Gordon Chang: Biden's plan will create jobs

President Joe Biden talks on the phone with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)

China expert Gordon Change says that when President Biden claimed his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan would produce "millions of jobs, good-paying jobs," Biden was right.

But the jobs will be in China, said Chang, author of "The Coming Collapse of China" and a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

He wrote on the think tank's website that Biden's plan, for three reasons, "will create full employment in China."

"First, Biden will create substantially more demand for Chinese materials to go into America's planned physical infrastructure improvements. Second, the large corporate tax increases he proposes will drive even more businesses out of the U.S. – and across the Pacific. Third, Biden's 'green energy' ideas will eliminate one of the crucial advantages American manufacturers now have: cheap energy," he said.

"In Beijing, there must be, at the moment, great elation and anticipation," said Chang.

Chang pointed out that the $621 billion to be spent on roadways, bridges and ports and airports, "requiring cement and steel will benefit the world's No. 1 producer of these products: China."

"Last year, China made 56.5% of the world's crude steel. The U.S. accounted for 3.9%. While global output fell 0.9% in 2020, U.S. output plummeted 17.2% as mills closed. In 2020, the U.S. produced 90.0 million metric tons of cement. China produced 2.2 billion metric tons, more than half the world's production."

Chang continued: "As onshoring advocate Jonathan Bass tells Gatestone, Biden's American Jobs Plan should be a 'ground-up effort,' requiring the production in the U.S. of materials that go into new infrastructure. Bass points out that jobs making such materials tend to be higher-paying, and he argues that bringing back production to America enhances supply-chain security. 'Unless we invest in the capacity to make the steel, cement, and the other materials that go into our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, we will always be at the mercy of China's Communist Party,' Bass, also CEO of Whom Home, states."

Then, Chang wrote, there are the "large tax hikes" that are proposed, from 21% to 28% for corporations.

"Perhaps Larry Kudlow, on his Fox Business show on March 30, put it best when interviewing Trump's U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer," Chang said.

Kudlow said: "I saw it first under Reagan, but it's the same under Trump. Domestic security, domestic economic security, is essential to international security. If we damage our economy, Bob, with all these tax hikes, including the corporate tax hikes, companies will be leaving, not coming here. We will lose jobs, not gain jobs. Our whole economy will suffer. The Chinese will laugh all the way to the bank."

Chang noted that at the moment, the U.S. "is the hydrocarbon superpower, surpassing Russia in 2011 to become the world's largest producer of natural gas and overtaking Saudi Arabia in 2018 to become No. 1 driller of petroleum," he said.

But Biden's "wave of environmental and climate change regulations" will change that.

"Biden, governing like a big-government advocate, seems determined to harm American business competitiveness," he said.

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