Last month marked 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Does anyone know what exactly led to that occasion?
In a recent speech at Hillsdale College, Roger W. Robinson Jr. reminded those in attendance how in 1982, during the Cold War, “the Soviets had an empire stretching from Havana to Hanoi, but their hard currency revenue totaled only about $32 billion a year. … They were spending about $16 billion more annually than they were making, with the funding gap — the USSR’s life support — being financed by Western governments and banks. President Reagan had long believed that the Soviet Union was economically vulnerable.”
Even though other European allies believed that if they cajoled Russia it would change its ways, Reagan used sanctions to bring the Soviets to their senses.
“The U.S. has been playing the role of the naïve Europeans … since 2001, when we backed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. … We know about China’s predatory trade practices,” said Robinson, who served on President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council.
The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 has shone a light on how China is “undermining our security and stealing our technology,” according to Robinson.
“Our capital markets, on the other hand, are completely unprotected,” he said, and the way to stop this would be “any contraction in their access to our investment dollars.”
Today millions of Americans are unwittingly financing China through their retirement funds, 401(k)s and IRAs — full disclosure, myself included.
Edward Liberatore
Turtle Creek
