On Memorial Day, America pays respect to the brave men and women who gave their lives so that our nation may live.
On June 6, we commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day. President Trump will travel to the beaches of Normandy where more than 9,000 Allied soldiers died or were wounded in the military operation that would be a turning point in the Second World War.
These events put our current conflict with China in perspective.
Media commentators have been hyperventilating over “Trump’s trade war with China.”
They predict certain doom for the American economy and say the tariffs President Trump slapped on imports from China after trade talks broke down will impose an unbearable hardship on Americans.
They whine that consumers may have to pay (a few cents) more on a discretionary purchase of merchandise made in China.
In doing so, they conveniently overlook the fact that in order to be a “consumer” one must first be a producer, that is, have a job that provides a disposable income. The outsourcing of jobs and entire industries to China has robbed untold thousands of Americans of the disposable income they need to be “consumers” of little more than food stamps.
The commentators acknowledge China has been stealing our technology, military and industrial trade secrets. They acknowledge that China does not recognize private property or play by the same set of the rules that we do, that its government showers money, land, electricity and other subsidies on favored cronies so they can drive American competitors into extinction.
Yet, these pundits fail to see the absurdity of the trade negotiations in which we are begging the thief to please stop stealing from us.
More importantly, they fail to recognize what’s at stake here. It’s not the price of novelty tees or beads made in China.
China, a one-party state ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, has openly declared its goal is to take over the world. Through coercion, cyber-espionage and intellectual property theft it is stealing its way to the top.
The Chinese Communist Party’s ideology does not recognize individual rights. The regime has imprisoned one million Muslims in concentration camps for “reeducation.” It has brutally repressed Tibetan Buddhists and Christians across the country. It practices infanticide and forces women to have abortions up to the final days of pregnancy. It imprisons those who dare to criticize the government or ask for better working conditions. And now it has deployed a digital surveillance system to track every citizen’s actions and punish those who do not comply with the party directives.
Our confrontation with China is this generation’s rendezvous with destiny.
The outcome of this contest will determine if government of the people, by the people and for the people shall perish from the earth. One thing is certain: Should China prevail in its bid to take over the world, as it has declared, the values upon which America was founded — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, respect for individual rights, liberty and property — will be historical relics.
In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy declared that Americans “shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a veteran himself, has said whatever price Americans pay in this “trade war” is minimal compared to the sacrifices made by our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines around the world and those we honor in the upcoming days.
The next time a cable news talking head bemoans the cost of bed sheets, remember Memorial Day, D-Day and those who gave everything to pay the price of freedom for those who came after.
Curtis Ellis is senior policy adviser with America First Policies. He was a senior policy adviser with the Donald J. Trump campaign.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.