By Douglas V. Gibbs
The Chinese Communists are a tough bunch of tyrants. It takes a lot to make them sweat. Like Islamist radicals, they play the long game – patiently plotting their victory not on some battlefield, but through infiltration, waiting out the turbulence, and letting the West hang itself with its own declining culture.
And then Donald J. Trump showed up.
On “Liberation Day,” Trump hit Beijing where it hurts, slapping tariffs on their cheap exports that gutted American manufacturing and sent a river of cash straight to the CCP. The leverage was massive. Nearly 20% of China’s GDP depends on exports, and they’re the world’s top exporter, with almost a fifth of their workforce in manufacturing. But their obsession with production over consumption left Xi Jinping boxed in, unable to pivot when Trump’s tariffs landed.
After hammering China with tariffs, Trump went for their energy jugular. Past presidents? They’d sanction China’s allies, and all that did was let China buy oil on the cheap. Desperate sellers like Iran and Venezuela cut sweetheart deals with Beijing. China didn’t just save money, they built alliances, not for ideology, but to prop up each other’s economies and stand united against the American threat.
But now? Maduro’s gone. Khamenei’s dead. Beijing just lost two of its best puppets. And what’s worse? The United Nations is dead silent as American and Israeli forces pound Iran’s once-mighty presence into dust.
As tariffs bleed China’s economy and oil from Venezuela and Iran dries up, China’s 1.4 billion people are waking up to the truth: Xi Jinping’s story about America’s decline was a lie. State-run media can’t censor everything, and the truth is seeping through. Worse for the communist elite, their military planners, foreign policy gurus, and provincial officials are reading between the lines. Iran fell. Venezuela fell. And the American President is talking about defending Taiwan and dismantling China’s global network piece by piece.
China’s lost influence, energy, and control of the narrative—and Trump’s just getting warmed up. They can’t condemn or support what’s happening, because either way, they lose face. Doing nothing invites Trump to keep crusading. They can’t bluff. They can’t fight. And as they hide behind the United Nations, that well’s running dry. Trump’s pulling us out of the U.N.’s grip and building his own Board of Peace. While China screams “sovereignty violation,” the world cheers the fall of dictators. While China wails about “American decline,” the world sees what Trump sees: America’s the hottest country on the planet. By the time this is over, China will realize not only is the U.S. standing tall as a superpower, but if things keep going their way, America will be the world’s only superpower.
China’s Belt and Road allies are watching. Beijing’s hoping Iran’s playbook for revenge against Washington works. But the writing’s on the wall, and they know it. The tariffs are biting. Maduro’s gone. And “Operation Epic Fury” is landing blow after blow on China. The economic monster China built is being dismantled, tariffs tearing it apart while the oil infrastructure and ports Chinese companies invested in are getting wrecked. The ships from Venezuela have stopped. The Strait of Hormuz is shut down. Nearly half of China’s oil imports are sitting behind enemy lines. With the Middle East in chaos, America’s fine. Trump’s already in the middle of his “drill, baby, drill” push. Gas prices might be climbing here, but China’s fuel crisis is existential.
The silence says it all. No emergency summits. No diplomatic maneuvers. No military posturing or threats. They’ve got a few moves left on the board, and none of them are good. American pressure has cornered their rooks and eliminated their knights. The pawns have all but fallen. Trump knew exactly what he was doing. Taking out Maduro was good for the Western Hemisphere. “Operation Epic Fury” is breaking Iran. But China’s influence in those regions? Shattered, and in a way Xi Jinping never saw coming. Now, China’s stuck somewhere it never thought it’d be…
On defense.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
