By Don Schmitz
The presidential candidates have starkly different agendas and proposals on foreign policy. That can mean many things, but the largest components are economic, military, and immigration.
Our trade balance deficit increased from $578 billion in 2019 to $626 billion in 2020, $858 billion in 2021, $971 billion in 2022, and $773 billion in 2023. In the last five years, 90 percent of our manufacturing companies have moved some of their production overseas, according to the Boston Consulting Group. The latest data from the United States Census Bureau documents manufacturing in America is steadily declining. Manufacturing firms in the U.S. declined 21 percent in 20 years. Payroll during that time grew from $3.9 trillion (with a T) to $8.2 trillion, while being anemic in the manufacturing sector.
Despite the assertions of deniers, America, once the world leader in manufacturing, lost that position in 2010, now manufacturing $2.4 trillion less than China. Globalization has been good for consumers hungry for affordable products, and good for international companies, but the implications have become a national security question. In the 1970s, we built 5 percent of the world’s ocean-going commercial ships, today it is 0.2 percent. U.S. shipbuilding output has decreased by more than 85 percent since the 1950s, while the number of American shipyards capable of building large vessels has fallen over 80 percent. We currently have five large ocean-going commercial vessels under construction, while China has 1,749. China produces 78 percent of rare earths imported to the U.S., produces 10 times the steel, and 40 times more aluminum than America, all critical for us to ramp up production of material our soldiers would need to defend us against a peer enemy. In World War II, we retooled our economy overnight and produced 300,000 aircraft and 86,000 tanks. We could not replicate that today, but China could. Do the math.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump is proposing tariff policies to sway manufacturing trends back to the U.S. He threatened automakers, and recently John Deere tractors, with 200 percent tariffs if they moved their manufacturing to Mexico. Republicans have historically been free traders, as tariffs are inflationary, make goods more expensive, and hurt the economy. However, the foreign policy implications can’t be denied, nor is economic warfare new. We cut off trade with the Nazis when they went to war, cut off the oil to Imperial Japan, and boycotted South Africa to fight apartheid. In the first Trump administration, we increased tariffs on China, and notably the Biden/Harris administration just increased them. It’s basic — if companies fear loss of market share, our manufacturers won’t move overseas. One hopes the tariffs will never materialize, but the laissez-faire has put us in a precarious position.
Militarily, the Biden/Harris administration has been a disaster, and recently Ms. Harris quipped that she wouldn’t do anything different from the last four years. The horrifically botched withdrawal from Afghanistan left our allies reeling, after the administration ignored the joint chiefs and displayed the incompetence of our civilian leadership. Biden/Harris dropped Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions against Iran, and their oil exports surged, bringing them $35 billion (much of it to China). They released $10 billion in frozen Iranian assets, even after the Oct. 7 slaughter in Israel. Astonishingly, they released $6 billion in Iranian assets held in Korea for the release of five American prisoners.
In 2019, peace was breaking out all over the Middle East with the Abraham accords, when Bahrain, the UAE, and Sudan agreed to normalize ties with Israel. Four years later, Biden/Harris have delivered raging wars involving Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran. We have 291 ships in our Navy, down from 300 in 2019. Military readiness is alarmingly low. Marine F-35’s are only 25 percent mission capable. Navy ships are undermanned and aging. In 2023 the military was 43,000 short of their recruiting goals. Our stocks of missiles and ordinance is depleted below readiness levels as we sent our supplies to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. A wargame conducted last year by the think tank Center for a New American Security found the U.S. would run out of long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than a week in a fight with China over Taiwan.
Harris promises continuity of the Biden policies, which has resulted in widespread war and diminished military capabilities. Immigration, historically not viewed so much as a foreign policy matter as a domestic issue, has become a pivotal national sovereignty concern. The border has collapsed despite border czar Harris’s platitudes for three years that it was secure. This administration is on track to have allowed 10 million illegal aliens into America during their tenure, including 13,000 released by ICE convicted of homicide. Law-enforcement agencies warn immigrant gangs have ignited robbery sprees across the nation and seized control of drug and human trafficking networks. Harris called the border wall Trump’s “medieval vanity project,” (now wants to build it), sought to defund ICE, and close immigration detention facilities. Voters will decide who will follow through and deliver.