"Until the Chinese decide to compete fairly it will be up to us to do what we can to further protect our manufacturing base, and ensure we keep the good paying jobs we already have"
About this Quote
Rogers frames trade as a moral test, not a market reality: China is cast as the rule-breaker, America as the reluctant hall monitor. The phrasing "Until the Chinese decide" does a lot of strategic work. It turns a complex web of policy choices, corporate incentives, currency dynamics, and supply-chain decisions into a simple narrative of willful misconduct. If jobs are lost, it is not because of bipartisan deregulation, automation, or firms chasing cheaper labor; its because an outside actor refuses to "compete fairly."
"Compete fairly" is deliberately elastic. It can mean intellectual property theft, subsidies, labor standards, environmental enforcement, market access, or exchange rates. That ambiguity is the point: it invites multiple grievances to collapse into one clean justification for protective action, without committing to a single falsifiable claim. Then comes the pivot to "up to us", a call to sovereignty that flatters the audience with agency while teeing up tariffs, procurement rules, export controls, or tougher trade enforcement as patriotic common sense rather than contested policy.
The emotional center is "our manufacturing base" and "good paying jobs we already have". "Base" signals national infrastructure and security, not just factories; it hints at resilience in the face of geopolitical rivalry. "Already have" quietly concedes defensive posture: this is about stopping further erosion, a message tuned to communities that have watched plants close and wages stagnate. The subtext is political triangulation: channel economic anxiety into a clear external antagonist, position protection as caretaking, and sidestep harder questions about who benefits from globalization when the gains flow upward and the losses stay local.
"Compete fairly" is deliberately elastic. It can mean intellectual property theft, subsidies, labor standards, environmental enforcement, market access, or exchange rates. That ambiguity is the point: it invites multiple grievances to collapse into one clean justification for protective action, without committing to a single falsifiable claim. Then comes the pivot to "up to us", a call to sovereignty that flatters the audience with agency while teeing up tariffs, procurement rules, export controls, or tougher trade enforcement as patriotic common sense rather than contested policy.
The emotional center is "our manufacturing base" and "good paying jobs we already have". "Base" signals national infrastructure and security, not just factories; it hints at resilience in the face of geopolitical rivalry. "Already have" quietly concedes defensive posture: this is about stopping further erosion, a message tuned to communities that have watched plants close and wages stagnate. The subtext is political triangulation: channel economic anxiety into a clear external antagonist, position protection as caretaking, and sidestep harder questions about who benefits from globalization when the gains flow upward and the losses stay local.
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| Topic | Work |
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