Guest Post by Richard Manjarres

In 2017, President Trump momentously declared America open for business once again. After decades of companies leaving America for foreign nations, President Trump instituted a whole set of re-shoring policies that were successful in bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Though President Trump’s tariff policies received harsh opposition from both the left and establishment conservatives beholden to special interests and wedded to outdated Cold War-era economic ideology, they have turned out to be a resounding and somewhat under-appreciated success story of Trump’s presidency. Perhaps the best evidence of this success is that such trade policies and tariffs on China in particular have remained in place even under Biden. Now, nearly four years after Trump left office, companies continue to reshore in the United States as a result of his policies.

This week at his rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump touted his tariffs on China and gave a preview of how he plans to increase those tariffs if he takes back the White House. Trump explained with characteristic boldness that not only will he be bringing US companies back onshore, but he will even be getting Chinese companies to build factories in America and hire American workers. Specifically, President Trump said, “China has to build plants here and hire our workers. When I’m back in the White House, the way they will sell their product in America is to build it in America. They have to build it in America. And they have to use you people to build it.”

Here, Trump is reiterating an important part of his tough on China policy that is often overlooked: Not only did Trump stop American jobs from going to China, he actually got China to give their jobs to us. They call it “The Art of the Deal” for a reason.

Now, in anticipation of a Trump victory, companies are beginning to ramp up their onshoring. One such company that’s following Trump’s lead with their own “Made in America” initiative is Gotion Inc. Gotion, one of the top lithium battery producers in the world, is planning to build two factories in Michigan and Illinois during the next Trump administration that will employ 5,000 Americans. That’s 5,000 stable manufacturing jobs for forgotten Americans in the Rust Belt. Not bad.

Gotion’s decision to open up its plant is reminiscent of other celebrated onshoring wins of the Trump era—whether it be the Intel plant in Arizona, the Carrier plant that didn’t go to Mexico, or the celebrated TSMC plant that brought thousands of jobs to Arizona. To add icing on the cake, though Gotion is an American company subject to US law and its biggest shareholder is the German Volkswagen, it has a parent company based in China. Thus, thanks to Trump’s policies, we have gone from the gutting of the rust belt as a result of American companies outsourcing to China to a much different situation in which not only American companies reshore back to America, but even Chinese companies feel compelled to build their factories here as well.

Just as sure as you can count on Trump’s tariff policies bringing victories to American workers, so can you count on misguided Republicans to attempt to sabotage those victories. And sure enough, some well-meaning but misguided politicians are trying to block Gotion from building its factories in the US on account of its Chinese parent company. It would be one thing if it were determined that the factory could pose some sort of national security threat. So far, there is no indication at all of any threat, and CFIUS has not deemed it a threat.

Nonetheless, some Republicans still insist on trying to prevent this deal that would bring thousands and thousands of jobs to Americans in a critical manufacturing and swing state. One of the men leading this charge was a Never Trumper who supported the Russiagate investigation and demanded Trump release his tax returns; another couldn’t bear to even endorse Trump until the last minute in 2016; yet another was actually a registered lobbyist for Chinese companies in the past. Leaving aside such questionable histories, it bears repeating that blocking Chinese factories from opening in the United States does not constitute a victory over China—quite the contrary, it would be foolishly nullifying a victory for America-first trade policy over China implied in the fact that China is now forced to employ, rather than steal jobs from, American workers. This is precisely what President Trump meant when he said he actually wants Chinese companies to build their products here using American workers.

We’ve seen an interesting parallel to this dynamic in the posture many misguided conservatives have taken toward TikTok. Many on the right even pushed for an outright ban on TikTok and would often cite its Chinese parentage as evidence of its alleged foreign influence. While there are certainly questions as to the overall effect of social media on mental health and culture, the notion that TikTok was the worst offender among Big Tech firms is outright ridiculous. When it comes to censorship, TikTok has always been among the least censorious, and the censorship that did occur happened at the behest of the American offices to cater to the censorship demands of the American regime.

As Revolver News wisely argued some time ago, the real impetus behind the attacks on TikTok, and many of the attacks on China generally, is that it makes for a convenient scapegoat and consolation prize. Don’t have the guts or the power to go after Google? Just blame TikTok. Don’t have the guts to go after the American policymakers who locked down our country over COVID? Make sure the attention stays on China. Don’t have the guts to point out and fix our border crisis? Just talk about China and the Uighurs. Don’t have the guts to talk about political correctness and speech restrictions in the US? Just point your finger at China.

Of course, none of this is to say that China is admirable or to deny that, in key respects, it is our chief economic and geopolitical competitor. It is precisely because China is our chief geopolitical and economic competitor that we can’t afford to use them as a scapegoat to excuse our own shortcomings, as in the case of Big Tech censorship, or to foolishly undermine our own successes, as in the case of Gotion and other companies that may want to onshore and provide jobs for hardworking Americans.

President Trump was about getting real wins against China, not fake political victories. There’s a massive difference between putting tariffs on China to bring manufacturing back, as President Trump did, and inventing national security threats where there aren’t any because you need a boogeyman. It’s the difference between actually being pro-America versus simply pursuing a PR strategy.

Unfortunately, President Trump is the only American leader who seems able to differentiate between China policy that helps America win and China hysteria that helps squishy politicians rehabilitate their image. God only knows what company Republicans will target next. It’s time for the MAGA base to stop falling for these antics and call out these PR stunts for what they are.

Mr. Manjarres is a former White House aide under President Donald J. Trump.