At Tuesday’s State of the Union, Joe Biden called for “unity over division,” which is a nice thing to say during a prime-time address, but if he meant it, he would have discussed the many issues that united a majority of voters in November to deliver Republicans control of the House of Representatives. The simple reality is unity is only possible when America is winning. Sadly, we’ve only lost under Joe Biden and his speech Tuesday night didn’t suggest the necessary course correction.
Border security is a unifying issue, and polling shows a majority of Americans support the border wall. That didn’t stop Joe Biden from halting construction on his first day in office. He then ended President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, stopped deporting illegal immigrants convicted of drunk driving, and reimplemented Obama-style “catch and release” policies. These actions led to a massive increase in fentanyl trafficking, a record number of American overdose deaths, and an estimated over 5.3 million illegal border crossings.
Most Americans believe that lawbreakers should face consequences and that illegal aliens should be deported. If President Biden is serious about a bipartisan immigration agenda, he should start by closing our border and deporting all the criminals he’s allowed in.
Then, Biden should embrace bipartisanship by starting to treat China like a threat. Just last week, Joe Biden spent days sitting on his hands while a Chinese military spy balloon floated across America. An overwhelming 96 percent of Americans believe that China’s military is a serious threat to our nation, yet it’s only President Trump and the Republicans he helped elect that are willing to stand up to the communist state.
Unlike Biden, President Trump wasn’t afraid to stand up to China. He established a “China Initiative” at the Justice Department to tackle Chinese espionage, leading to dozens of arrests, enacted a Chinese travel ban in response to the “China Virus,” and rebuilt our military to compete with the People’s Liberation Army. Joe Biden shut down the China initiative, called President Trump’s travel ban “xenophobic,” and tried repeatedly to slash defense spending and cut our nuclear arsenal. It’s time to treat China as a threat, not just a “competitor.”
Similarly, 91 percent of Americans see China as a major economic threat. And though Joe Biden paid lip service to “U.S. manufacturing and Made in America” products during his speech on Tuesday, his record shows it was all talk.
Twenty-two years ago, while then-businessman Donald J. Trump was raising the alarm about China’s theft of our manufacturing jobs, Joe Biden was using his Senate seat to push for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Since then, America has lost 60,000 factories, but President Biden hasn’t learned a thing.
Biden’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” enacted a devastating $150-billion tax on American manufacturers to pay for green energy subsidies, which will be spent on solar panels and electric vehicles manufactured in China. Of course, President Biden dropped out of President Trump’s successful Phase One trade deal negotiations and grew America’s trade deficit to its highest point in history.
Finally, Joe Biden should make America energy independent again. A deafening 90 percent of Americans want to increase domestic energy production and even 86 percent of Democrat voters recognize that domestic natural gas and oil production helps America lead overseas.
President Trump wasn’t just winning for America when he increased liquid natural gas exports abroad to help wean foreign allies off of Russian and Venezuelan imports, he was uniting our nation through prosperity. Biden cut energy production and when gas prices nearly doubled, instead of producing more here at home, he begged Venezuela’s murderous dictator for energy exports. No voters asked for that.
President Biden spent a lifetime in Washington. He knows exactly how to line the pockets of lobbyists and special interest groups, but he has no clue how to win for America, and there’s no way for unity without winning.
America needs a course correction—Joe Biden and the return to politics, as usual, is an abject failure. There’s only one person who has the business acumen, steel spine, and policy experience to deliver America some big wins and unite our nation: Donald J. Trump.