The CCP’s Gloves Are Off in Trade War—What’s Next? | Lee Smith
American Thought Leaders
Views 18.1K •
Oct-18-2025
[RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW] The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recently imposed unprecedented export controls on rare earths, escalating the U.S.–China trade war.
How is it that the Chinese regime managed to gain control of many of the most essential supply chains, from critical minerals to pharmaceuticals? How should the Trump administration approach this threat to national security?
In this episode, we sit down with Lee Smith, author of “The Plot Against the President,” and the soon-to-be-released book, “The China Matrix: The Epic Story of How Donald Trump Shattered a Deadly Pact.”
“It was simply American corruption that has allowed all of this to happen. And that’s certainly the point that [U.S. President] Donald Trump makes in the book,” Smith says.
What is Trump’s strategy when it comes to China? How does he actually view Chinese leader Xi Jinping?
EXCERPT FROM THIS VIDEO
Mr. Smith:
What they did was they can underbid almost anyone. This is what they did in the pharmaceutical industry. You’ll remember after COVID, people were deeply concerned to realize, like, oh, wow, penicillin and everything else is made in Wuhan. Almost all of our pharmaceuticals come from the People’s Republic of China. What will we do? What can we do?
The way they did this was with steel. They’ve done it with a number of what people call strategic industries. What people mean by strategic industries is if you need steel, for instance, to build ships and you need it to build a whole bunch of other different munitions. If you don’t make your own steel, then you’re dependent on what is right now your number one adversary. I mean, there are other countries around the world that make steel, but China is a major producer at this point. We’re talking about the same thing in terms of pharmaceuticals.
Imagine if we really wound up in a hot conflict with the Chinese Communist Party. What happens when different American soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors are wounded and they need medication? Well, that’s coming from China. But the Chinese had a plan for that, and that’s what they did. There were no measures or few measures to protect American industries. People just figured, well, what are we going to do? We can’t compete with them. We’ll have to do something else.
This is part of what we saw in the 90s when it was the whole idea like, well, we don’t need to do manufacturing anymore. We’ll become a service economy. A lot of people made fun of it at the time, and a lot of other people thought it was a stroke of genius. It wasn’t just the Clinton administration; there were a lot of Republicans as well. That’s the story the book tells. It’s not just Democrats here; it’s Republicans.
Remember, this relationship started with Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who first went to the city once called Peking in February 1972. Some of it, at a certain point, was honest miscalculation. At a certain point, there was no way to rationalize it or excuse it anymore. It was simply American corruption that allowed all of this to happen. That’s certainly the point that Donald Trump makes in the book. I interviewed Donald Trump at great length in this book. He has the first word and the last word in the book.
