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To win the trade war, the [br]CCP just needs one thing.

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Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.

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The US-China trade war has been going on for [br]three weeks now, and you know what that means.

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It’s time to panic!

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If you go on X, you’ll see posts with millions [br]of views claiming that US ports are empty.

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That there are zero cargo ships.

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That you should panic buy rice and toilet paper.

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Yes! Finally! My time has come! I’ve [br]been hoarding toilet paper since 2020.

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It’s made living in New York [br]City slightly challenging.

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But it’s all worth it now. [br]Time to sell it all for profit!

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Wait, what’s that, Shelley?

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None of that is true?

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Ports are not empty, and there are [br]definitely cargo ships heading to the US.

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And people should not panic buy [br]rice, which is grown in America,

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or toilet paper, which is made in America.

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Fine, fine.

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I guess if you start seeing toilet paper [br]shortages, that’s not because of the trade war,

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that’s because people got freaked [br]out by stupid social media posts.

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The vast majority of food [br]shouldn’t be affected, either.

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If you panic buy anything, [br]it should probably be things

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like back-to-school supplies [br]and Christmas decorations.

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I’m not saying there won’t be shortages of [br]made in China stuff. There probably will be,

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but we won’t see that in stores [br]for weeks, or even months down

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the line. Chinese products will also get more [br]expensive. But we don’t know how expensive.

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There’s a lot of uncertainty right [br]now, and a lot of fearmongering.

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Which is great for the Chinese [br]Communist Party. Because they need

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the Trump administration to back down on tariffs.

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And if the CCP can convince Americans they [br]should hate the tariffs, they might have a shot.

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I’ll tell you why the CCP wants this so badly [br]in a minute. But first, you know YouTube has

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been soft censoring this channel, but you can [br]subvert YouTube’s censorship by subscribing

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to our free weekly newsletter. Each newsletter [br]has links to all our episodes each week, plus

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extra analysis you won’t see anywhere else—and [br]it’s free. Sign up now. The link is below.

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Ok, so the CCP wants the US to lower their [br]tariffs. Because if the tariffs continue

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at this level, China is going to [br]be much worse off than the US.

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Yes, US consumers will feel some pain. But [br]like I explained in a previous episode,

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China now more than ever depends on exports to [br]keep its economy going and people employed.

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That’s because the Chinese real estate market [br]has already collapsed. And that’s the other

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major driver of the Chinese economy. So they [br]NEED to export stuff. That’s all they have.

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Now, Goldman Sachs estimates that US tariffs [br]could endanger 16 million export jobs in China.

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And that’s probably on the low end.

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In a trade war, the country [br]that’s the bigger exporter

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will generally be hit harder. And that’s China.

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Chinese workers are in even more trouble because [br]China’s been fighting deflation for years.

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China’s economy is in a deflationary spiral.

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That’s when prices fall, which means [br]companies can’t afford to pay people as much,

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so wages fall. And that means [br]people don’t want to buy stuff,

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so consumer demand falls, which means prices [br]fall even further. And it keeps on going.

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China’s been fighting deflation ever since [br]their disastrous Zero Covid policy. Turns

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out it's hard for businesses to survive when [br]everyone is locked inside their apartments.

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The real estate crisis also made deflation worse,

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because people’s savings were wiped out. [br]And a bunch of people lost their jobs, too.

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The New York Times talked to a guy who [br]was a construction worker and a plumber.

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“When times were good, Mr. Wang said,

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he could make as much as $13,600 a year. [br]Now he’s lucky if he can make half that.”

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Think about that for a second. Even during [br]the good times, his income was several

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thousand dollars below the poverty line in the [br]US. Now he’s not even making half of that.

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So China’s economy is on shaky ground. [br]And tariffs are making things worse,

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by endangering more Chinese jobs.

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But the Chinese Communist Party is digging in. [br]And they’re really good at narrative warfare.

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I’ve shown you why China is going to be hit [br]harder by tariffs than the US. So the trick is,

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the CCP needs to make Americans THINK they’re [br]the ones who will be hit harder instead.

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And to do that, the CCP is relying on the

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perception that Chinese people can [br]eat bitterness, but Americans can’t.

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Eating bitterness is the Chinese term for [br]enduring hardships. Basically, suffering.

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly told

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the Chinese people that they need to eat [br]bitterness for the good of the nation.

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I talked in a previous episode [br]about how young Chinese people

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don’t seem quite as willing to eat [br]bitterness as previous generations.

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But in narrative warfare, that doesn’t matter,

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as long as Americans THINK Chinese [br]people are willing to suffer more.

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Which is why China’s Foreign Ministry is [br]releasing propaganda videos like this.

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“History has proven compromise won’t earn you

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mercy. Kneeling only invites more [br]bullying. China won’t kneel down.”)

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The rest of the video calls America [br]an arrogant imperialist, and shows

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China leading the world in solidarity [br]against America over some heroic music.

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The message is clearly that America is the bad guy [br]and it better give up, because China never will.

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That same message is being repeated [br]in the CCP’s domestic propaganda.

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Earlier this week, Beijing Daily [br]published an article called “Today,

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it is necessary to revisit On Protracted War.”

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On Protracted War was a series of speeches made by [br]Chairman Mao during the Sino-Japanese War in 1938.

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This Beijing Daily article is very [br]Marxist. It blames America’s problems

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on the capitalist system, it talks [br]a lot about dialectal materialism,

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and it repeatedly refers [br]to the “US-China struggle.”

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I’ve talked before about how “struggle” [br]or “douzheng” is the communist concept of

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designating an enemy and mobilizing the [br]entire society to “struggle” against it.

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In this case, the enemy is obviously the US.

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According to the article, “The [br]Party Central Committee had

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already anticipated the long-term [br]nature of the China-U.S. rivalry

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and proactively laid out plans for [br]future major power competition.”

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In other words, the CCP is in it for the [br]long haul. The gist of the article is

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warning that the US-China struggle will [br]not be over quickly, but that the CCP,

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sorry, “the people” will ultimately [br]win over the imperialist Americans.

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So that’s what the CCP is saying. But what’s [br]actually happening in China right now?

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Well, since it’s an authoritarian state [br]with total control over its domestic media

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and a huge online censorship apparatus, we’re [br]not going to get a totally clear picture.

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But we do know some things. And it [br]looks like the CCP is saying one thing,

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and doing another. What a surprise!

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First, you know that earlier this month, the [br]CCP put additional tariffs on US imports,

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in retaliation for US tariffs. But now, [br]it looks like the CCP is going to exempt

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some US products from those tariffs, [br]because they really really need them.

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“Those products include certain semiconductors and

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chipmaking equipment, medical [br]products and aviation parts.”

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They could also exempt chemicals like ethane, [br]which China uses to make a ton of plastics.

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Does that sound like a compromise, even though [br]the CCP swore they would never do that? Yeah,

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they’re going to be flexible with their [br]tariffs on US goods when they need to

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be—but they don’t want people to know about it.

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In fact, Caijing Magazine, which was [br]the first to report that China was

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going to exempt semiconductors, [br]seems to have been censored.

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Meanwhile, Chinese export companies [br]are trying to survive the US tariffs.

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Some smaller factories are temporarily pausing [br]operations or even completely shutting down.

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(Others are trying to get around tariffs by using [br]transshipment—for example sending products to

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be assembled in countries like Cambodia and [br]Vietnam, which then get re-routed to the US.

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There are even reports of Chinese companies asking

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Indian exporters to fill their [br]orders for their US customers.

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The idea is the Indian companies [br]would fulfill the orders,

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and pay the Chinese companies a commission.

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And foreign companies are trying to move [br]their manufacturing out of China, too.

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For example, Apple is trying to [br]source all of its US iPhones from

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India instead of China. And they’re [br]looking to do it as soon as next year.

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The CCP isn’t a fan of that idea though.

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CCP officials are trying to stop Apple [br]from moving their iPhone manufacturing

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equipment out of China. Yeah, they’re [br]kind of taking machines hostage.

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Well, that’s awkward.

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Foreign clothing manufacturers are [br]also trying to get out of China.

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Or even sending Chinese workers to [br]factories in the Philippines or Vietnam.

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And factory owners from Hong Kong and Taiwan [br]are trying to avoid physically being at their

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own factories in China, because they’re worried [br]about being kidnapped by Chinese authorities.

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Ok, so forget taking machines hostage. People [br]are worried China will take people hostage.

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Wouldn’t be the first time.

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So doing business in China is like [br]staying at the Hotel California.

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You can check out anytime you [br]like, but you can never leave.

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Side note: I don’t know if it still is, but in [br]the early 2000s, Hotel California was one of the

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most popular Western songs in China. You could [br]not get away from it. And I have no idea why.

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Anyway, the point is, Chinese factories are [br]trying to get their products out of China,

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and foreign companies are trying to [br]get their factories out of China.

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Which means, the US tariffs are…actually working.

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At least in terms of decoupling [br]US manufacturing from China.

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And that’s good news for Americans. Because [br]we don’t want our economy to be held hostage

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by a regime that will…literally hold [br]people hostage to get what they want.

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Especially since the CCP also sees [br]America as a threat to its survival.

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And it’s not just me saying that. Here’s [br]Cold War historian Professor Stephen Kotkin.

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“The existence of the American [br]system ipso facto threatens the

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survival of the Communist Party because it's a [br]freer—it's an open, successful alternative.”)

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Kotkin goes on to say that it doesn’t [br]matter what US policy is toward China,

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the CCP will always see the [br]US as standing in its way.

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That’s pretty clear from their [br]latest propaganda narrative.

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“China won’t kneel down”)

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So what happens now? The CCP refuses [br]to back down, at least publicly. But

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companies are actually leaving China [br]and China’s economy is getting wrecked.

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Can the CCP actually force people to eat [br]bitterness and ride out the trade war?

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Yes they can, because they’re an authoritarian

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state. But that doesn’t mean there [br]won’t eventually be consequences.

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Look at what happened during [br]the Zero Covid lockdowns.

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Eventually Chinese people reached a breaking point

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and started to protest. Which is the [br]Communist Party’s worst nightmare.

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The best case scenario for the CCP is that [br]the US simply backs down from all the tariffs,

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under pressure from various interest groups.

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To do that, the CCP needs to convince [br]Americans that China is too strong to

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get hurt, and America is the one getting screwed.

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In other words, China needs [br]to win the narrative war.

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Which means these posts [br]are exactly what it needs.

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And unfortunately the Trump [br]administration doesn’t seem to be

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doing a good job of telling Americans [br]why tariffs on China are important.

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Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think we [br]should have a country that sees America

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as its enemy making everything from [br]our children’s toys to our medicines.

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But you know what they don’t make? [br]Our toilet paper. USA number…2!!!

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And if you liked this episode, remember [br]to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter

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so you can see all of our episodes, even when [br]YouTube doesn’t want you to. The link is below.

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Thanks for watching. I’m Chris [br]Chappell. See you next time.