(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) Imagine what would Joe Biden (or a future president of the United States) would do if Chinese dictator Xi Jinping dispatched another spy balloon toward America and declared: “If America destroys our peace-loving balloon, we will have no choice but to suspend immediately and until further notice all US-bound exports of Chinese-made antibiotics and antibiotic precursor chemicals. We eagerly await the White House’s response.”
This chilling hypothetical and the all-too-real spy-balloon fiasco should make it excruciatingly clear that America urgently needs to repatriate critical industries from China back to the USA.
If, God forbid, the Chinese Communist Party attacked Taiwan, it’s hard to imagine that Beijing would not use antibiotics and other vital drugs to extort U.S. neutrality while China conquers and communizes that nation.
America could face this rotten choice: Defend Taiwan and, before long, watch helplessly as strep throat, gonorrhea, meningitis and other bacterial infections go untreated—perhaps fatally so—or keep the life-sustaining antibiotics flowing as Beijing strangles Taipei.
Letting the CCP crush its island neighbor would trample the Taiwan Relations Act, America’s de-facto commitment to the integrity of that prosperous, free-market, constitutional republic. American military and diplomatic prestige would plunge even as atrocities and bloodshed in Taiwan soared.
“Right now, the U.S. has virtually no capacity to manufacture antibiotics,” healthcare expert Rosemary Gibson wrote in Market Watch. “That’s because China currently controls roughly 90% of the global supply of inputs needed to make the generic antibiotics that treat bronchitis, pneumonia, pediatric ear infections, and life-threatening conditions such as sepsis.”
Congress should pass and Biden should sign robust incentives to entice U.S. pharmaceutical, strategic-mineral, and other concerns in China to come home.
Specifically, eligible companies that repatriate their operations should face a federal corporate tax rate of 0% for the first five years after they leave communist China and return to the Land of the Brave.
This massive shot in the arm would help lure these organizations back and entice them to erect U.S. facilities, employ American workers, etc. Similar incentives should be available to domestic start-ups and business expansions in this life-and-death sector.
Democrats also must stop being bipolar about electric vehicles.
In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Biden touted “tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles.” Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act teems with EV subsidies.
California, Oregon and Washington have banned sales of new gasoline-powered cars as early as 2035. If this seems comfortably distant, 2035 is nearer into the future than the 2008 financial meltdown was in the past.
Love or hate this new largesse and these new laws, if the Left insists on EVs, then why are they making it harder to build them?
“Joe Biden banned mining in 225,000 acres of Minnesota’s Iron Range, and locked up development of taconite, copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum-group elements, and more,” Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., lamented on Jan. 26.
Democrats blocked the Twin Metals mine, home to 34% of US copper, 88% of American cobalt and 95% of domestic nickel reserves. Thanks to Team Biden, this is all remains underground.
If Democrats shutter domestic sources for EV-component minerals, where else would they be?
China!
A typical EV’s 1,000-pound battery requires 25 pounds of lithium, 30 pounds of cobalt, 60 pounds of nickel, 90 pounds of copper and 110 pounds of graphite.
Naturally, China possesses or processes 60% of Earth’s lithium, 80% of cobalt, 5 % of nickel, 43% of copper, and up to 80% of graphite.
It is theatrically absurd for Democrats to seal the mines whose contents compose the EVs that they insist Americans purchase.
Instead, to hand Red China a giant stick made of these minerals and wait for it to blackmail the U.S. is either the nadir of bone-headedness or the zenith of self-sabotage.
America must in-source these lifesaving, technology-driving materials before it’s too late. If not, nosy balloons will be the least of our worries.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor. Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.
