Sety five KRC, the talk station six oh five on this Wednesday morning. I'm Dan Carroll. Brian Thomas taking the week off, so it's my pleasure to be here for him. I get to do it one more day tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that and also looking forward to speaking with our next guest, and our first guest in the morning is Charlton Allen. Charlton Allen is an attorney.
He is the former chief executive officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission, the founder of the Madison Center for Law and Liberty, and the host of the Modern Federalist podcast. And he also is a regular contributor to American Thinker, which is a great website where that I look at just about every single day. And it is because of a piece that he wrote there that I reached out to him and asked him to be on the show this morning. And here he is, and Charlton Allen, thank
you so much for being here, and good morning. It's great to have you on fifty five KRC. How are you today.
I'm doing well, Dan, thanks for having me well.
Thank you for being here. This piece that you wrote that really got my attention A few days ago. The headline is we didn't start the trade war, We've just finally joined it, and you make the case. First of all, the first thing you talk about is how the media really fails to deliver any context as it relates to tariffs. Do you believe that this is because they're pursuing an
agenda that they don't want to provide real context. I think they have the ability to provide context, but they simply choose not to provide context and really wind up just parroting the talking points that come from the DNC and other organizations who were opposed to this administration.
I think this is a heavy part of it.
I don't necessarily believe that's all of it, And let me explain long. I think we have reached a point in our nation, and particularly in terms of the legacy media. They are very much coastal enclosed, and they have for generations ignored the flight of states like your state, Ohio, my state North Carolina, and all the states in between
the two coasts. And as a consequence, Yeah, I have come to conclude unfortunately a lot of the legacy media sees there themselves as having more in common with Europe, for example, than the rest of America. And I think there is a deep philosophical and cultural divide that you know, is a chism between those media elites and the rest of us in this country.
And I think as a major factor as well.
Yeah, I think I think most Americans have an idea that that we have a very large trade imbalance when
it comes to dealing with China. I think a lot of Americans might have been surprised though, to recognize the amount of tariffs that and and really how unlevel the playing field is when it when you talk about the rest of the world, when you when you look at all the other tariffs that all these countries impose on the United States, and the United States for so long essentially had had little or no tariffs on many of
these other countries. And I think when you when you look at a guy like Trump, it is that sort of imbalance that that really bothers him more than anything else. That you know, we have all this access for all these other countries into our markets, but yet we don't have the same access to theirs.
That's exactly the point. And you know, in terms of approaching it, I think you have to one hand, take China in China is a unique and over arching problem that's separate and apart from the rest of the world. And the reason why I say that is because China is, you know, buy and large, one of our largest trading partners, and they manipulate the markets, They manipulate trade.
They have barriers upon barriers to trade in China.
They have things such as Golden chairs, which give the Chinese Communist Party control over entities in China into corporations that you know, frankly did the fact that that is the case and those companies are dealing in securities in the United States is long overdue for the sec to be involved.
But China is a problem in and of itself.
Europe is another problem, and you know, I would take it a step further, not just Europe, but also Canada. We have significant trade imbalances Europe in particular in Canada as well, rely on the United States for national security. There is no way in the world that the Canadian Armed Forces can protect the one hundred and fifty one thousand miles of coastline in Canada or the four million square miles of aerospace in Canada. There's no way they
rely on us to provide security. Same with Europe, and yet there are barriers to our penetration of both of those markets, in particular Europe, where if a United States company wants to sell a car, they're slapped with a ten percent tariffon on our cars, and then Europe cries foul when we demand reciprocity. For decades since World War Two, we have subsidized European comfort with American sacrifice. And that era is over.
Yeah, you wrote a piece that appeared to an American thinker yesterday talking about Canada's free ride is finally over. I want to ask you a couple more questions about that. But just getting back to China for a moment, I guess the latest move was by China talking about how they're going to put a pause or a hold on China shipping out these rare earth minerals. And I was I was reading about this that the United States actually
is a major producer of rare earth minerals. It's just that the refining process is shipped overseas, shipped over to China where those minerals are refined, and then they are sent back to the United States and to other parts of the world as well. And I think I think
Trump has a pretty good handle on this. And so when you look at, or at least when I look at what I perceive to be the bargaining position that Trump wants to put this country into when it comes to tariffs, it's not only to level the playing field, but to reinvigorate these manufacturing processes, and so we are able to self sustain ourselves here in the United States and no longer be reliant on places like China for pharmaceuticals, for rare earth, for things like this that American consumers
need on a daily basis.
Exactly.
The twentieth century was one by tanks and oil. The twenty first century will be one by chips, energy and who controls the tech stack. China knows this, and they have tried to corner the market not just on rare earth production, but rare earth refinery refineries such as what you discussed. And we need to cut through the barriers here in our own country so that we cannot only mine rare earth minerals that we need in just about every facet and modern electric and electronic compute and AI.
We need to cut those barriers down so that we are not only competitive that we are surpassing China in those key factors because if we do not have control of pharmaceuticals, we do not control our own energy future, we do not control our access to rare earth minerals. We will not be an independent nation much longer. You know, China is, you know, And this is something I think is one of the greatest failures of American policy makers
over the past fifty years. Despite its deep market penetration in the United States, China has remained a one party state, and that party is the Chinese Communist Party. And one of those great failures of our policymakers and politicians was they misread China's economic opening in the nineteen seventies as a repudiation or rejection of Marxism.
It wasn't.
It was a rebranding. At its core, Marxism is about wealth redistribution from the economically successful to the unsuccessful, from the havels to the have nots, and for the last several generations, accelerating dramatically. After China's admission to the WTO and the granting of Most Favored Nation status, we've watched that redistribution play out in a global scale. What China has executed is a wholesale transfer of wealth from the
United States to the People's Republic. It's been wrapped into seductive packaging of cheap consumer goods, but the core transaction is unmistakable. We sent them our industries or supply chains and our leverage, and in return we've got plastic trinkets and mounting death.
Yeah.
And I think if China sees that the United States is serious about taking up this manufacturing process that we have the we have seeded to them, then I think I think that'll be even more leverage that'll get that'll get the Chinese to the bargaining table and and be something that will work in the favor of the United States. Charlton Allen, we get we have to get to a quick break here, so let me ask you to hold
on right there. We'll do a quick little traffic in weather and then we'll continue on with Charlton Allen from the great state of North Carolina. So we appreciate him being here on fifty five KRC the Talk station.
This is fifty five KRC and iHeartRadio station or your money steels total.
Fifty five KRC the Talk station six nineteen. On this Wednesday, morning, Dan Carroll for Brian Thomas, continuing our conversation with Attorney Charlton Allen, and mister Allen, let me ask you this when it comes to when it comes to the criticism that has been brought against President Trump and the and
the way he's going about I don't think that. I don't think that this whole uh, this whole trade war if you want to call it that, or the tariffs that Trump has been using for leverage, is as haphazard
as the media would have you believe. But I think there's I think there's some legitimate criticism and especially when people look at their savings, when they look at their four oh one k's, when they look at their retirement accounts, their stock market investment portfolios, things like that, that that there has been a lot of volatility there. There's been you know, so at least some some temporary damage done to these to these things, and I think people have
genuine concerns about that. When when you get asked or people want to talk about that, what is your response to them about the game, the pain that is associated with the with the policies and and what what Trump is trying to accomplish.
Here approssire from several angles. First of all, we cannot be dissuaded from what I believe is the right course of action based upon short term results and pain.
There was always.
Going to be no matter how the President tried to implement tariffs, whether he did it in the manner he has done, or if he took a more longer term approach and phased it in more gradually, there was going to be uncertainty. And the market reacts to uncertainty, and the market's job is to react. The President's job is
to act. And I think President Trump's doctrine may rattle some of the hitgebunge managers, but it reassures the factory floors, and that's where the real strength of this country's always been. And I will also say that a lot of the companies that are traded on the public exchanges, the equities, they are very much leveraged into trade with China. And I will also point I've discussed this in an article
last week. Uh you know, our Treasury Secretary has made a very strong point of this, just how much of a schism there is within the United States the people who actually.
Participate in Wall Street.
I believe it is something along the lines of twelve percent of Americans own eighty percent of stock. That is a you know that gives you an idea of just how.
Much you know.
There is a dichotomy between those who are participating in the market and those are not. The long term play I think is going to be following the approach the approach to precedent is going to follow. China is going to require some suiction eificant sacrifice to decouple from the Chinese Communist Party because it is more than just a trade issue.
They have They have.
Infiltrated our economy in a very parasitic manner. One of the largest employers in North Carolina is Smith Pille Foods, which is owned by China. Uh They have purchased a lot of agribusiness. They are heavily leveraged in the pharmaceutical industry, which is another big employer in the state of North Carolina.
Uh So, decoupling from China is going to be a very long term process, but it is going to be necessary for our sovereignty because if China controls through Rare Earth and other technology or National Security Center, if they control our pharmaceutical center, if they control consumer and you know, listen to electronics and then they're making a strong play in AI. Where is our future not just in terms
of our economy, but our national security. It's very much in doubt when you have a geopolitical adversary controlling all the key sectors of the economy and they want to subdue the United States.
Yeah. Uh. And then and then getting back to Canada here as we as we wrap this up, you talked, you talk about Canada and the United States and Canada are are the our big trading partners, but China is is intertwined quite deeply into Canada as well. Is that is that a hindrance moving forward with Canada? Does Does Canada have to be concerned about, you know, any repercussions from China as it seeks to uh, you know, mend fences with the United States, Yes.
They do.
They have to be a very significant erms considered in my view, not just with China but also with Russia and incursions within Canada's shipping lanes and access to the Arctic Ocean and the Northern Pacific and the Northern Atlantic oceans. They're going to have very significant concerns in Canada really needs to step up to the plate and get involved in the Indo Pacific in a way that they have not been, get invested in their national security, which they have not been.
They are won the.
Worst performing nations in NATO and have been for generations, and they have not taken their obligations under NATO seriously. They are stuck at about one point three percent of their GDP contributing to their own national security when NATO has set a goal, and it's not an unreasonable goal two percent. But it's not just Canada that we have to watch. In terms of China, Mexico is a very
big deal as well. Mexico has been used as a basically a trojan horse for China to get their goods assembled in Mexico and then entered the United States care free, and that has caused a spike in the Mexican trade surplus with the United States. Last year tween twenty four it soord to nearly one hundred and seventy two billion dollars, and a big reason for that was Chinese goods assembled in Mexico and then shipped to the United States.
Well, Charlton Allen, I'll tell you what. You make some great points in the commentaries that I find on American Thinker. And you know, when I look at this, I look at a situation that, you know, so many of these situations have gone unaddressed for so long in any sort of meaningful way, that when it does come time to deal with it, which I think we're just you know, dipping our toe into the water here on this, that there's going to be some there. You know, Ripping that
band aid office doesn't come without any consequences. So I think it's something that needs to be done, and you know, long term, I think it's going to be wind up being a good thing for the United States. But Charleston Allen, we have to run. I want to thank you for the time today and the Madison Center for Law and Liberty and the Modern Federalist podcast. Where can people find that podcast? The Modern Federalist?
You could find it on all the major podcast providers, Apple Podcasts for example, your Podbeans, Spotify, so forth. So on, We're out there and seasons two stop the launch.
All right, well, Charlton Allen, great having you on the show today. I look forward to future conversations and with your permission, we'll be calling on you again before too long.
That'd be great, Thank you.
All right, there you go Charlton Allen and look up his writings on American Thinker.
You will be glad that you did.
It is six twenty eight, little late for a break on fifty five krc V talk station fifty five krc dot com