WEBVTT

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To win the trade war, the 
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 
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 
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 
been hoarding toilet paper since 2020.

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

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But it’s all worth it now. 
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 
definitely cargo ships heading to the US.

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And people should not panic buy 
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 
shortages, that’s not because of the trade war,  

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

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

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If you panic buy anything, 
it should probably be things  

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like back-to-school supplies 
and Christmas decorations. 

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

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

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

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

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Which is great for the Chinese 
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 
should hate the tariffs, they might have a shot. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Now, Goldman Sachs estimates that US tariffs 
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 
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 
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 
companies can’t afford to pay people as much,  

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

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

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

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out it's hard for businesses to survive when 
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. 
And a bunch of people lost their jobs, too.

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The New York Times talked to a guy who 
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. 
Now he’s lucky if he can make half that.”

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

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

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So China’s economy is on shaky ground. 
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. 
And they’re really good at narrative warfare. 

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

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the CCP needs to make Americans THINK they’re 
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 
eat bitterness, but Americans can’t.

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Eating bitterness is the Chinese term for 
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 
bitterness for the good of the nation. 

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I talked in a previous episode 
about how young Chinese people  

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don’t seem quite as willing to eat 
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 
people are willing to suffer more.

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Which is why China’s Foreign Ministry is 
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 
bullying. China won’t kneel down.”)

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

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

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

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

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Earlier this week, Beijing Daily 
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 
Chairman Mao during the Sino-Japanese War in 1938.

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

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

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

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

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designating an enemy and mobilizing the 
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 
Party Central Committee had  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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But we do know some things. And it 
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 
CCP put additional tariffs on US imports,  

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

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

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“Those products include certain semiconductors and  

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chipmaking equipment, medical 
products and aviation parts.”

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

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

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they’re going to be flexible with their 
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 
the first to report that China was  

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going to exempt semiconductors, 
seems to have been censored. 

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

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

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

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be assembled in countries like Cambodia and 
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 
orders for their US customers. 

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The idea is the Indian companies 
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 
their manufacturing out of China, too. 

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

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India instead of China. And they’re 
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 
from moving their iPhone manufacturing  

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

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Well, that’s awkward.

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

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

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

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

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Ok, so forget taking machines hostage. People 
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 
staying at the Hotel California.  

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

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

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

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

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and foreign companies are trying to 
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 
US manufacturing from China.

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

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

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

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

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“The existence of the American 
system ipso facto threatens the  

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

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

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

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That’s pretty clear from their 
latest propaganda narrative.

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“China won’t kneel down”)

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

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

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Can the CCP actually force people to eat 
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 
won’t eventually be consequences. 

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Look at what happened during 
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 
Communist Party’s worst nightmare.

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The best case scenario for the CCP is that 
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 
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 
to win the narrative war. 

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Which means these posts 
are exactly what it needs. 

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And unfortunately the Trump 
administration doesn’t seem to be  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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