
But how many stories have you read about what's happening
with the stock market and the economy in China?
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Not many?
Speaker 7 (21:59):
Right, They're going they're head to do a great depression
if they can't trade with the United States and their
stock markets taken a beating much worse than ours has.
So my point is, you know, if we you know,
when we sneeze, they catch pneumonia, right, and so they
are they have a lot to lose here. I think
China is going to be brought to the table on
(22:20):
their hands and knees, as Trump would say, to to
make a deal with Trump, because their economy cannot withstand this.
They they will go into a great depression if they
lose the trade routes to the United States and our
you know, twenty two trillion dollar consumer market.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Great point, absolutely the largest consumer market amongst nations. And
what we've been talking about is you know, who can
who's going to blink first on this? And Donald Trump
shown that we don't necessarily need you know, the throwaway
culture of Chinese products there are you know, we talk
about active ingredients and pharmaceuticals, we talk about some necessary
(22:59):
important it's into the US, but for the most part,
you know, maybe we don't need a lot of this
throwaway culture, plastic mass, land filled clothing style, you know,
consumerism in the US. And the irony is you know,
you would think that the those that champion scalability and
the climate crisis and you know, energy consumption and reducing
(23:20):
carbon footprint. You would think those would be the people
that would be all for domestic production, reducing fuel consumption
on overseas shipping. You would think they'd be for elon
musk and you know, energy efficient vehicles and evs. But Steve,
it seems like those are the very people that are
out in the media criticizing the tariffs and this entire situation.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
You know, I was I believe it or not.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
Guys.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
I was on CNN yesterday, which I don't do very often,
but I do what now in that and they were like, oh,
there's Trump. He's retreating on his trade stuff. And I'm like,
you people don't get this guy. You know, he started
with one hundred and twenty five percent here on China.
Oh okay, well maybe lower to one hundred percent. No,
they don't understand that everything Trump does is part of
the art of the deal.
Speaker 6 (24:03):
But I'd like to.
Speaker 7 (24:04):
Make one other quick point, which is really about AMAC,
because you're such an effective organization, and we need to
start a movement of buy America, sell China.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Buy America, sell China.
Speaker 7 (24:17):
This is something every one of us, as individuals can
do to.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
Change the direction of what's going on in our country.
Speaker 7 (24:23):
Look for the union label, look for the label that
says made in America, or at least look for the
label that says, you know, made in China. And if
it's made in China, you know, is it okay if
you pay two or three dollars more for a T
shirt or four dollars more for some speakers. I think
if we all make that commitment, I think that would
have a huge impact. We don't have the government to
(24:44):
tell us what to do. We can do this as
individual consumers. I can't tell you, John, people will come
up to me. What can I do as one person?
Stop buying their crap?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Buy America, sell China. I think that's gonna stick. I
like that one. That's going to We're gonna be talking
about that tomorrow. Mo Art and Steve, that's a good one.
You are always a pleasure to have on, my friend,
we learned so much and we get a lot wiser
when you're on. Thanks for joining us today. What a
great what a great conversation books. We are so lucky.
All Right, we're gonna take a quick commercial break. When
(25:14):
we come up, Gordon Shang will be here to discuss
what President Trump's tariffs look like from China's perspective.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
And while we're in the break, give me a favorite.
There's a homework assignic.
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That's the place to go. Do that during the commercial
Bank will be right back. Welcome back in America to this
justin News. Real America's Voice special report. We're taking a
(26:05):
deep dive into President Trump's tariff policies, and we're doing
so in conjunction with our good friends at AMAC. In
this segment, we're going to focus on China. It's at
the heart of this entire policy. And I want to
bring in my co host for tonight, AMAX senior vice
president Charles Stucklin, as well as author of the new
book Plan Read China's Project to Destroy America. He is
one of the most extraordinary experts on China, and long
(26:27):
before we were having a public debate about tariff's Gordon
Chang was on the front lines of encouraging it as
an important tootal level the playing field with China.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
We're very lucky to be joined by Gordon Chang. Gordon,
good have you on?
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Well, thank you so much, John and Charlie.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
All right, So I want to start with the notion
that China's talking tough maybe on the outside, but on
the inside, are they feeling as comfortable about getting into
a tariff controversy with the President or does their economy
have some weaknesses as well?
Speaker 10 (26:57):
Their economy is actually in distress. They reported five point
four percent growth for the first quarter, but when we
look at underlying indicators, it looks more like zero and
we know the direction, which is down. Price data for
both February and March indicate the Chinese economy is in
a deflationary spiral that's very hard to get out of.
(27:19):
And we also see some other numbers that look like
China was actually contracting during the period. So, for instance,
tax receipts were down three point five percent. That's not
consistent with robust growth. So we're seeing an economy that
is being hit by the tariff dispute at a time
when it is in trouble. And so yes, I think
(27:39):
the Chinese understand that they got problems. The issue, though, John,
is the political system in China. Sijimping has configured it
so only the most hostile answers are considered to be acceptable.
So he can't make an overture to the United States,
which would be the rational thing for him to do,
because he cannot appear weak.
Speaker 8 (28:01):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Following up on that, Gordon, I remember you once reference
to article in the People's Daily from twenty nineteen. I
believe it was May twenty nineteen titled the People's War
on Us. Can you give some context from the perspective
of let's say a Chinese citizen, the difference between the
political and the economic as it relates to how the
populace in China is sort of viewing this situation.
Speaker 10 (28:27):
People's war is a term that has great residents in
Communist parties thought is a total war, which pla Daily,
which is the main propaganda organ of the Chinese military said,
is total war.
Speaker 8 (28:40):
And this goes back to mal.
Speaker 10 (28:42):
Zudum struggle against Shan Kai Chek, and that means we
are considered to be an enemy. Now China has this
doctrine of unrestricted warfare, which means that they can do
anything in everything they want to take to take us down.
Speaker 8 (28:56):
So it's not just a terriff struggle.
Speaker 10 (28:59):
From the viewpoint to the Communist Party, this is an
existential struggle. And Charlie, the Communist Party views us as
an existential threat, not because of anything that we say
or do, but because of who we are.
Speaker 8 (29:13):
An insecure regime in Beijing is worried.
Speaker 10 (29:15):
About the inspirational impact of America's values and form of
governance on the Chinese people.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
So unfortunately, we.
Speaker 10 (29:22):
Will never have amicable relations with China as long as
the Communist Party rules.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It very important, So Gordon, I want to ask real quickly.
There are a lot of levers that President Trump has
yet to pull. Obviously, there is the early escalating terrorists,
and then there's a little bit of de escalation, which the
markets have welcomed. But he has other things that China
has gotten brought access to our markets. For instance, in
(29:47):
twenty thirteen, Joe Biden under President Trump put a memorandum
of understanding that let Chinese companies that were on Wall
Street continue to stay on Wall Street, even if they
didn't comply with all of our regulatory fiat the Democrats
had imposed on American companies. If he were to pull
things out like that, China would have to snap attention
a lot quicker.
Speaker 10 (30:06):
Right, Yes, Well, that twenty thirteen memorandum was unjustified, in
other words, giving China access to our markets under terms
which were more favorable than companies from any other country. Basically,
they didn't have to comply with disclosure rules to the
same extent as everybody else, and disclosure is the key
to America's regulation of companies that have gone public. So
(30:31):
this certainly is an important lever. If President Trump were
to pull that memorandum, which I hope that he does.
Chinese companies probably would have to delist because they could
not comply with the disclosure requirements. So yes, this is
something among many other things, John, that President Trump could
do to put more pressure on the Chinese.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Do you think as it relates to the disclosure when
we talk about things like you know, trans shitment China
going ahead and using Malaysia, Thaighland, Vietnam as sort of
proxy centers to do a small amount of manufacturing to
avoid the inbound tariffs, you have currency manipulation, you have subsidies,
you have lack of regulation in China. Is a delisting strategy?
(31:21):
Is that a direction that could handle some of what
we call csrs, currency subsidies and regulation disagreements between the
United States economies and the Chinese economy.
Speaker 10 (31:31):
Well, I think they are separate, but you know, the
Chinese view everything in totality, which means that if we
were to do something with regard to listing of Chinese companies,
they would view that as part of an all encompassing struggle.
So in a sense, yes, it relates to everything else,
and we have to do something about the transhipment, the
(31:54):
commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik has actually talked to some of
the countries that you mentioned and to others about the
transhipment issue. Also, there's an issue not only of transhipment,
but of false bills of lading. So China will directly
ship products from Chinese factories to the United States, but
they'll come in with a bill of lading that says
(32:15):
manufactured in Vietnam, and the authorities in Vietnam know what's
going on.
Speaker 8 (32:20):
Obviously, we have to end this.
Speaker 10 (32:22):
I think we're making some progress on this in the
last month or so, but this is just one of
a number of things that we have to do on trade.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I want to ask a little bit about whether there
are whether you believe there are substance of talks going
on with China. President Trump says they blink they wanted
to talk first. Mike Waltz was on the show just
on Tuesday saying, yeah, they came to us and s
everyone to have talks. China says, we're not talking at all.
What do you think is really going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 10 (32:49):
My guess is that the National Security Advisor was telling
the truth that there have been back channel discussions, maybe
at a lower level, certainly not at the level of
President Trump to see jimping. But nonetheless I do believe
they're going on, which means that the Chinese today were
actually lying when they said that there were no discussions,
(33:12):
no talks on trade. And we've got to remember that
President Trump in the last couple of days has been
sending out sort of signals that he wants to talk.
China viewed those as backing down and has become in transitent,
which shows you the Chinese political system is frozen.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Interesting, how long Gordon, do you think the Chinese can
hold out? I mean that the United States being a
powerhouse of consumers, what is it between a third, almost
the third, maybe larger of the global consumption? Who in
this game of chicken, who really can last longer?
Speaker 8 (33:50):
That's really a question of President Trump.
Speaker 10 (33:53):
I think that he was just doing a Jedi mind
trick on the markets, trying to appease them. Remember, almost
all the high cards are held by our president. The
only way China wins is to pressure him to back down.
And a lot of people say, well, you know, President
Trump is blank, He's folded. I'm not sure that's the case,
(34:14):
but this is China's only real hope and see jimping
because the way he has basically configured the Chinese political system,
he's perfectly capable of taking China off the cliff before
he actually has substantive discussions with the US. And that
is just an indication of how bad things are in China.
(34:36):
So the issue is I think President Trump holds out
and I think we win this. But the question is
it's the will and the determination of one person, the
guy who sits at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Yeah, it does come down there. The ball starts and
stops here, There's no doubt. Gordon, We've got about a
minute left. Just real quickly, Why has it that America
has continued to treat China, at least regular wise, like
a third world economy when it's the second largest economy
in the globe.
Speaker 10 (35:05):
This is just this is just a failure, not only
in the United States but of everybody else, of giving
China developing economy status when it is so developed in
many respects. This is just wrong and it shows you
that we need to move and change things that have
been in place for decades.
Speaker 8 (35:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Well, you have been sounding the alarm and creating that
blueprint by which Donald Trump is now executing a lot
of these strategies. It's a great honor Gordon always having
the show. Thanks for some great insights tonight.
Speaker 10 (35:35):
Well, it's a great honor for me to talk to
you and Charlie, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Well, we appreciate you so much. Folks, go get his
great books.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
They are the roadmap to how we really should need
to be dealing with China.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
All right, we're gonna take a cup quick commercial break.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
When we come back. Our good friend Bobby Charles is here.
Before we get to that, everybody go to AMAC dot
us lash just News. This is your homework assignment. During
the commercial break. There's a very special offer forty seven
percent off a five year membership. That is great. I'm
a five yard, five year card carring member. You should
be two AMAC dot us.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Slash just News.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Welcome back in America to this Just the News, Real America's Voice.
Special report Securing a more Fair Future on Trade.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Brought to you by AMAC.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm still joined by my co host for tonight, AMAX
Senior Vice President Charles Stuckland, and it's time to bring
in not only AMAX national spokesman, but one of the
most learned people I ever talked to in Washington. He's
a former assistant Secretary of State, a great friend of
the show, and now he's a Republican candidate for governor
in MAYNEYEP. You heard me right, He's going to run
for governor. Our good friend, Bobby Charles, Bobby, welcome back.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
It is a blast to be with you guys always.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Soon we may have to call you governor. That will
be even a bigger blast. We'll have to see how
that goes well.
Speaker 11 (36:48):
All right, if people want to do it, you go
to Bobbyfermain dot com.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
And I'm right there.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, you're you're you're lighting up. People are buzzing all
over the Northeast. Let me start with something that you
are so articular. We're in this moment of terris, but
there is a history to free trade, and we were
all here in the nineties. You and I were both
here in Washington when it started. It sounded great, except
it was free trade for the rest of the world,
but it was pretty unfair trade for America. We kept
(37:14):
making successions and putting up with behavior that we didn't
let the others could not have to comply with. Tell
us how free trade turned out not to be that
free trade at all for America.
Speaker 11 (37:25):
Yeah, so well, let's see if I can do this
in thirty seconds. Many moons ago, when Richard Nixon was president,
we ended up opening China.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
That was a great thing Politically.
Speaker 11 (37:34):
They thought that if you give China lots and lots
of advantages, they will take advantage of them, which they did,
and they will exercise or become affiliated with or they
will understand the concept of economic freedom. And if you
do that, they will understand the concept of political freedom. Well,
it turns out what they did is they interpreted it
as a giveaway and that they would just take advantage
(37:56):
of us in every possible way. And they never did
adopt the political freedom side. So that was error number
one and we're still paying for that. Error number two
is administrations Republican and Democrat for the last thirty years anyway,
maybe forty have allowed trade barriers to grow up. They've
allowed companies to be subsidized by countries. So Canada subsidizes
(38:17):
their you know, their lumber production. They do all the
harvesting for their companies. France owns a part of Air France.
All of these countries were allowed to undertake these relatively
unfair trade advantages that they adopted to themselves. Some of
them set up quotas, some of them set up import quotas,
so you can only ship so many cars into that country,
(38:39):
but they were unlimited in how they could ship them here.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
And of course they.
Speaker 11 (38:42):
Also took advantage of things like cheap labor, even slave labor.
And you know, I mean that's one of the reasons
that Chinese products are so inexpensive.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Their labor is the same thing with Mexico.
Speaker 11 (38:52):
And the United States allowed our companies because we thought
that free trade would generate the outcomes that would ultimately
benefit everybody, instead of just using comparative advantage.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
You know, you grow a corn and I make shoes.
Speaker 11 (39:06):
And we switch back and forth with those we trade
them because you're better at corn and I'm better at shoes.
Instead of that, it became an unfair nightmare for Americans
because what happened is our wages stayed as they should
at a relatively high level. Our companies began to put
all their capital and all their jobs on foreign soil.
Now what Donald Trump has done is said, you know
(39:26):
what we're done with all of that. What we're going
to do is bring all that capital home, all those
jobs home. We're going to reset the field bilaterally, one
on one with all these countries so that you are
no longer allowed to take advantage of the American consumer
and in turn ultimately put us in a position where
we don't have the jobs, we don't have the wages,
(39:46):
we don't have the growth that we could have had.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
What's going to happen is there'll be a slight uptick
in the near term and inflation.
Speaker 11 (39:52):
And I'm going to tell you about nine months from now,
the US market is going to explode because all of
that trillions of dollars capital is going to come home.
Our defense, our defense supply chains are going to come home.
So if we have any conflict over Taiwan or anywhere
else in the world, we don't have to rely on
Germany to give us all our ball bearings or someone
else to give us the ailerons for the planes. We
(40:14):
will make them ourselves. He's also going to bring a
pharmaceuticals home, so China won't be making most of our
advil or most of our pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
I mean, remember, we're an aging population.
Speaker 11 (40:25):
Our pharmaceuticals are a leverage for an enemy or an
adversary to take advantage of us. So all of this
is really a recalibration for thirty or forty or fifty
years of sort of runaway indulgence in the idea that
foreign countries could take advantage of America. And he's saying,
this is not about a new turn of events where
(40:47):
we take advantage of them. This is about the fact
that we are finally saying, you know what, We've had
a weed garden growing here. You've taken advantage of us
for long enough. We're now going to stand up for
the American work or the American business, and.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
We're we're gonna have a fair and even trading environment.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Well, Bud, absolutely, You know, Bobby, you touched on a
few great points there, but I think one major one
is you know, it's been reported since nineteen seventy nine
productivity is up sixty percent, while the typical typical workers
pay is only around up sixteen percent. And you have
whole swaths of industry, for example, you know, the furniture
industry in the Carolinas, cash rich businesses employing tens of
(41:27):
thousands of people. You have Corporate America come in consolidate
those companies, and because of what happened in the nineties,
we ship it overseas, and you know, we see entire
industries decimated when it comes to Maine. Can you talk
to I mean, just not only those constituents, but how
do you make the case when you say, you know,
we all agree. You know, in the longer term, let's
(41:49):
just say corporate income tax gets reduced, there's less volatility
in the markets, International investment will come dumping into the US.
But how do you make the case in the short
term that it's worth the pain to not only Americans
but your potential constituents in Maine.
Speaker 11 (42:05):
Yeah, I'll take people back to that same year that
you just quoted, nineteen seventy nine to make the case.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
Nineteen seventy nine was a year if people go back
and look at the books, and I lived through.
Speaker 11 (42:14):
It when Ronald Reagan was the right guy to come
and succeed Jimmy Carter. Because interest rates were through the
roof at that point, inflation was through the roof at
that point, our trading.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
Relationships were handicapped.
Speaker 11 (42:27):
The average person was not We were facing the upward
spiral of what they call the irrational expectations in inflation,
and Reagan came in and said, look, we're going to
break all of that. Okay, we're going to go back
to basics. We're going to go for a hard day's
work produces.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
A great income.
Speaker 11 (42:43):
And ultimately, in Maine right now, what a governor has
to do is he has to deeply cut. This is
the number one property tax state in the country. The
combination of our income tax, sales tax, and property tax
put us somewhere at number two, three or four in
overall tax burden. We have chased all these businesses out
of the country, so they'll be a little bit of
pain because of the tariffs, and main actually may be
(43:04):
a beneficiary in the long run. Even about the specific
tariffs with Canada, because again I'll.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Use softwood lumber. Softwood lumber is cheaper.
Speaker 11 (43:12):
The Canadian softwood lumber because it's subsidized, is cheaper in
the United States and in Maine than the lumber that
we produce. It may affect our lobstering. We may in
the end be able to have you know, basically get
a better price for lobster long term if you even
out the trading relationship.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
And it does take time, to do that.
Speaker 11 (43:30):
It takes conversation, it takes recognition of the unfairnesses that
have existed and remedying them. And then if you have
a governor and I will do this, I am going.
I am literally on a track to eliminate the income
tax in the state of Maine. I've got accountants working
on it. The idea is not to shift it to
sales or somewhere else, but to bring both property taxes
and income taxes down. So what does that do. It
(43:52):
keeps our kids in the state. It then brings businesses
into the state. It'll actually encourage trades.
Speaker 5 (43:57):
To stay in the state.
Speaker 11 (43:58):
Now the price of housing goes down, Now affordability comes back.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
At the end of the day, you either are on
a virtuous circle or a vicious cycle. And what we
have to do.
Speaker 11 (44:06):
We've been on a vicious cycle here in Maine for
the better part of thirty years. We need to get
on a virtuous cycle where we encourage businesses to come here,
capital come here, get jobs to grow up here, and
therefore our schools begin to feed kids into those jobs.
And at the end of the day, we get the
drug traffickers out of the state. So it's again what
it was in my growing up year is a very
safe and beautiful state that is pro business even as
(44:29):
they are. Obviously I grew up in the woods, as
we love our woods and conservation. But we need to
go back nationally and at the state level to understanding
that everything we're looking at in this room, everything you're
looking at in your room, everything your visitors look at
around them are produced by private sector businesses, small businesses.
Many times we need to encourage entrepreneurship, encourage small businesses,
(44:52):
encourage self reliance, encourage what some like to say the
American dream, to grow up again in Maine so that
people under stand the future is as bright as you
want to make it, and the government is going to
get out of your way. I say, cut crime, cut taxes,
cut the nonsense.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
And that's what I's That's basically what.
Speaker 11 (45:10):
I'm telling people. Get back to common sense policies. And
if you believe in that, go, I mean, if you
want to see Main be that place, whether you come
in the summer or whether you live here, go to
Bobbyfurmaine dot com.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
Help me do it.
Speaker 11 (45:21):
Invest in the future, because it sometimes takes an army
to turn around a state that has gotten badly, badly
off track.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, Bobby, you're so right. Unfortunately we run out of time.
We got to get more on this.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I'm going to come back this next week with you
because I think there's so much more to dig in
on China as well. But great to have you on
the Showta is always you bring a lot of wisdom
context in history with you, which I think a lot
of peer.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Can say don't understand. It's great to have you on.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
Thank you both very much.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
What a great conversation. Always learned a ton when a
body comes on. All right, we're going to take a
commercial break. We've got one more conversation to do before
we wrap up the show tape. But before you do that,
please head over right now that AMAC dot us slash
just News. That's AMAC amac dot us slash just News.
Why because for this month only, they're gonna get forty
seven percent off a five year membership. That's thirty one
(46:11):
bucks set to steal. It'll pay for itself many times over.
Go do it right now. Say thank you to our
good friends at AMAC are making conversations like this possible.
Here Real America's Voice and justin News all right. We'll
be back in a second to wrap up the show
with Dylan Well co commercial break, Welcome Back in America.
(46:37):
One final segment of this justin News, Real America's Voice
special report Securing a More Fair Future on Trade, Joining
me as he has for the whole hour, my amazing
co host, AMAX Senior vice President Charles Stucklan Charlie. When
we went into this, before we started the show, you
and I were talking about the possibility that there's a
great economic boon on the horizon that no one wants
to talk about. Steve Moore said it, Congress and Burlison
(46:59):
said it, Bobby Charles said it. It's something that got
left out of the conversation in regular media, but here
tonight it was pretty prominent.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Absolutely, And you know, short term thinking, that's the problem.
Short term thinking for the last few decades, on what
kind of trade deals we're making with foreign nations, how
we're protecting the US job sector, the US job market, manufacturing,
every sector that exists. And now what you're seeing is
criticisms of tariffs. With short term thinking. You have people
(47:29):
critiquing the current market levels, current market prices. But ultimately, John,
I feel like what we saw this evening, and these
interviews were for the people who fully understand both China
and the economic side. There's a huge amount of potential here.
The volatility obviously there's going to be volatility, you know,
at this exact moment, but the potential for some stability
(47:50):
with these pending trade deals combined with, let's face it,
some things. Donald Trump's already admit potential reduction on the
business side, on corporate taxes, and it just lends itself
to be a potential explosion in US investment in growth.
So I don't know about you, but I feel confident
in hearing that from our guest tonight.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yeah, it was such a star panel of just people
who really know what's going on. I heard three really
important agreements. One, Donald Trump's not going to blink, so
get used to him not blinking. Two, as Steve Moore said,
by us sell China, which is, don't be afraid to
give up on China, move them out. They're in their
own trouble. And then three, get those tax gets done.
Those seem to be the three secret ingredients. Anything we
(48:29):
miss that you think is important.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
No, I mean those seem to be the ingredients as well.
I agree, but I mean, let me leave you with this. So,
the battle over tariff's, over trade, over manufacturing, it's not
just policy, it's personal. It's personal for every AMAC member
whose job was shipped overseas. It's personal for every retiree
wondering why medicine comes from halfway around the world. And
(48:53):
it's personal for every grandparent who wants their grandchild to
grow up in a country that still makes things and
stands for something. So tariffs aren't necessarily and I think
all of our guests agree, tariffs aren't necessarily about punishing anyone.
They're about protecting what we've built and rebuilding what we've lost.
So at AMAC, we believe in common sense conservatism, in
(49:14):
protecting the people who built this country, and in standing
up to the forces that try to hollow it out.
So thank you John for being a part of this conversation.
I appreciate you bringing AMAC into this conversation. And for
those who are not eMac members yet, America needs voices
like yours and we need to be heard louder than ever.
So thank you again, John.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
You couldn't say it, and you did a great job
as my co host, And what a fun conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
We'll have to do this again a real soonent, Charlie.
All right, folks, you hurt Charlie. That was the best
way to close the show.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
If you like the common sense you hurt tonight, go
to AMAC dot us lash just News right now, go
sign up, go join us. I'm a card carring member.
You can be a card carring member. Point your car,
your camera at that QR code and you will be
in the run.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
All right.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Otherwise, go to AMAC dot us Just News. We'll be
back tomorrow and hand off to the amazing Grant Stitchel
and you're in good hands for the next hour.
Good evening, America, and welcome to this just the News
Rail America's Voice special report Securing a More Fair Future
on Trade.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It sounds good, right.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We want to thank our partners at AMAC Association of
Mature American Citizens for joining us in this conversation. All
throughout tonight's show, we'll be taking a deep dive into
President Trump's tariff policies if they can be successful in
bringing back manufacturing to America, decoupling from the Chinese economy,
and creating fair trade around the globe, which means more jobs.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
And more economic growth in America.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
President Trump's deal making ability has and will be put
to the test. This is a big mission, right but
according to the White House, countries are lining up for
meetings with the administration the hammer new trade deals that
work for everyone, and we will talk about that all
throughout the hour with a great lineup of guests we
haven't included for you, including Missouri Congressman Eric Berlison, who'll
(01:11):
be breaking down what Congress can do to support President
Trump's agenda a free and fair trade around the globe.
We also have Steven Moore here, the great economists who
literally wrote the book on President Trump's economic policy. He'll
explain what the goal of the President's tariff's policy is
and how he can use them effectively in trade negotiations.
We'll also speak to China expert Gordon Chang. He is
(01:32):
absolutely the best on this issue, and he'll tell us
about what President Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods actually means
for their economy, something that doesn't get mentioned in the media.
The CCP might be talking very tough right now, but
they are only doing that to mask the pain of
what terrorists are causing on their side. I think it's
what a lot of our intelligence experts believe. And finally,
we'll have a candidate for governor of Maine and a
(01:54):
former Assistant Secretary of State as well as AMAX national spokesman.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
He's my good friend, Bobby Charles.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
He'll be here to break down how the state craft
of these tariffs actually work and how America can bring
even more nations to the table on free and fair trade.
But before we get to all that, I want to
bring in my co host for the evening. Usually we
have a Max CEO, Rebecca Weber here with us, but
she's on the road, and tonight we're lucky to be
joined by another very special guest, Senior Vice President AMAC,
(02:20):
Charles Stucklan. Charles, good to have you on.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Great to be on, John, Thank you so much, and
good evening everyone. I'm Charles Stucklin. I'm honored to join
tonight's special edition as your voice from AMAC, where we
don't just talk about America's future, we fight for it
every day. To our AMAC members watching, thank you so much.
You've carried this country on your back. You've worked the jobs,
(02:43):
you've paid the taxes, you've raised the families, and you've
built the communities that made America strong. Now you're watching
some of that hard work get chipped away by cheap imports,
disappearing jobs, and global policies that never seem to put
Americans first. So tonight we're having a conversation about tariffs,
but really it's about fairness. It's about the cost of
(03:05):
letting other nations play by their rules while Americans hey
the price. It's really about restoring the balance and bringing
back something that's been missing, respect for American work, American products,
and American sovereignty. And for those of you who aren't members,
if you're tired of being talked over overlooked or forgotten.
We hope you'll join us because at AMAC your voice
(03:26):
isn't just heard, it shapes what we do. So thank
you so much for having me tonight, John, looking forward
to the conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, child's going to be a blast. This is such
a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And AMAC has been on the forefront of this debate
long before it was in the news. They'd been pushing
for fair and free trade, something the word fair wasn't
in the last thirty years of American policy.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We're finally getting in tonight.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
We're going to dive in right away from a member
of Congress who's on top of this issue and trying
to back up the President in the halls of Congress.
All right, joining us now, man on the front lines
of the tariff debates in Congress, Congressman Eric Burlson, from
the great state there, Congress, And good to have you back.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
On the show. Good to be back, John. So I
want to.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Turn to tariffs and all the debates that we have
about them. But just a little breaking news today. President
Trump is putting into action new orders that will require
ActBlue to be investigated and for the government to develop
a whole of government approach to make sure that foreign
money doesn't seep in through online fundraising. You've been on
this for a long time. You know what the concerns are.
(04:25):
Your reaction to the fact that President Trump the Justice
Department are on the case.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Now, Yeah, something has to be done. I mean, look,
the amount of money that was that was the velocity
of money that was flowing in, and the fact that
I don't know if you saw the study that James
O'Keefe did where he went door to door and knocked
on the doors of people that have that from one
address have made you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars
(04:52):
in campaign contributions over over five thousand different individual contributions,
all attributed to one person at one address, and most
of the homes are people that clearly do not have
the funds to do that, and he again and again
would knock on those doors. So, look, those are anecdotal scenarios,
but something is wrong here, and so for there's smoke,
(05:14):
there's probably fire.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, good point, A great point. Anecdotally is one thing,
but when you have sort of a coordinated situation of
thousands and tens of thousands of micro transactions, it leads
you to believe there's some sort of coordination there. So
we appreciate that. But getting back to the tariffs, Congressman,
(05:36):
so we have twelve states that are now suing to
stop some of these tariffs. How should Congress respond when
state level actors challenge federal trade policy, especially when the
aim is to revive American manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, this is one of the I try to like
take a step back and think if if the shoes
were on the other feet, what would I do. I know,
if Joe Biden, if I was a state lawmaker and
Joe Biden had tried to do this, I would while
I may not agree with whatever he was doing, I
probably I would say he constitutionally has the authority. I mean,
(06:13):
I don't see what kind of grounds that they're making
when at the end of the day, this is clearly
in the purview of the federal government. And look, my
view on tariffs in general is that we want I
want tariffs and taxes to be as low as possible.
But I also think that the fact that we've had
(06:33):
an imbalance for decades is something that we need to address.
And I'm glad that Trump is trying to do something
that has not been done by previous presidents trying to
bring these other countries to the table and in some
of these trade imbalances that have been happening since World
War Two.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yes, definitely since World War Two. It's somewhat analogous. After
World War Two you had the reinvestment into places like Japan,
for example, auto manufacturers, places like Toyota, and then in
the eighties you saw similar style traffs from Reagan protecting
American workers. So it's really not the first time, it's
just the most excessive we've ever seen in history. Can
you speak, you know, when it comes to AMC members
(07:18):
are aging demographic, specifically constituents in Missouri. Can you talk
about the ag sector, the manufacturing sector, and getting away
from the tariff discussion, how hard have they been hit
from let's just say, not losing our middle class but
exporting our middle class overseas.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, look, unfortunately, the
way sold security is funded and the way that the
United States is working our economy is really dependent upon
upon a growing class of workers, and we have a
diminishing size in the workforce. You know, people are not
having children like they used to and so we definitely
(07:59):
want to We want more people in the labor pool.
We want to be a growing economy, and we need
those people to be able to support people that are retiring.
And so this is why so security is estimated to
go defunct in the next nine to eleven years. We
need to really figure out. This is a big question
(08:19):
that Congress needs to address. And at the end of
the day, we need to bring jobs into the United States.
How we fill those jobs. What level of immigration, legal
immigration that we do is another question.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, those are all big ones and things that Congress
can play a role on. What are the sentiments there
in Congress to help the president get through this period
and get to success and got ninety countries lined up
to make deals. China's playing pats or playing fancy behind
the scene with some negotiations. What can Congress do to
make this story a success story when it's all over.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
I think we're One of the things that we can
do is first just give the president the space to negotiate.
Give him that flexibility. I think he's earned it. I mean, look,
the gentleman, the guy took a bullet to the head
for this country. Let's give him the grace to carry
through on the things that he actually campaigned on and
the voters knew when they went to the polls to
vote for him. So let's give him that space. And
(09:14):
then also, I think we need to back him up
when it comes to this reconciliation package the President wants
to have. He wants to check a lot of boxes,
and I think that they're achievable if we cut spending.
So he wants to move towards a balanced budget, he
wants to reduce interest rates, he wants to reduce inflation.
(09:34):
All of that can be done, and we can pay
for the Trump tax cuts and make them permanent if
we can find the spending cuts that we need to find.
And Congress needs to do the difficult work of identifying
and cutting spending, just like Elon Musk and Doe's has
been doing.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Important absolutely, And when it comes to the comparison between
cutting the spending and the cottnment spending, I mean, that's
obviously the most important thing, right we can It's it's
been said that sort of what dog has found so
far as a drop it dropping the bucket on the overspending.
What's your take on the status of what's been sound
(10:13):
found so far, And are you optimistic that they're really
going to have a huge effect on the you know,
the government waste, the government fraud.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
I think that this is a question not about Elon.
I think it's a question of the willingness of the
other members of the cabinet to really put lean in
on their agencies and get them to cooperate.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
And this is there.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
I mean, what we're requesting is a sea change sometimes
in work policy and workflow. So I certainly think that
we there could be more done, but I don't want
to criticize the executive rates. They're doing a heck of
a lot more than Congress is doing. So we've got
to step up. And I think that one of the
ways that we can step up is to cut mandatory spending.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
In this reconciliation package.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
That means finding savings waste from abuse and medicaid. That
means eliminating the green new scam tax credits. Savings that
if we could identify, I think we could I do.
Jodi Arrington thinks has done the work. We could probably
identify five trillion or more in tax and I'm sorry,
in savings over the next ten years. But look, we're
(11:17):
not even I think the modest version of that is
a two trillion dollar savings over the next ten years.
If we can do that, it will. It will when
Congress reduce the spending, it will do a number of things.
It will drive down inflation, because inflation is when the
government spends more than it brings in. So it will
(11:37):
bring down inflation if we can. And it will also
reduce interest rates on the market, because when we're spending
more and we're taking out more debt, we're out there
buying debt from the market and we're driving up interest rates.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
It will it will go a long ways.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
If we could just figure out how to cut spending,
we will solve a lot of problems. And MacDonald Trump
the most successful president in the history in the United States.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So we got about a minute. Leftist A real quick
question China. You have been such an articulate voice on it.
Your state sued, held them accountable, won twenty four billion
dollars for COVID.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
But they attack us in many different ways.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
They do it through TikTok, they do it through flavored
covered vapes, they do it through fentanyl, and then they
do it by exploiting the trade privileges.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Do you think most Americans.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Understand that China has been getting a free ride for
most of the last four years from our country.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, I think most Americans recognize that China has not
been cooperating, that they have not been a noble actor
on the world stage. And I think that the United
I think this is long overdue. With President Trump, you know,
his posture towards China. It's my hope that other countries
like India and you know, countries around the world Western civilization,
(12:52):
that we all unite together. And I think that if
we do, and China comes to kind of a former
Soviet moment where they realize that they either must change
or they'll collapse. I think that this is Donald Trump's moment,
the same way that Reagan had that moment where he
pushed Russia to the the Soviet Union to the point
(13:13):
of collapse. I think that for Trump, this is this
is the moment with China.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, something we have to keep in mind that there's
so much short term focus, but the long term picture
is so much important to keep in the front of
our minds. You do that every day in the great
perch that you hold in Congress. Congressman Rick Burlson. Great
honor having a show, Tay, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Thank you guys, Yeah, I appreciate you. All Right, folks,
we're gonna take a quick corumercial break.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
When we come back, the man who wrote the book
on President Trump's economic policy.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Stephen Morri, will be here. I always love what he
comes on.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I always find like the economy gets a lot more
understandable what he talks about.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Before we do that, I want you to do me a favorite.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Go to AMAC dot us slash just news that's AMAC
dot USS just News, or port your camera to QR
code because right now you can join me. Become a
five year member at AMAC for forty seven percent off.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's like thirty one bucks a year. That's a steal.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You get discounts, you get opportunities to engage in civic duty,
you get a monthly magazine, daily news, and a weekly podcast.
He's one of the greatest deals you ever have. Go
check it out to the AMAC dot usus just News.
While you're doing that, we're gonna take a quick commercial
break care from our sponsors and will be right back.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Welcome back in America to this Just the News.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Reil America's Voice special report Securing a More Fair Future
on Trade, brought to you by AMAC. I'm still joined
by the senior Vice president from AMAC, Charles Stuck, and
he's going to be my coast for the whole hour.
And now I'm excited to welcome one of my favorite friends.
He makes the economy understandable, he makes it exciting, and
he always gives you the straight scoop. He is the
author of the Trump Economic Miracle and the co founder
(14:54):
of Unleashed Prosperities. Our good friend Steven Moore, Steve, good
to have you back on.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
Hello, gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Great to be with you. Good to be with you,
and good to be with you on this day.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
There's a lot going on, and you know, the market
seem to be a little schizophrenic. One day they're really down,
the next day they're a little bit up. But you
have been very confident. You've been sounding optimism that the
way Trump's going about this may be a real winner.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Why are you so positive?
Speaker 6 (15:20):
Well, you know, at the beginning I was a skeptic,
as you know, John.
Speaker 7 (15:23):
I thought, that's right, Trump, Trump has really gotten himself
into a thicket that he might not be able to
get out of with all the and you know, we
saw those big declines in the stock market and people
started to panic.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
But you know, Trump, really, this guy shrewd.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
He really is to to moves on the chessboard out
of everybody else. And right now I'm feeling pretty confident,
not entirely, and I'm not saying that the the you know,
the motion sickness that we've all had on the stock
market is over. I think we're gonna have updays and
down days based on the progress that's been made.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
But it sure looks a lot better than it did
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 7 (15:57):
And if we can get these major deals done, and
then John, if we can get keep moving forward on
the tax Billy boy, that's a double header that is
just unbelievable for the for the economy, and I think
you could see a real boom this summer in the
stock market.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Absolutely, and Steve, when it comes to the volatility, it
almost seems as Trump is setting the tone sort of
managing expectations there where with this level of volatility. If
we do come up with the tax bill, we negotiate
some fair trade deals, you know with Asia, European countries,
all it takes is a few pieces of good news,
potentially a reduction on some maybe corporate income tax. And
(16:36):
I mean, I'm assuming what you're thinking is just a
wealth of international investment into manufacturing in different sectors in
the US. Is that kind of best case scenario in
your mind?
Speaker 7 (16:47):
Yeah, Look, there's a lot of countries that we still
need to deal with. There's like six or seven, you know,
major countries that really matter, Canada, the UK, the Europeans, Japan, Korea.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
Et cetera.
Speaker 7 (16:59):
If we can get those deals done, you know, you
don't have to have a hundred countries. You just need
to have the you know, the G seven G eight
countries come to an agreement where they lower their terrorists,
then Trump will lower his terrorists. Now China is another
whole cattle of worms, and I think the strategy here
is to try to isolate China economically, which would be
(17:19):
good for our security and for our economy. I don't
know anybody else but Donald Trump who could pull this off.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
See if I know, for most of your career you've
been an advocate for free trade. You like free and
fair trade. But you came out my show a couple week,
he said something I think very profound, which is you
can be a free trade advocate, but you can also
realize there's a time to level the playing field with
someone that's been cheating or getting an unfair advantage for
a long time. When it comes to China, remind people
how China has sort of been treated as a third
(17:50):
world country when the rest of us have, you know,
when we've been giving away a lot, but we don't
get a lot in return from China.
Speaker 7 (17:57):
Well, you know, the short history of China is, you know,
they were a communist country. Owner Mau Mao was the
greatest butcher who ever lived on the space of the planet.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
He killed three hundred million people of his own own people.
Speaker 7 (18:08):
And then in the mid eighties or so, China went
on a very free market path and it looked really
good that they were going to become a freedom loving
and a free market capitalism country. And that's the key
way it was for about a decade. And so we
gave China the most favorite trade nation.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
We allowed them into the into the you know, the
all the gap and that's kind of thing.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
And I think that was a mistake because under President
g they've moved in the opposite direction. They are now
an evil empire and we've got to get in my opinion,
by the way, you guys are more of experts on
this than I am.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
But I think they're dangerous.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
I think they cheat, I think they steal, and we
we cannot continue to allow.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
That to happen.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Absolutely, we talked at length about currency manipulation, subs these regulations.
So what you touched on there also is not necessarily
just about tariffs. Can can you also talk to just
the trade barriers? Do you think there's any ongoing discussion
on not just the tariffs, but those other things that
are make it harder for American companies to export overseas
(19:16):
that aren't necessarily tariffs but are sort of wrapped into
the trade barrier system when it comes to regulation and
things like that.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
Yeah, the worst one of all to me is that
they steal our technology in our patents. Have you noticed
every time we come up with a new product, like
a new iPhones, you know, all the Chinese do come
and take pictures of it try to figure out how
they can copycat it.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
They do the same with our drugs.
Speaker 7 (19:38):
Our vaccines, are you know, all sorts of inventions that
we make and then they steal the processes and then
our companies can't make any money on it. So I
would put that very near the top of the list.
Other countries do that too, by the way, and that's
just not bare. I mean the Europeans, they don't pay
their fair share of the.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
Drug costs when we invent new drugs.
Speaker 7 (20:00):
So we got to get tough with these countries to
say pay your fair share.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, amazing, John.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I think it's estimated around half a trillion dollars a
year just in intellectual property theft. Exactly what you're talking there,
Steve on just the copying of our intellectual product property,
our products, our manufacturing processes, and in a lot of
ways sort of our own doing right. And that's that's
that's what we're talking about today.
Speaker 7 (20:25):
The other thing I wanted to mention John, if I could,
is that you know this tax bill is moving along
pretty well.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
They're now talking about fourth of July. I wanted a
Memorial Day, remember, John.
Speaker 7 (20:36):
I said we got to get them by Royal Day,
but now it looks like it might be fourth of July.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
And I want to see the fifteen percent business rate
that Trump was talking about during the campaign. Remember that
he said, maybe we can get the business rate down
to fifteen percent. My god, if he can do that
and then make all the trap tax cuts permanent, and yeah,
that's just it. That is like steroids for the US economy.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
No, there's no doubt that there's that moment on the
horizon if he pulls it all off, that the economy
could be booming like post World War two or the
good old nineties. Again, I want to ask about China.
You said something profound. If we get some of these
other trade agreements in place, China's isolated, and then there
are other tools once it's isolated that the president can use.
For instance, in twenty thirteen, Vice President Joe Biden, behalf
(21:23):
of President Obama, gave anmu to China, says, your companies
can be on our stock market, but they don't have
to comply with our regulatory options. If you start pulling
things like that off the table at thirty days, notice,
China really is in a much harder position to negotiate.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
Right, Is that for me?
Speaker 9 (21:42):
Yeah, that's for you, Steve, Yeah, yeah, so yeah, no, absolutely,
And you know, people don't realize the media, thank God
for people like you who are actually reporting what's happening.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
But how many stories have you read about what's happening
with the stock market and the economy in China?
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Not many?
Speaker 7 (21:59):
Right, They're going they're head to do a great depression
if they can't trade with the United States and their
stock markets taken a beating much worse than ours has.
So my point is, you know, if we you know,
when we sneeze, they catch pneumonia, right, and so they
are they have a lot to lose here. I think
China is going to be brought to the table on
(22:20):
their hands and knees, as Trump would say, to to
make a deal with Trump, because their economy cannot withstand this.
They they will go into a great depression if they
lose the trade routes to the United States and our
you know, twenty two trillion dollar consumer market.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Great point, absolutely the largest consumer market amongst nations. And
what we've been talking about is you know, who can
who's going to blink first on this? And Donald Trump
shown that we don't necessarily need you know, the throwaway
culture of Chinese products there are you know, we talk
about active ingredients and pharmaceuticals, we talk about some necessary
(22:59):
important it's into the US, but for the most part,
you know, maybe we don't need a lot of this
throwaway culture, plastic mass, land filled clothing style, you know,
consumerism in the US. And the irony is you know,
you would think that the those that champion scalability and
the climate crisis and you know, energy consumption and reducing
(23:20):
carbon footprint. You would think those would be the people
that would be all for domestic production, reducing fuel consumption
on overseas shipping. You would think they'd be for elon
musk and you know, energy efficient vehicles and evs. But Steve,
it seems like those are the very people that are
out in the media criticizing the tariffs and this entire situation.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
You know, I was I believe it or not.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
Guys.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
I was on CNN yesterday, which I don't do very often,
but I do what now in that and they were like, oh,
there's Trump. He's retreating on his trade stuff. And I'm like,
you people don't get this guy. You know, he started
with one hundred and twenty five percent here on China.
Oh okay, well maybe lower to one hundred percent. No,
they don't understand that everything Trump does is part of
the art of the deal.
Speaker 6 (24:03):
But I'd like to.
Speaker 7 (24:04):
Make one other quick point, which is really about AMAC,
because you're such an effective organization, and we need to
start a movement of buy America, sell China.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Buy America, sell China.
Speaker 7 (24:17):
This is something every one of us, as individuals can
do to.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
Change the direction of what's going on in our country.
Speaker 7 (24:23):
Look for the union label, look for the label that
says made in America, or at least look for the
label that says, you know, made in China. And if
it's made in China, you know, is it okay if
you pay two or three dollars more for a T
shirt or four dollars more for some speakers. I think
if we all make that commitment, I think that would
have a huge impact. We don't have the government to
(24:44):
tell us what to do. We can do this as
individual consumers. I can't tell you, John, people will come
up to me. What can I do as one person?
Stop buying their crap?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Buy America, sell China. I think that's gonna stick. I
like that one. That's going to We're gonna be talking
about that tomorrow. Mo Art and Steve, that's a good one.
You are always a pleasure to have on, my friend,
we learned so much and we get a lot wiser
when you're on. Thanks for joining us today. What a
great what a great conversation books. We are so lucky.
All Right, we're gonna take a quick commercial break. When
(25:14):
we come up, Gordon Shang will be here to discuss
what President Trump's tariffs look like from China's perspective.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
And while we're in the break, give me a favorite.
There's a homework assignic.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Go to AMAC dot us lash just News right now,
go get one of those five year memberships. I'm a
five year card carring member, AMAC. I'm probably so by
the way. It pays for itself every time I travel.
It's an amazing discount you get. Plus all the other benefits,
the magazine, the weekly podcast, the opportunity to do great
things with other patriots, civic duty things.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
They're awesome, all because your memory. AMAC.
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You're gonna get forty seven percent forty seven percent off
a five year membership right now, AMAC, got us last Jesseys.
That's the place to go. Do that during the commercial
Bank will be right back. Welcome back in America to this
justin News. Real America's Voice special report. We're taking a
(26:05):
deep dive into President Trump's tariff policies, and we're doing
so in conjunction with our good friends at AMAC. In
this segment, we're going to focus on China. It's at
the heart of this entire policy. And I want to
bring in my co host for tonight, AMAX senior vice
president Charles Stucklin, as well as author of the new
book Plan Read China's Project to Destroy America. He is
one of the most extraordinary experts on China, and long
(26:27):
before we were having a public debate about tariff's Gordon
Chang was on the front lines of encouraging it as
an important tootal level the playing field with China.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
We're very lucky to be joined by Gordon Chang. Gordon,
good have you on?
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Well, thank you so much, John and Charlie.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
All right, So I want to start with the notion
that China's talking tough maybe on the outside, but on
the inside, are they feeling as comfortable about getting into
a tariff controversy with the President or does their economy
have some weaknesses as well?
Speaker 10 (26:57):
Their economy is actually in distress. They reported five point
four percent growth for the first quarter, but when we
look at underlying indicators, it looks more like zero and
we know the direction, which is down. Price data for
both February and March indicate the Chinese economy is in
a deflationary spiral that's very hard to get out of.
(27:19):
And we also see some other numbers that look like
China was actually contracting during the period. So, for instance,
tax receipts were down three point five percent. That's not
consistent with robust growth. So we're seeing an economy that
is being hit by the tariff dispute at a time
when it is in trouble. And so yes, I think
(27:39):
the Chinese understand that they got problems. The issue, though, John,
is the political system in China. Sijimping has configured it
so only the most hostile answers are considered to be acceptable.
So he can't make an overture to the United States,
which would be the rational thing for him to do,
because he cannot appear weak.
Speaker 8 (28:01):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Following up on that, Gordon, I remember you once reference
to article in the People's Daily from twenty nineteen. I
believe it was May twenty nineteen titled the People's War
on Us. Can you give some context from the perspective
of let's say a Chinese citizen, the difference between the
political and the economic as it relates to how the
populace in China is sort of viewing this situation.
Speaker 10 (28:27):
People's war is a term that has great residents in
Communist parties thought is a total war, which pla Daily,
which is the main propaganda organ of the Chinese military said,
is total war.
Speaker 8 (28:40):
And this goes back to mal.
Speaker 10 (28:42):
Zudum struggle against Shan Kai Chek, and that means we
are considered to be an enemy. Now China has this
doctrine of unrestricted warfare, which means that they can do
anything in everything they want to take to take us down.
Speaker 8 (28:56):
So it's not just a terriff struggle.
Speaker 10 (28:59):
From the viewpoint to the Communist Party, this is an
existential struggle. And Charlie, the Communist Party views us as
an existential threat, not because of anything that we say
or do, but because of who we are.
Speaker 8 (29:13):
An insecure regime in Beijing is worried.
Speaker 10 (29:15):
About the inspirational impact of America's values and form of
governance on the Chinese people.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
So unfortunately, we.
Speaker 10 (29:22):
Will never have amicable relations with China as long as
the Communist Party rules.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It very important, So Gordon, I want to ask real quickly.
There are a lot of levers that President Trump has
yet to pull. Obviously, there is the early escalating terrorists,
and then there's a little bit of de escalation, which the
markets have welcomed. But he has other things that China
has gotten brought access to our markets. For instance, in
(29:47):
twenty thirteen, Joe Biden under President Trump put a memorandum
of understanding that let Chinese companies that were on Wall
Street continue to stay on Wall Street, even if they
didn't comply with all of our regulatory fiat the Democrats
had imposed on American companies. If he were to pull
things out like that, China would have to snap attention
a lot quicker.
Speaker 10 (30:06):
Right, Yes, Well, that twenty thirteen memorandum was unjustified, in
other words, giving China access to our markets under terms
which were more favorable than companies from any other country. Basically,
they didn't have to comply with disclosure rules to the
same extent as everybody else, and disclosure is the key
to America's regulation of companies that have gone public. So
(30:31):
this certainly is an important lever. If President Trump were
to pull that memorandum, which I hope that he does.
Chinese companies probably would have to delist because they could
not comply with the disclosure requirements. So yes, this is
something among many other things, John, that President Trump could
do to put more pressure on the Chinese.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Do you think as it relates to the disclosure when
we talk about things like you know, trans shitment China
going ahead and using Malaysia, Thaighland, Vietnam as sort of
proxy centers to do a small amount of manufacturing to
avoid the inbound tariffs, you have currency manipulation, you have subsidies,
you have lack of regulation in China. Is a delisting strategy?
(31:21):
Is that a direction that could handle some of what
we call csrs, currency subsidies and regulation disagreements between the
United States economies and the Chinese economy.
Speaker 10 (31:31):
Well, I think they are separate, but you know, the
Chinese view everything in totality, which means that if we
were to do something with regard to listing of Chinese companies,
they would view that as part of an all encompassing struggle.
So in a sense, yes, it relates to everything else,
and we have to do something about the transhipment, the
(31:54):
commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik has actually talked to some of
the countries that you mentioned and to others about the
transhipment issue. Also, there's an issue not only of transhipment,
but of false bills of lading. So China will directly
ship products from Chinese factories to the United States, but
they'll come in with a bill of lading that says
(32:15):
manufactured in Vietnam, and the authorities in Vietnam know what's
going on.
Speaker 8 (32:20):
Obviously, we have to end this.
Speaker 10 (32:22):
I think we're making some progress on this in the
last month or so, but this is just one of
a number of things that we have to do on trade.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I want to ask a little bit about whether there
are whether you believe there are substance of talks going
on with China. President Trump says they blink they wanted
to talk first. Mike Waltz was on the show just
on Tuesday saying, yeah, they came to us and s
everyone to have talks. China says, we're not talking at all.
What do you think is really going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 10 (32:49):
My guess is that the National Security Advisor was telling
the truth that there have been back channel discussions, maybe
at a lower level, certainly not at the level of
President Trump to see jimping. But nonetheless I do believe
they're going on, which means that the Chinese today were
actually lying when they said that there were no discussions,
(33:12):
no talks on trade. And we've got to remember that
President Trump in the last couple of days has been
sending out sort of signals that he wants to talk.
China viewed those as backing down and has become in transitent,
which shows you the Chinese political system is frozen.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Interesting, how long Gordon, do you think the Chinese can
hold out? I mean that the United States being a
powerhouse of consumers, what is it between a third, almost
the third, maybe larger of the global consumption? Who in
this game of chicken, who really can last longer?
Speaker 8 (33:50):
That's really a question of President Trump.
Speaker 10 (33:53):
I think that he was just doing a Jedi mind
trick on the markets, trying to appease them. Remember, almost
all the high cards are held by our president. The
only way China wins is to pressure him to back down.
And a lot of people say, well, you know, President
Trump is blank, He's folded. I'm not sure that's the case,
(34:14):
but this is China's only real hope and see jimping
because the way he has basically configured the Chinese political system,
he's perfectly capable of taking China off the cliff before
he actually has substantive discussions with the US. And that
is just an indication of how bad things are in China.
(34:36):
So the issue is I think President Trump holds out
and I think we win this. But the question is
it's the will and the determination of one person, the
guy who sits at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Yeah, it does come down there. The ball starts and
stops here, There's no doubt. Gordon, We've got about a
minute left. Just real quickly, Why has it that America
has continued to treat China, at least regular wise, like
a third world economy when it's the second largest economy
in the globe.
Speaker 10 (35:05):
This is just this is just a failure, not only
in the United States but of everybody else, of giving
China developing economy status when it is so developed in
many respects. This is just wrong and it shows you
that we need to move and change things that have
been in place for decades.
Speaker 8 (35:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Well, you have been sounding the alarm and creating that
blueprint by which Donald Trump is now executing a lot
of these strategies. It's a great honor Gordon always having
the show. Thanks for some great insights tonight.
Speaker 10 (35:35):
Well, it's a great honor for me to talk to
you and Charlie, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Well, we appreciate you so much. Folks, go get his
great books.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
They are the roadmap to how we really should need
to be dealing with China.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
All right, we're gonna take a cup quick commercial break.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
When we come back. Our good friend Bobby Charles is here.
Before we get to that, everybody go to AMAC dot
us lash just News. This is your homework assignment. During
the commercial break. There's a very special offer forty seven
percent off a five year membership. That is great. I'm
a five yard, five year card carring member. You should
be two AMAC dot us.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Slash just News.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Welcome back in America to this Just the News, Real America's Voice.
Special report Securing a more Fair Future on Trade.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Brought to you by AMAC.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm still joined by my co host for tonight, AMAX
Senior Vice President Charles Stuckland, and it's time to bring
in not only AMAX national spokesman, but one of the
most learned people I ever talked to in Washington. He's
a former assistant Secretary of State, a great friend of
the show, and now he's a Republican candidate for governor
in MAYNEYEP. You heard me right, He's going to run
for governor. Our good friend, Bobby Charles, Bobby, welcome back.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
It is a blast to be with you guys always.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Soon we may have to call you governor. That will
be even a bigger blast. We'll have to see how
that goes well.
Speaker 11 (36:48):
All right, if people want to do it, you go
to Bobbyfermain dot com.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
And I'm right there.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, you're you're you're lighting up. People are buzzing all
over the Northeast. Let me start with something that you
are so articular. We're in this moment of terris, but
there is a history to free trade, and we were
all here in the nineties. You and I were both
here in Washington when it started. It sounded great, except
it was free trade for the rest of the world,
but it was pretty unfair trade for America. We kept
(37:14):
making successions and putting up with behavior that we didn't
let the others could not have to comply with. Tell
us how free trade turned out not to be that
free trade at all for America.
Speaker 11 (37:25):
Yeah, so well, let's see if I can do this
in thirty seconds. Many moons ago, when Richard Nixon was president,
we ended up opening China.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
That was a great thing Politically.
Speaker 11 (37:34):
They thought that if you give China lots and lots
of advantages, they will take advantage of them, which they did,
and they will exercise or become affiliated with or they
will understand the concept of economic freedom. And if you
do that, they will understand the concept of political freedom. Well,
it turns out what they did is they interpreted it
as a giveaway and that they would just take advantage
(37:56):
of us in every possible way. And they never did
adopt the political freedom side. So that was error number
one and we're still paying for that. Error number two
is administrations Republican and Democrat for the last thirty years anyway,
maybe forty have allowed trade barriers to grow up. They've
allowed companies to be subsidized by countries. So Canada subsidizes
(38:17):
their you know, their lumber production. They do all the
harvesting for their companies. France owns a part of Air France.
All of these countries were allowed to undertake these relatively
unfair trade advantages that they adopted to themselves. Some of
them set up quotas, some of them set up import quotas,
so you can only ship so many cars into that country,
(38:39):
but they were unlimited in how they could ship them here.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
And of course they.
Speaker 11 (38:42):
Also took advantage of things like cheap labor, even slave labor.
And you know, I mean that's one of the reasons
that Chinese products are so inexpensive.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Their labor is the same thing with Mexico.
Speaker 11 (38:52):
And the United States allowed our companies because we thought
that free trade would generate the outcomes that would ultimately
benefit everybody, instead of just using comparative advantage.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
You know, you grow a corn and I make shoes.
Speaker 11 (39:06):
And we switch back and forth with those we trade
them because you're better at corn and I'm better at shoes.
Instead of that, it became an unfair nightmare for Americans
because what happened is our wages stayed as they should
at a relatively high level. Our companies began to put
all their capital and all their jobs on foreign soil.
Now what Donald Trump has done is said, you know
(39:26):
what we're done with all of that. What we're going
to do is bring all that capital home, all those
jobs home. We're going to reset the field bilaterally, one
on one with all these countries so that you are
no longer allowed to take advantage of the American consumer
and in turn ultimately put us in a position where
we don't have the jobs, we don't have the wages,
(39:46):
we don't have the growth that we could have had.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
What's going to happen is there'll be a slight uptick
in the near term and inflation.
Speaker 11 (39:52):
And I'm going to tell you about nine months from now,
the US market is going to explode because all of
that trillions of dollars capital is going to come home.
Our defense, our defense supply chains are going to come home.
So if we have any conflict over Taiwan or anywhere
else in the world, we don't have to rely on
Germany to give us all our ball bearings or someone
else to give us the ailerons for the planes. We
(40:14):
will make them ourselves. He's also going to bring a
pharmaceuticals home, so China won't be making most of our
advil or most of our pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
I mean, remember, we're an aging population.
Speaker 11 (40:25):
Our pharmaceuticals are a leverage for an enemy or an
adversary to take advantage of us. So all of this
is really a recalibration for thirty or forty or fifty
years of sort of runaway indulgence in the idea that
foreign countries could take advantage of America. And he's saying,
this is not about a new turn of events where
(40:47):
we take advantage of them. This is about the fact
that we are finally saying, you know what, We've had
a weed garden growing here. You've taken advantage of us
for long enough. We're now going to stand up for
the American work or the American business, and.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
We're we're gonna have a fair and even trading environment.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Well, Bud, absolutely, You know, Bobby, you touched on a
few great points there, but I think one major one
is you know, it's been reported since nineteen seventy nine
productivity is up sixty percent, while the typical typical workers
pay is only around up sixteen percent. And you have
whole swaths of industry, for example, you know, the furniture
industry in the Carolinas, cash rich businesses employing tens of
(41:27):
thousands of people. You have Corporate America come in consolidate
those companies, and because of what happened in the nineties,
we ship it overseas, and you know, we see entire
industries decimated when it comes to Maine. Can you talk
to I mean, just not only those constituents, but how
do you make the case when you say, you know,
we all agree. You know, in the longer term, let's
(41:49):
just say corporate income tax gets reduced, there's less volatility
in the markets, International investment will come dumping into the US.
But how do you make the case in the short
term that it's worth the pain to not only Americans
but your potential constituents in Maine.
Speaker 11 (42:05):
Yeah, I'll take people back to that same year that
you just quoted, nineteen seventy nine to make the case.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
Nineteen seventy nine was a year if people go back
and look at the books, and I lived through.
Speaker 11 (42:14):
It when Ronald Reagan was the right guy to come
and succeed Jimmy Carter. Because interest rates were through the
roof at that point, inflation was through the roof at
that point, our trading.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
Relationships were handicapped.
Speaker 11 (42:27):
The average person was not We were facing the upward
spiral of what they call the irrational expectations in inflation,
and Reagan came in and said, look, we're going to
break all of that. Okay, we're going to go back
to basics. We're going to go for a hard day's
work produces.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
A great income.
Speaker 11 (42:43):
And ultimately, in Maine right now, what a governor has
to do is he has to deeply cut. This is
the number one property tax state in the country. The
combination of our income tax, sales tax, and property tax
put us somewhere at number two, three or four in
overall tax burden. We have chased all these businesses out
of the country, so they'll be a little bit of
pain because of the tariffs, and main actually may be
(43:04):
a beneficiary in the long run. Even about the specific
tariffs with Canada, because again I'll.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Use softwood lumber. Softwood lumber is cheaper.
Speaker 11 (43:12):
The Canadian softwood lumber because it's subsidized, is cheaper in
the United States and in Maine than the lumber that
we produce. It may affect our lobstering. We may in
the end be able to have you know, basically get
a better price for lobster long term if you even
out the trading relationship.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
And it does take time, to do that.
Speaker 11 (43:30):
It takes conversation, it takes recognition of the unfairnesses that
have existed and remedying them. And then if you have
a governor and I will do this, I am going.
I am literally on a track to eliminate the income
tax in the state of Maine. I've got accountants working
on it. The idea is not to shift it to
sales or somewhere else, but to bring both property taxes
and income taxes down. So what does that do. It
(43:52):
keeps our kids in the state. It then brings businesses
into the state. It'll actually encourage trades.
Speaker 5 (43:57):
To stay in the state.
Speaker 11 (43:58):
Now the price of housing goes down, Now affordability comes back.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
At the end of the day, you either are on
a virtuous circle or a vicious cycle. And what we
have to do.
Speaker 11 (44:06):
We've been on a vicious cycle here in Maine for
the better part of thirty years. We need to get
on a virtuous cycle where we encourage businesses to come here,
capital come here, get jobs to grow up here, and
therefore our schools begin to feed kids into those jobs.
And at the end of the day, we get the
drug traffickers out of the state. So it's again what
it was in my growing up year is a very
safe and beautiful state that is pro business even as
(44:29):
they are. Obviously I grew up in the woods, as
we love our woods and conservation. But we need to
go back nationally and at the state level to understanding
that everything we're looking at in this room, everything you're
looking at in your room, everything your visitors look at
around them are produced by private sector businesses, small businesses.
Many times we need to encourage entrepreneurship, encourage small businesses,
(44:52):
encourage self reliance, encourage what some like to say the
American dream, to grow up again in Maine so that
people under stand the future is as bright as you
want to make it, and the government is going to
get out of your way. I say, cut crime, cut taxes,
cut the nonsense.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
And that's what I's That's basically what.
Speaker 11 (45:10):
I'm telling people. Get back to common sense policies. And
if you believe in that, go, I mean, if you
want to see Main be that place, whether you come
in the summer or whether you live here, go to
Bobbyfurmaine dot com.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
Help me do it.
Speaker 11 (45:21):
Invest in the future, because it sometimes takes an army
to turn around a state that has gotten badly, badly
off track.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, Bobby, you're so right. Unfortunately we run out of time.
We got to get more on this.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I'm going to come back this next week with you
because I think there's so much more to dig in
on China as well. But great to have you on
the Showta is always you bring a lot of wisdom
context in history with you, which I think a lot
of peer.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Can say don't understand. It's great to have you on.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
Thank you both very much.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
What a great conversation. Always learned a ton when a
body comes on. All right, we're going to take a
commercial break. We've got one more conversation to do before
we wrap up the show tape. But before you do that,
please head over right now that AMAC dot us slash
just News. That's AMAC amac dot us slash just News.
Why because for this month only, they're gonna get forty
seven percent off a five year membership. That's thirty one
(46:11):
bucks set to steal. It'll pay for itself many times over.
Go do it right now. Say thank you to our
good friends at AMAC are making conversations like this possible.
Here Real America's Voice and justin News all right. We'll
be back in a second to wrap up the show
with Dylan Well co commercial break, Welcome Back in America.
(46:37):
One final segment of this justin News, Real America's Voice
special report Securing a More Fair Future on Trade, Joining
me as he has for the whole hour, my amazing
co host, AMAX Senior vice President Charles Stucklan Charlie. When
we went into this, before we started the show, you
and I were talking about the possibility that there's a
great economic boon on the horizon that no one wants
to talk about. Steve Moore said it, Congress and Burlison
(46:59):
said it, Bobby Charles said it. It's something that got
left out of the conversation in regular media, but here
tonight it was pretty prominent.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Absolutely, And you know, short term thinking, that's the problem.
Short term thinking for the last few decades, on what
kind of trade deals we're making with foreign nations, how
we're protecting the US job sector, the US job market, manufacturing,
every sector that exists. And now what you're seeing is
criticisms of tariffs. With short term thinking. You have people
(47:29):
critiquing the current market levels, current market prices. But ultimately, John,
I feel like what we saw this evening, and these
interviews were for the people who fully understand both China
and the economic side. There's a huge amount of potential here.
The volatility obviously there's going to be volatility, you know,
at this exact moment, but the potential for some stability
(47:50):
with these pending trade deals combined with, let's face it,
some things. Donald Trump's already admit potential reduction on the
business side, on corporate taxes, and it just lends itself
to be a potential explosion in US investment in growth.
So I don't know about you, but I feel confident
in hearing that from our guest tonight.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yeah, it was such a star panel of just people
who really know what's going on. I heard three really
important agreements. One, Donald Trump's not going to blink, so
get used to him not blinking. Two, as Steve Moore said,
by us sell China, which is, don't be afraid to
give up on China, move them out. They're in their
own trouble. And then three, get those tax gets done.
Those seem to be the three secret ingredients. Anything we
(48:29):
miss that you think is important.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
No, I mean those seem to be the ingredients as well.
I agree, but I mean, let me leave you with this. So,
the battle over tariff's, over trade, over manufacturing, it's not
just policy, it's personal. It's personal for every AMAC member
whose job was shipped overseas. It's personal for every retiree
wondering why medicine comes from halfway around the world. And
(48:53):
it's personal for every grandparent who wants their grandchild to
grow up in a country that still makes things and
stands for something. So tariffs aren't necessarily and I think
all of our guests agree, tariffs aren't necessarily about punishing anyone.
They're about protecting what we've built and rebuilding what we've lost.
So at AMAC, we believe in common sense conservatism, in
(49:14):
protecting the people who built this country, and in standing
up to the forces that try to hollow it out.
So thank you John for being a part of this conversation.
I appreciate you bringing AMAC into this conversation. And for
those who are not eMac members yet, America needs voices
like yours and we need to be heard louder than ever.
So thank you again, John.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
You couldn't say it, and you did a great job
as my co host, And what a fun conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
We'll have to do this again a real soonent, Charlie.
All right, folks, you hurt Charlie. That was the best
way to close the show.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
If you like the common sense you hurt tonight, go
to AMAC dot us lash just News right now, go
sign up, go join us. I'm a card carring member.
You can be a card carring member. Point your car,
your camera at that QR code and you will be
in the run.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
All right.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Otherwise, go to AMAC dot us Just News. We'll be
back tomorrow and hand off to the amazing Grant Stitchel
and you're in good hands for the next hour.
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