Before Congress adjourned for Christmas, congressional leadership had set ambitious goals to counter the Chinese Communist Party. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) identified three China policy priorities to address: closing trade loopholes that provided a highway for Uyghur slave labor-produced goods to America, cutting off U.S. cooperation with CCP-controlled biotechnology companies, and restricting American investments in companies domiciled in the People’s Republic of China directly or indirectly serving the People’s Liberation Army.
Their priorities were sound. Chinese companies like Temu and Shein are injecting slave-labor goods into the United States, circumventing U.S. law in the process. American companies were overly dependent on PRC biotechnology companies harvesting the DNA of Americans for nefarious purposes. Wall Street had invested in PLA-linked entities for decades and essentially underwritten Beijing’s military buildup.
Congress entered Christmas having failed to legislate on these imperatives. Americans enter 2025 with Uyghur slave-labor products in their shopping carts and persistent exposure to CCP biological threats, all while underwriting Beijing’s war machine with their pension funds.
Congress’s inability to resolve these problems is a parable of America’s broader strategic failure. It is not a story of floundering or fear but of delay and decadence. The United States finds itself in a New Cold War with the CCP, yet Washington has thus far lacked the political will required to win this existential tussle. The failure lies not with Beijing’s craftiness but with America’s besetting strategic weaknesses.
According to well-placed sources, the effort to close the “de minimis” import loophole died in the Senate with Republican members who prioritized economic considerations above national security imperatives. House Democrats froze out the BIOSECURE Act from the National Defense Authorization Act and the continuing resolution due to claims of possible lost jobs in key congressional districts. Both parties shared blame for the failure to restrict U.S. investments in the PLA. Democrats kept it out of the NDAA, and Elon Musk’s advocacy killed the CR. This comedy of errors challenges the Washington conventional wisdom about China policy being a rare refuge from partisan politics.
To be sure, Republicans and Democrats have made great strides in insulating America from malign CCP influence. Look no further than the bipartisan passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021 and the diverse coalition that enacted the TikTok bill earlier this year. Even these successes, however, are encountering headwinds. The UFLPA requires massive scaling-up in order to be effective, and the TikTok bill hangs in legal and political jeopardy.
America is struggling to muster the requisite political capital to wage and win a New Cold War with the CCP. This reality should disturb voters across the nation, and it should galvanize elected officials to put the country’s survival ahead of rank politics. Xi Jinping, after all, has made his intentions abundantly clear. He is preparing the Chinese people for war. The PLA is isolating Taiwan. Beijing is angling to pierce the translating alliance and divide the U.S. and the European Union. The PRC is infiltrating the Western hemisphere to challenge America’s dominance at home. Xi is building a Marxist “community of common destiny for all mankind” that will underpin the CCP’s quest for global domination.
The CCP isn’t hiding its gambit from the United States. Xi wants to displace America during his lifetime as the world’s leading superpower. Washington, however, seems stuck in a domestic rut of its own making.
What will it take to rouse this town and craft a “bipartisan China policy” worthy of the name?
One that doesn’t settle for low-hanging fruit at convenient political moments, but does the hard work to win this New Cold War and deter the outbreak of a hot war? The leadership of Speaker Johnson and Chairman Moolenaar shows that meeting this moment is possible, but history suggests that America requires a crisis to fundamentally shift its grand strategy. From Pearl Harbor to 9/11, America has needed external attack for the word “victory” to mean something. It is up to the incoming administration and the new Congress to make history by getting ahead of the crisis. Much depends on the next four years.
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