Name: CCP Power Plays in Tariff Talks Explained | John Moolenaar, Chairman of the House Committee on the CCP
Uploaded: 2025-10-31T18:42:26.000Z
Description: Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) has been spearheading efforts in Congress to combat the threat posed by the Chinese regime to American interests—from economic warfare to espionage and infiltration—as chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Jan Jekielek is a senior editor with The Epoch Times, host of the show “American Thought Leaders” and co-host of “FALLOUT” with Dr. Robert Malone and “Kash’s Corner” with Kash Patel. Jan’s career has spanned academia, international human rights work, and now for almost two decades, media. He has interviewed nearly a thousand thought leaders on camera, and specializes in long-form discussions challenging the grand narratives of our time. He’s also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, producing “The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told,” “DeSantis: Florida vs. Lockdowns,” and “Finding Manny.”

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[RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW] Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) has been spearheading efforts in Congress to combat the threat posed by the Chinese regime to American interests—from economic warfare to espionage and infiltration—as chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

“With rare earths, China is basically firing a loaded gun … on our economy,” he says.

He’s pushing a bill that would phase in a 100 percent tariff on all strategic goods from China. The tariff would not just penalize China but also incentivize “other countries, as well as the United States, to invest in this almost as if it’s a Defense Production Act activity.”

Beyond rare earth minerals, what leverage does the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have exactly in trade talks with the United States? What will the CCP’s strategy be? How should President Donald Trump respond to the CCP’s coercive tactics and its recent attempts to gain additional leverage?

And what can America do to extricate itself from its dependence on China for some of its most critical manufacturing technologies?

Moolenaar points out that the CCP is using its leverage not only over trade but also over Chinese nationals studying or working in America via its extensive United Front operations.

“Under their recent national security laws, any Chinese national who doesn’t carry out the will of the Chinese Communist Party, no matter where they are in the world, on U.S. soil or somewhere else in the world, [is] in violation of national security laws,” Moolenaar says.

On the other hand, is the position of the CCP really secure? And what about Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s position in particular? What signs of dissatisfaction and unrest are there among the Chinese population?

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of NTD.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek:

Congressman John Moolenaar, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Thank you for having me, Jan. Good to be with you today.

You are calling for 100 percent tariffs on communist China. Explain to me why and why this whole rare earth scenario right now is different from what we’ve seen in the past.

With rare earths, China is basically firing a loaded gun, if you will, on our economy. And what that means is, you know, we’ve always known they have this leverage and these critical minerals and rare earths that, you know, are used in televisions, phones, computers, defense systems, and they have over 90 percent of the market in a monopolistic fashion.They use coercive methods to gain that leverage, but they’ve basically said they will cut our economy off from those critical minerals. And so when it comes to rare earths, it’s something where we need additional supplies. We need reliable partners.

And one way to do that is through tariffs because ultimately, it penalizes China for this aggressive, outrageous action. But it also incentivizes other countries, as well as the United States, to invest in this, almost as if it’s a Defense Production Act activity, where we cannot let our military industrial base, our economy, be at the whims of what Xi Jinping decides on any given day and how he wants to leverage power against the United States.

You know, and it’s not just, you know, America. It’s like there’s basically very minute requirements for any use of particular of these critical minerals. I’ve never seen such a requirement or attempted requirements, I mean.

It’s a very aggressive, threatening action. The good news is it really wakes up the world to what Xi Jinping is capable of doing to leverage whatever advantage he wants in a negotiation. And so when we look at like-minded countries who use these materials in their supply chain, they’re going to have the same reaction we do: we need a better partner than the Chinese Communist Party [CCP].

Well, I mean, the Netherlands has actually nationalized a chipmaker in response. I mean, that’s almost unheard of.

The Netherlands has a lot at stake. They are an important ally of the United States. They’ve seen how China is fueling Russia’s war in Ukraine. That’s a wake-up call. China says they’re neutral, but at the same time, they’re providing materials that are used in warfare. They’re buying energy from Russia and propping up their wartime economy.

In Europe, there’s a growing awareness that the idea that China was going to become more democratic, more freedom-loving as they became wealthier, a reliable economic partner, people are becoming more aware of this. And the Netherlands has some of the best semiconductor manufacturing equipment in the world. And they have a lot at stake to make sure that those technologies aren’t stolen by the CCP and aren’t used ultimately to drive out of business some of the capabilities they have in the Netherlands.

Please explain to us how China, under the Communist Party, actually got this unbelievable level of control over such a critical set of components in our entire economy and technology.

They view it as a strategic asset. They also have leveraged their capabilities in other countries, in Africa and other nations, where they use child labor and exploit the different countries’ mining and capabilities. They’ve also developed good technology and processing, because part of it is mining, and part of it is processing.

In countries like the United States, we were of the belief that some of these technologies, we couldn’t do them quite as inexpensively as China could, and so why not rely on them in our supply chain? But what we realized is they have terrible environmental processes, terrible human rights abuses, and now we are dependent on them for some of our most critical manufacturing technologies.

And they have a dumping strategy to corner these. I mean, it happened with steel, right? And I think it happened with rare earths as well.

It is. And what they do is they’re very strategic in gaining a position of dominance. And then when a country tries to establish its own capabilities in this area, they severely subsidize and undercut the pricing and drive the other entity out of business. So it’s, you know, state-sponsored manipulation of the market, and that’s why they’ve been able to secure this dominant monopolistic position.

You know, you mentioned Xi Jinping earlier, and, you know, there’s sort of been very unusual things happening within the Chinese  Communist Party. For example, you know, this recent purge of nine top military leaders, people that are friendly to Xi. And so are you watching this on the committee? And what are your thoughts?

We are closely monitoring it. We know that there is a huge problem with corruption in the Chinese military, the PLA [People’s Liberation Army]. And that certainly plays into this, just culturally, the way their military has had bribes and other means of corruption. But in some of these situations where these are close allies of Xi, you wonder if there’s something more going on there.

We are monitoring it. It’s premature to say exactly what the rationale and the causes are, but it certainly shows instability in their military and then the question is does that make the world safer or more dangerous when you have all this chaos going on in the PLA?

Well, you know, one of the arguments that I keep hearing is that, you know, China is so connected to the global economy. Indeed, this was their strategy to be deeply interconnected with the global economy. It’s almost like a too-big-to-fail scenario, where they say, look, well, you don’t want to create this instability, Mr. President. What about these tariffs? You might create too much instability, might create huge economic problems in the world. To me, it’s that too-big-to-fail argument that if we create any problems for the CCP, any meaningful problems, that could lead to big problems for us; therefore, just leave them alone. How do you respond to those arguments?

Our economies are clearly intertwined, as are our economies throughout the world. When you think of the Cold War and you think of the relationship with the Soviet Union, we were never intertwined economically the way we are with China. So it does make it more complicated. But when they show their willingness to leverage these economic relationships in such a way that is not in America’s interest, it really does show our need to develop independent supply chains. And I applaud President Trump for working very hard to separate and strengthen the resiliency of our supply chains.

But you can see how they do that around the world. They have something called the Belt and Road Initiative in the developing world where they fund major infrastructure projects, use Chinese labor, build these needed infrastructure projects in the third world, and ultimately create a debt trap dependency with developing nations. That’s a concern as well, because then they leverage that for their own policy objectives.

Well, and there’s a growing interest, for example, in a number of African nations to kind of realize this was not done with the best intentions, that this is something that they, you know, essentially maybe want to even kick them out.

And what we’ve seen is China portrays itself as a very benign, friendly, let’s just have a win-win scenario when ultimately their actions are very different. It’s win-lose, extract whatever you can from the situation that they’re in.

Yes, that’s actually, let’s comment on that for just a moment, this win-lose idea. I mean, I’ve had a number of guests on the show where we discussed this concept that the CCP doesn’t really believe in win-win. Do you agree with this?

They would portray themselves in that vein that they believe in win-win, but ultimately they’re looking at a much longer time frame. And ultimately, it’s win-lose because what they want to do is be the center, most dominant power in the world. And they’re willing to wait 50 years, or 100 years, when you consider the timeline that they operate under. They aren’t under the quarterly report kind of scenario that we are in the private sector here.

So in terms of an economic strategy, what they do is they identify a key sector that they want to dominate. And what they do is they invite other companies to participate and extract every bit of learning they can. And then ultimately they figure out a way to kick that foreign country, company, or entity out and undercut prices, with manufacturing capabilities, steal economic secrets, and use that to drive that business out of business.

So you’re seeing in Europe right now, the automotive industry is caving to the Chinese pressure in that area. We’re seeing it in other fields as well, and critical minerals are a key area for that. And unfortunately, the challenge with that is it touches so many different aspects of our economy and our national security.

So one of the things your committee has looked at quite a bit is money flowing from America to communist China in various capacities. And I might even argue that this strategy that the Chinese have, this long-term one that you’re describing, actually, in some ways, really hasn’t worked because one of the key pillars of their economy, which was real estate, has collapsed, essentially. And they’re left with basically one pillar, which is this export.

So as the tariffs have been increasing and so forth, they’ve been flooding all sorts of countries with their products because essentially their whole economy is based on this export now. That doesn’t strike me as a particularly robust way to run an economy. And I mean, it also suggests some vulnerability. And I’m wondering if you’re tracking this.

Yes, we sure are. And you’re absolutely right. When you have a small group of central planners who are setting out these objectives and not allowing a free market, but simply picking winners and losers, you do have that scenario like they have in the real estate market in China. And you’re right, that’s absolutely an area where they are failing miserably in their economy. They also have a lot of young people that are unemployed and basically opting out of the workforce. And they also have demographic issues because of their one-child policy.

And so there are many troubling signs for the Chinese economy. Again, the question is, does that make it safer for the world? Or, because of that pressure, will the CCP become more aggressive in doing the kinds of aggressive oppressive acts that they’re taking now?

Well, and so here’s the question, right? Deng Xiaoping actually kind of made this contract with the Chinese people. You can make money, but stay out of politics. Politics is for the party. And if you touch that, we destroy you. But making money, you know, go for it, right? But now we’re, as you’ve kind of described, we’re kind of in this situation where that making money part, it feels like that, you know, if you want to call it a social contract, I think of it as some sort of coercive social contract it’s kind of breaking. It’s an unusual time.

And we have things like, for example, I saw that the committee highlighted this recent arrest of the Zion Church pastor and multiple people there. Again, the question is sort of why now? These underground churches have been, you know, functioning in China. And, of course, they’re repressed in various ways. But this is a very prominent church because it’s connected with, for example, the Hudson Institute. The daughter of the lead pastor is married to a Hudson Institute scholar. I was musing myself about whether this isn’t an attempt to gain leverage. This is kind of how they think. I’m curious what your thoughts are.

Yes, I think it’s a combination of things. I think, to your point about the Chinese economy, who is participating and who is benefiting, it truly appears that the Chinese Communist Party is most interested not in helping the people across the country, but rather staying in power and consolidating power. And so when you see the actions they’ve taken through their national security laws, their surveillance society, and in Hong Kong, the oppressive imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, when you consider that they’re rounding up pastors, it really shows their insecurities because what they’re doing is targeting people that don’t buy into the Xi Jinping thought, the Chinese Communist Party ideology that really seeks to replace legitimate faith.

And so they are surveilling, they’re penalizing people who want to live out their relationship with their creator and trying to insert the Chinese Communist Party in the middle of that and almost take its place. So to me, it shows that rather than allowing a faith in God, they’re saying you have to have faith in the party, and the party is the God.

So why do you think there’s increased repression of Christians all of a sudden in China and very prominently? Is it because of this kind of leverage thing, or is it because of this social contract? Or is it both? I guess that’s what you said, both at the beginning. I’m just curious.

In the short term, Xi Jinping plans to meet with President Trump at some point. And I think they are putting every bit of leverage on the table so that in a negotiation, they can still keep their negotiated gains in the negotiation. So I do think there’s a strategic aspect. So you see that with critical minerals, you see it with religious persecution, you see it with other export controls, denying Nvidia H20 chips. So they’re setting up this negotiation line.

But I think in the long term, which is even more concerning, is you see a systematic oppression of people of faith. And it could be Falun Gong, it could be the Uyghurs, it could be Tibetans, it could be Christians. You see mosques being removed, and you see only people who will be part of a state-approved religion that is controlled by the CCP will be allowed to practice. And to me, this is what we saw in the Soviet Union where they tried to extinguish God from the people. And over time, they can have a short term, but I would bet on God in that situation. It’s generally good to bet, generally good to bet on God.

Let’s talk about some of these extreme human rights violations that are happening in China, actually typically focused on people of faith. I’m writing a book as we speak. I know we’ve talked about it, Killed to Order, about the forced organ harvesting industry. I’m not some super expert, but there are incredible people that have come before me whose work I am referencing, including the China Tribunal, of course. And then also, it’s about using this horrible forced organ harvesting industry as a way to understand what the Chinese Communist Party is all about. It’s an extreme situation. It’s state-sanctioned. I mean, I call it murder for organs.

Some people feel that’s hyperbolic, but I feel it’s accurate and happening at a huge scale. And while it started with Falun Gong, it seems to be shifting to the Uyghurs and possibly even other groups that are the most targeted groups by the regime, the people where there are large amounts of people incarcerated and they can have like a bank of people to kill for these organs. Kill to Order is the name of the book. I want to discuss this because your committee and the CECC [Congressional-Executive Commission on China] is one of the very few groups in Congress that is actually addressing this issue meaningfully. And I mean, most recently, you’re actually calling for the State Department to implement some policy to challenge this. So tell me about that.

Let me start at a basic level. And we’re celebrating our 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. And when you look at the foundation of this country and when you look at the consent of the governed, that the government’s job is to secure the rights of the people. And you contrast that with a government that doesn’t respect that, and isn’t trying to secure its citizens’ rights. It’s simply trying to extract what it can from the people and without their consent. Those are two diametrically opposed regimes, if you will, or philosophies or systems. And in that case, then human beings become an instrument of the state for whatever political agenda that the leadership has.

I found it interesting, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin talking about wanting to live to 150 years, and all these advances in science. It’s creepily eerie when you think of it, and no one likes to compare things to Nazi Germany. But you can think of Mengele and the research that was being done in the name of science and when you have a government that simply looks at people as human beings as instruments of their power and their will.

I’ll be curious to read your book because there will always be a market for people that want to act selfishly and have money to pay for something that is illicit or illegal. And then when you have a government that’s willing to implement that strategically because of their political agenda, it is very concerning and it really shines a spotlight on the problems with the Chinese Communist Party.

It’s really interesting that you mention this because when it comes to sort of interpreting this hot mic moment, right, in the West, we’re like, just kind of shocked that, you know, you would have Vladimir Putin talking about continual organ transplantation, you know, to achieve immortality and Xi Jinping responding 150 years is kind of the target. I mean, I’m paraphrasing, but that was basically the conversation. Many Chinese that I’ve spoken with don’t believe that it could possibly have been an accident, okay? Because they believe that the Chinese regime is so strictly controlled, especially around information. They’re the masters of information warfare.

So one of the theories is that this is a kind of signaling to people that have this moral, let’s say questionable, highly questionable morals to say, look, we have this project of 150 years. You can get on board if you have cash and we can work together, something like that. Another one that I heard also was just simply, this is Xi signaling to his peers, who are clearly gunning for him with these removals of the top military that are loyal to him and so forth, that actually, folks, I’m going to be around for 150 years. So just watch your back. So it’s very interesting how people in that system view these scenarios so differently.

Either way, it’s about leverage, power, and fear. It’s about using all the resources to accomplish a goal by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. And then the question is, what is that goal? Something strikes me about people of faith, and I don’t know if it was 20 or 30 pastors that were put in detention. One of the ironies of this is that people who believe in the teachings of the Bible are the best citizens you could ask for because they believe in accountability. They believe in respect for government officials and trying to be responsible citizens in the community where they live.

It’s only when an entity, a government, puts itself in the place of the relationship with God that there’s a problem. When you consider that the higher authority of God is what pastors respond to, that’s why they become a threat, because the Chinese Communist Party is trying to insert itself in that role.

You know, it’s also fascinating that you say that, because this is, you know, when the Chinese, when Jiang Zemin began to persecute the Falun Gong, for quite a number of years, the Falun Gong, you can see this in their writings, basically saw this as a colossal mistake, right? Like, we’re practicing truthfulness, compassion, forbearance. We’re not in any way like the things that you say we are. You know, they were using 1930s Germany to mention that propaganda against them. They’re like, no, we’re reasonable people. And it was only after a while they realized the problem was the system. And because that relationship was more important to them, the one that you just described, than the state power. And I think these things will be the undoing of the party ultimately.

Yes, I think you’d want citizens who believe in integrity and respect for one another. To me, those are the people, those are the neighbors you want to have, those are the people you want to work with. And the idea that that’s no longer beneficial, but rather a threat, to me seems like a huge problem for the Chinese Communist Party.

I want to talk a bit about what your committee has been doing relative to this organ harvesting. Because again, I’ve been covering this issue for 20 years. At some point along the way, I kind of almost lost hope because of this. People just recoil at it. They don’t want to deal with it. But in the last few years, it’s changed. I mean, there’s a survivor that has come forth. There’s, you know, I’ve seen the UK, and articles in the UK that are, I wish I was thinking, I wish I had written that article. It’s so well done, so deeply, such a deep understanding. So it’s changed.

And there are three pieces of legislation that have passed the House. And of course, on your committee, Congressman Neal Dunn is leading the BLOCK Act, which I’m going to get you to tell me about, because I know you’re a co-sponsor of that. But these are profound to me, having covered this issue for so long, pieces of legislation. And then you’re also asking for State Department rewards for justice, that approach to dealing with this. So kind of frame out for me what you guys are doing with this. It’s really significant.

There’s a few things. One of the advantages of our committee is we’re able to highlight issues of concern and focus because in a situation like this, it’s almost unbelievable to think that human beings are doing this to other human beings. And so we need to raise awareness and have people understand the depth of this problem. Our committee, being focused on the competition with the Chinese Communist Party, human rights, and economic and national security, is able to do this. We’ve got some champions on the committee like Neal Dunn and Gus Bilirakis, people who care deeply.

There are also groups that have been working on these things for years, but because it doesn’t fit neatly into one committee jurisdiction or another, it takes time. And so our committee has been able to highlight these bills and work to get them passed as a force multiplier for all the committees in the House of Representatives. And that’s why I think we’ve been successful. But when it comes to these issues, they are very complicated to get politically accomplished because you need a broad coalition of people.

You mentioned Great Britain and some of the work that was being done writing. At the same time you have that going on, you also have China trying to develop a super embassy in London that would be used for espionage and for all sorts of malign activities. And you have the government there refusing to prosecute two parliamentary staffers who were charged with spying and giving secretive information to a Chinese spy.

On a technicality, I might add. It’s not like the evidence wasn’t well developed, or something like that.

Exactly. You know, MI5 was speaking out on it and how disappointed they were because they work very hard to get credible sources and investigations. And when they gather that information, in my view, pushing back on the CCP is the only way to get them to stop this malign activity. For years there was this idea of, if we engage with them, they’re a different culture, and so we need to kind of work within their cultural norms. What President Reagan used to say was, peace through strength. And to me, that’s where we are on these kinds of issues, where we need to help the American people and the people around the world understand. And that’s why your book is going to be an important contribution.

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