How China may have already won its cold war with the US with American dollars

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla. a former Green Beret, sat down for "The Will Cain Podcast" and outlined what he believes is China's long-term strategy for economic warfare in its cold war with the United States.

WILL CAIN: You laid out [Chinese President and Central Military Commission] Chairman Xi's goals to replace the United States as the world's dominant power, to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Is this, in your mind, a rivalry, a cold war, a relationship that is building toward kinetic war? Is it building toward bombs, or is the strategy in the plan more subversive, more internal, more soft power, more corruption? What is the strategy from China?

REP. MICHAEL WALTZ, R-FLA.: They are. They are in a cold war with us. And again, you know, a cold war is when an entity is using diplomatic, informational, economic – taking over international organizations in a way to coerce their opponents. And that's exactly what the Chinese Communist Party is doing. The big piece of it is going to be Taiwan.

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Why does Taiwan matter so much and why should it matter to the American people? Well, if you look at where it sits on the map, Will, once China controls Taiwan – aside from the fact that it's a flourishing free market and a democracy that we will have let be forcibly taken over by a communist dictatorship – aside from that, they will then be able to control the trade routes into Japan, into South Korea, Australia, Malaysia and to some extent, even India. And heading into the Middle East, China will then control about half of the world's GDP and global trade. And at that point, their economic warfare, it will have a huge boost in the arm in terms of their strategy.

I think economic warfare is the best way to describe it if you understand Chinese military theory. They want to be prepared for a kinetic war. But their real theory is checkmate, just like we did against the Soviet Union when they stepped aside and just couldn't afford to compete militarily anymore. That's what China plans to do to us.

They're watching us bankrupt ourselves on our entitlements. They're bankrupting on COVID. We're watching Biden send billions of dollars to buy COVID tests from China because we've lost the capability to make them. That's like buying your firefighting supplies from the arsonist that set the fire. 

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And meanwhile, they have also – this is the big piece – they've cornered the market on things to make our economy go: 90% of our pharmaceuticals, 90% of our computer chips, 90% of our rare earth minerals that we need for basic economic functions that Chinese have cornered. And so when we say "Made in America," it's not just a human rights issue because they're making those products with modern-day slavery.

It's not just an American jobs issue, it's a national security issue. We cannot be dependent on our greatest adversary for what makes our society function – and they've created that dependency deliberately. And American companies are absolutely complicit. 

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