The Manchurian Candidate

Joe China must never be allowed near the White House again
By Steve Hilton
Beijing man Joe China

As America's economy roars ahead, we bring you the truth about the man who says he wants to take us back -- Joe Biden.
On Friday, there was more confirmation that the central promise of the Trump revolution -- to get the economy moving again -- is being delivered.

Growth is up, investment up and incomes are up. 

It is an incredible performance for this stage of an economic expansion and is the direct result of this administration's pro-enterprise policy agenda. 

This is Donald Trump's blue-collar boom, delivering historic results for working Americans, exactly as he promised.
Meanwhile, last week we also saw the launch of a presidential campaign built on a pledge to go back to the pre-Trump era -- the era of slow growth and wage stagnation. 

After months of dithering, after pathetically fishing around for a pre-picked running mate like Stacey Abrams. 

After telling us with that move that he himself believes he is too old, too white, too male and too establishment to win his party's nomination, Joe Biden has finally entered the race for 2020.
Biden says he wants to take America back to "normal." 

We're going to show you what Joe Biden's "normal" really looks like and give you the facts that not only reveal his political vulnerability but which, by the Democrats' own standards, make him unfit for the presidency and which should disqualify his candidacy.
In 2016, Americans voted against the establishment and since then, as they've seen the establishment close ranks to undermine President Trump at every turn, the rage against the Swamp Machine has, if anything, increased.
Now, the establishment wants its power back. 

They're running Joe Biden for president, and it is literally impossible to think of a more establishment politician than him. 

He is the very definition of a corrupt insider.
Biden has been a professional politician for nearly 50 years -- and what a record he's built in that time. 

We know Biden is sexist. 

His creepy habit of inappropriate touching shows that, while he may not actively discriminate against women -- in his "soul," as he might say -- he views women as less than men. 

And of course, his creepy clean-up video didn't fool anyone.
It's the same with race. 

Just remember how he talks about people from a different racial background. 

He has said things like the following:
On Obama: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
On the ethnic makeup of his home state: "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."
Again, let's be precise about the point: I'm not saying Biden believes in racial discrimination. 

But anyone who speaks like that, in his "soul," clearly thinks black and brown people are less than white people.
We know Joe Biden is verbally incontinent and can barely open his mouth without putting his foot in it. 

But the thing that is less well-known is how irredeemably swampy Biden is. 

Just for his own use, he has taken $29 million in donations since 1989 -- that's as far back as the data goes. 

All those millions mean favors for special interests.
Here's just a few highlights from his swampy career.
Biden loves to tout his foreign policy experience. 

And yes, he has plenty of experience with foreign governments -- or should I say, their lobbyists. Foreign government lobbying, one of the most inexcusable swamp practices, was all part of the job for Joe Biden when he was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

He took money from lobbyists for Dubai, for the United Arab Emirates, for Ethiopia, for Sri Lanka, for China and yes, for Turkey. 

Turkey? 

I seem to remember Democrats getting rather upset when Michael Flynn was accused of lobbying for Turkey
But the biggest payoff for Biden during his time in the Senate came from credit card company MBNA. 

His craven backing for MBNA, in exchange for their cash, even earned Biden the nickname "the Senator from MBNA."
Effectively countering China's rise is the single most important strategic challenge for the next president. 

How can Joe Biden possibly do that when the Chinese government has been funding Biden family businesses? 

Just on the basis of what we already know, by the standards the Democrats have set for Trump, Joe Biden is compromised by a foreign power and unfit to be president.
In 2005, Biden backed a bankruptcy bill that protected banks and credit card companies while hurting middle-class families. 

Biden might say, well, MBNA is headquartered in Delaware, I represent Delaware in the Senate, so of course, I'm going to help them. 

But if it's a senator's job to help businesses based in their state, why do you need to be paid millions of dollars extra to do it?
The simple truth is that Biden sided with his donors against working Americans, and that's the real story of his life. 

His entire office was infested by swampiness.
His legislative assistant, Tracy Becker, became a lobbyist for MWW group. 

His political director, Ankit Desai, became a lobbyist at the same firm, before becoming a lobbyist for Cheniere Energy. 

Biden's chief counsel became a lobbyist at Mayer Brown. 

In 2008, Biden brought him back to work as an advisory board member for the Obama-Biden transition team. 

Great!
Biden's policy adviser, Michael Haltzel, became a lobbyist for DLA Piper. 

His deputy chief of staff as vice president, Alan Hoffman, became the chief lobbyist for PepsiCo before becoming a lobbyist for Herbalife International.
On and on it goes, round and round it spins -- Joe Biden's revolving door. 

Five decades of favor-trading, influence peddling and corruption. 

So swampy.
But so what, some might say. 

They're all like that. 

Yes, they are. 

But there's one more thing about Biden. 

This is what makes him dangerous. 

This is what should disqualify him from the presidency. 

Since 2016, the Democrats and their establishment media allies have relentlessly accused President Trump of being a foreign agent or being compromised by a foreign power. 

And they're still saying it, even though the Mueller investigation concluded that it was all a lie.

Beijing man

With Joe Biden, on the other hand, there is a much more worrying relationship with a foreign power, one that presents a vastly bigger threat to America than Russia -- China.
In December 2013, then-Vice President Biden rode Air Force Two on an official trip to Asia, as tensions were high over disputed territories in the East China Sea. 

Biden was joined by his son, Hunter, who was building a private equity firm along with his business partner and friend, Chris Heinz -- heir of the Heinz Ketchup family fortune and stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden were ushered into Beijing on a red carpet with a delegation of Chinese officials. 

From there, Joe went straight into meetings with the vice president of China and Xi Jinping.
The next morning, the Bidens had a meeting with the U.S.-China Business Council. 

From there, it was off to Villa No.5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where Madame Mao lived during the cultural revolution.
Joe Biden struck a soft, friendly tone with the Chinese leadership, disappointing allies in the area, like Japan, who were alarmed by China's increasing aggression. 

But Joe had other issues besides the global balance of power on his mind, issues like his son's business deals.
Hunter's presence on the trip was far from coincidence. 

Just 10 days later, his company, Rosemont Seneca, signed an exclusive $1 billion deal with the state-owned Bank of China, creating an investment fund called Bohai Harvest, with money backed by the Chinese government.
In the words of Peter Schweizer, who first unveiled these conflicts of interest in his book "Secret Empires," "the Chinese government was literally funding a business that it co-owned along with the sons of two of America's most powerful decision makers." 
That is what it looks like to be "compromised by a foreign power."
And that deal was far from a one-off.
In 2011, less than a year after opening his company, Hunter Biden was in China working with a company called Thornton Group to explore business opportunities with Chinese state-owned enterprises.
The Thornton Group touted the meetings on their Chinese-language website, saying Chinese executives "extended their warm welcome" to the "Thornton Group, with its U.S. partner Rosemont Seneca Chairman Hunter Biden (second son of the now Vice President Joe Biden)."
A screengrab of that web post captured by the Government Accountability Institute features a number of photos of Hunter Biden posing with powerful Chinese officials.
Thornton Group was marketing their access to the son of the vice president to attract business with China.
But guess what?
The write-up and pictures of those meetings on Thornton Group's Chinese language website did not appear on their English-language website. 
And here's another curious fact: These meetings occurred just hours before Vice President Joe Biden met with the Chinese dictator in Washington.
In May that same year, Hunter had a second meeting with many of the same Chinese financial powerhouses -- just two weeks after his dad, the vice president, opened up the U.S.-China strategic dialogue with Chinese officials in Washington.
And in 2014, another arm of Hunter's company -- Rosemont Realty -- began negotiating multi-billion dollar deals with Gemini Investments, a Chinese firm with ties to the China ocean shipping company which operates as an extension of the Chinese military.
But it's not even just China.
A recent court case gave us a close look at the financial statements of Rosemont Seneca Bohai.
Most of the money going out of the account was to Hunter Biden.
Wait till you see where some of the money going into it came from:

• $145K from a Kazak oligarch
• $1 million from Chinese entities
• $1.2 million from a mysterious LLC tied to a Swiss bank that's been implicated in money laundering
• $3.1 million from corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs

Speaking of corruption in the Ukraine, recent reporting by investigative journalist John Solomon revealed that in March 2016, when Ukraine's chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin conducted a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma holdings, of which Hunter Biden -- who else -- was a board member, his father Joe threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. government unless that prosecutor was fired.
When it came to a choice between working Americans and his donors, Biden chose the donors.
When it came to a choice between working Americans and China, he chose China. 
He may have started out as a blue collar boy from Scranton, Pa., but he ended up as a swampy stooge for Beijing, China
Look, Joe Biden has been through family tragedy that, to me, seems unendurable -- and he has handled it with obvious strength and grace.
But he's putting himself forward for the Oval Office, not Oprah.
He must be accountable for his actions and the swampiness we've shown you.
Joe Biden obviously loves his children and would do anything for them.
I feel the same way about mine.
But when you're the vice president, you can't run around doing favors for America's enemies to help make money for your son.
Think of all the breathless bloviating these past two years about Jared Kushner's property dealings and Ivanka Trump's business in China and Moscow Trump hotels that never got built.
Most of it, by the way, before Donald Trump became president.
And none of it, obviously, influencing policy, since this president has been much tougher on Russia than Obama ever was and is the first president to stand up to China in about 50 years.
By contrast, these Biden deals were real.
They happened.
Literally, billions of dollars paid over by the Chinese government to Biden companies when Joe Biden was vice president and when Joe Biden went soft on China.
Effectively countering China's rise is the single most important strategic challenge for the next president.
How can Biden possibly do that when the Chinese government has been funding Biden family businesses?
Just on the basis of what we already know, by the standards the Democrats have set for Trump, Joe Biden is compromised by a foreign power and unfit to be president.
But there is a lot more we need to know.
What went on in those Beijing meetings?
In Villa no.5?
What promises were made?
What favors were exchanged?
Why did Joe Biden go soft on China when its aggression -- and our allies -- demanded a tough response?
To borrow Nancy Pelosi's words, what does China have on Joe Biden politically, personally or financially?
Here's the bottom line about Joe Biden: He is a fake and a phony.
On Monday he launches his campaign in a union hall to brand himself a man of the working people. Don't let him fool you.
He's trading on a reputation that hasn't been true for decades.
When it came to a choice between working Americans and his donors, he chose the donors.
When it came to a choice between working Americans and China, he chose China. 
He may have started out as a blue-collar boy from Scranton, Pa., but he ended up as a swampy stooge for Beijing, China.
Joe Biden is "Joe China," and he must never be allowed anywhere near the White House again.

China's economic aggression is a global threat

The White House in a new report details acts of China's economic aggression. The report lists practices that threaten the technologies and intellectual property of the United States and the world.
By Huileng Tan

The Trump administration ratcheted up its criticism of China in a report released by the White House on Tuesday detailing its claims of economic aggression by the Asian giant.
The 35-page report titled "How China's Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World" came a day after President Donald Trump threatened to slap additional tariffs on goods from China, setting off market turmoil.
China "has experienced rapid economic growth to become the world's second largest economy while modernizing its industrial base and moving up the global value chain. However, much of this growth has been achieved through aggressive acts, policies, and practices that fall outside of global norms and rules (collectively, 'economic aggression')," the White House report said in its opening.
It goes on to describe practices through which China "seeks to access the crown jewels of American technology and intellectual property."
Chinese acts of economic aggression include physical and cyber-enabled theft of technologies and intellectual property, evading U.S. export control laws, counterfeiting, piracy and reverse engineering.
Of note, the report also says that Beijing seeks to manipulate or pressure any of the more than 300,000 Chinese nationals annually attending U.S. universities or working at important American institutions. 

The White House said those Chinese nationals become "non-traditional information collectors that serve Beijing's military and strategic ambitions."
The report also lists a "wide range of coercive and intrusive regulatory gambits to force the transfer of foreign technologies and [intellectual property] to Chinese competitors, in exchange for access to the vast Chinese market." 

Those policies include foreign ownership restrictions, strict administrative approvals and licensing requirements, discriminatory patent and other intellectual property rights restrictions.
"Given the size of China's economy, the demonstrable extent of its market-distorting policies, and China's stated intent to dominate the industries of the future, China's acts, policies, and practices of economic aggression now targeting the technologies and [intellectual property] of the world threaten not only the U.S. economy but also the global innovation system as a whole," the report concluded.
The trade dispute between the world's two largest economies escalated after President Trump said in a statement late Monday that he had requested the United States Trade Representative to identify $200 billion worth of Chinese goods for additional tariffs at a rate of 10 percent. 

Beijing responded by saying China will protect its interests and it is prepared to fight back.
That comes after the U.S. on Friday announced that it would impose a 25 percent tariff on up to $50 billion of Chinese products.

Chinese Paranoia

Statement from the Press Secretary on China’s Political Correctness

President Donald J. Trump ran against political correctness in the United States. He will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens.
On April 25, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration sent a letter to 36 foreign air carriers, including a number of American carriers. This notice demanded that carriers change how “Taiwan,” “Hong Kong,” and “Macao” are identified on their websites and in their promotional material so that the references fall in line with the Communist Party’s standards.
This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies.
China’s internal Internet repression is world-famous. China’s efforts to export its censorship and political correctness to Americans and the rest of the free world will be resisted.
The United States respects the broad freedom private companies have in their interactions with their customers, both in the United States and abroad. This respect is essential for a robust global marketplace.
The United States strongly objects to China’s attempts to compel private firms to use specific language of a political nature in their publicly available content.
We call on China to stop threatening and coercing American carriers and citizens.

"You have to punch a bully in the face"

White House plans China trade crackdown Thursday

By ADAM BEHSUDI and ANDREW RESTUCCIA
President Donald Trump is slated to outline the results of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer's investigation into allegations that China violates U.S. intellectual property rights by forcing American companies to transfer valuable technology to Beijing.

The White House is preparing to announce on Thursday a plan to eventually hit China with tariffs and other trade restrictions, according to two administration officials.
President Donald Trump is slated to outline the results of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer's investigation into allegations that China violates U.S. intellectual property rights by forcing American companies to transfer valuable technology to Beijing.
Lighthizer’s office has determined that the United States loses at least $30 billion a year to China’s forced technology transfers. 

As POLITICO reported last week, the administration is weighing a package of tariffs equivalent to that amount of Chinese imports or more.
Trump’s senior advisers have been debating which remedies to impose in response to the investigation for months, and they have drafted proposals for tariffs, investment restrictions and even visa limits aimed at China.
But it’s unclear whether the president will unveil specific retaliatory measures Thursday. 

People familiar with the internal debate said there are still ongoing discussions about exactly which actions the administration should take. 

Trump could instead simply instruct key agencies to finalize the proposals in the coming weeks or months.
The timing of the Thursday announcement could slip, especially if a snowstorm shuts down much of Washington midweek. 

The White House declined to comment Tuesday.
The administration is seeking to target goods that are “meaningful to China,” especially products and technology Beijing is seeking to boost through the Made in China 2025 initiative aimed at growing its high-tech sectors, an administration official said.
Two sources briefed on the administration’s planning said the White House is considering imposing tariffs on between $30 billion and $50 billion in Chinese imports. 

Those goods would be hit with one tariff rate across the board — with the intention of blocking most of those imports from entering the U.S. market, the sources said. 

But administration officials said the final numbers are still in flux.
The U.S. trade actions might eventually bring China to the table to talk about American concerns with Beijing’s industrial overcapacity, state subsidies and lack of market access for U.S. companies.
Still unclear is whether the White House has any specific thresholds for progress on those issues and what China might do for the U.S. to reverse the tariffs or investment curbs, according to administration officials and outside advisers.
“It’s a little bit of a red herring for the business community to be overly critical that there aren’t clear off-ramps for China, because it’s really unclear if the Chinese would even take them,” said one outside adviser to the administration who has been briefed on the planning of the trade actions against China.
The adviser added that leaders gathered this week at China’s National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamping legislative body, appeared to “quintuple down” on their industrial policies geared toward elevating the country’s economy.
Still, the business community has urged congressional trade leaders to press Lighthizer, who is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill this week, on what kind of outcome the administration hopes to achieve. 

Trump was granted the authority to impose the trade restrictions under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
“The overall focus of the Section 301 investigation should be to bring China to the negotiating table for a meaningful resolution of specific, sector-by-sector issues with the ultimate goal of removing the offending practices and policies. Premature, unilateral sanctions alone are unlikely to achieve this objective,” National Foreign Trade Council President Rufus Yerxa wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees.
The expected 300-page report the administration is putting together as part of its probe into China’s intellectual property and technology transfer policies makes some recommendations on what China should do to curb those practices, a source familiar with its contents said.
But the tariff action Trump is ready to move ahead with seems geared more toward gaining leverage against China than achieving a methodical engagement, said an administration official involved in the planning.
“There’s a recognition that you have to punch a bully in the face,” the official said. 

“That’s the best explanation of what’s going on here.”