The United States is The World’s Punching Bag

What kind of ridiculous statement is it to say, “The United States is the world’s punching bag? Look at the facts; we have the world’s strongest economy, the world’s most powerful military, and the strongest influence on the globe.” That’s all true. But for decades, we have been the equivalent of an indulgent grandfather, playing with his grandchildren, allowing, them to poke and prod him.

Unlike loving interactions between grandparents and grandchildren, acting as the world’s grandfather has transformed our country into an economic punching bag. But the punches are landed not with playful innocence, but with callous self-interest. Weaker nations simply take advantage of this country’s blindness to the fact that they are only out for what they can get. And there is no reciprocity. When the United States needs a helping hand, or merely cooperation, the nations we have helped, or even saved, are typically nowhere to be found.

Yet, we keep doing the same things, either expecting different results or not caring that a few more punches have been landed. Historically, legislators and bureaucrats don’t feel the sting of the punches because taxpayers take the hits.

This is not a consequence of a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda. The United States has served as a punching bag for decades, regardless of the party controlling the presidency or Congress. The overriding philosophy is that we are strong enough to absorb all the punches the world can throw at us.

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We are not and a $35+ trillion national debt (soon to be $36 trillion if it isn’t already) is proof of that. Donald Trump, love him or hate him, is the first president to have the cojones to publicly acknowledge that such an outrageous national debt is a threat to the nation’s economic security- and to put on the gloves to punch back against it.

He is targeting not only foreign nations but also those self-serving government bureaucrats and non-governmental organizations (NOGs) that have also landed punches on the backs of American taxpayers. Naysayers counter that Trump’s actions will alienate our allies, provide Russia and China more opportunities to influence other countries, and decimate the federal workforce while increasing the costs of imported products.

Some of that may be true, and in the short term, Trump’s actions will undoubtedly create some pain, just as cleaning a festering wound causes pain but is essential to healing. In the long term, nothing is more damaging to our world's influence and economic security than $35 trillion in national debt.

As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has shown, much, certainly not all, of that $35 trillion debt is a consequence of our foreign aid programs. Ironically, many of the countries to which we have donated billions of dollars have reciprocated by subsidizing their domestic businesses and allowing them to sell products at artificially low prices, thereby enabling them to steal market share from American companies.

For their part, many American companies have turned a blind eye to that threat and have taken no steps to improve efficiency and become more price competitive. Without question, American companies cannot compete with companies in multiple countries where workers make as much in a month as American workers do in a day or a week. But in years past, we had the ability to automate production that other countries did not. That window closed years ago. Now, manufacturers in foreign nations avail themselves of automation and government subsidies to sell at artificially low prices.

Yet we keep subsidizing many of the countries that use American foreign aid money to enable them to steal market share from American companies. And some of these countries also levy tariffs on American-made products that are imported. The time is long since past to levy reciprocal tariffs- and to cut financial aid to these countries.

“But tariffs aren’t the answer”, screams the proponents of refusing to put down the shovel after digging a hole so deep they can’t get out of it. Although for reasons they don’t understand, they have a point. Tariffs potentially increase the costs for imported products, but unlike taxes, tariffs can serve as a means to an end; unlike tax programs, which once enacted are rarely repealed, tariffs have frequently been eliminated after they have served their purpose.

As Victor Davis Hanson explains, the goal of the tariffs imposed by Trump was not to support inefficient American companies. “Instead, an exasperated Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs for three reasons:

First, it refused to address its cartels’ illegal multibillion-dollar export of lethal fentanyl into the United States.

The cartels buy Chinese-supplied raw fentanyl with impunity, disguise it to resemble other drugs, and smuggle the product across a porous border.

The result over the last decade is more dead Americans from fentanyl than the total number of all US soldiers lost in the wars of the 20th century.

Second, Mexico had stonewalled all American efforts to stop their export of millions of illegal immigrants into the United States — 10 million to 12 million in the last four years alone.

Mexico adds insult to injury by raking in profits from some $63 billion in remittances sent from its former citizens now residing in the United States and often subsidized by American taxpayers.

Third, Mexico grows its American trade surpluses each year. The imbalance is now a mind-boggling nearly $170 billion.

Trump threatened Canada because it has so far refused to police its side of an open and increasingly dangerous border.

And it has racked up a $50 billion surplus by leveling asymmetrical tariffs on lots of US products.”

The punching bag is now punching back. And when Trump got the response he wanted, he paused the tariffs.

Of more significance, the tariffs signaled to the world that the United States of America was transitioning from being a punching bag to being a fighter. The Trump administration is also punching back through DOGE, which has revealed the outlandish waste and fraud of a host of government programs, many of which are the creations not of Congress but of bureaucrats run amok.

Federal bureaucrats are resisting, making threats and false claims because of the fear that an outside audit will reveal not only their waste and fraud but their own superfluousness. Many of the 2+ million federal employees are simply not needed.

With respect to the nation’s economic well-being, the Trump administration understands that there are two choices. Punch back or get knocked out.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.