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When the State Department issued its annual country reports on human rights last month, the report on the People's Republic of China, which covers calendar year 2024, started with this statement: "Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year in China against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang."

This is not the first time that the U.S. government has unambiguously stated that the PRC, which is run by the Communist Party, is committing genocide.

Since 2020, every one of the State Department's annual human rights reports on China has stated that the Chinese government is engaging in genocide in Xinjiang. "Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang," said the 2020 report. The 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 reports stated this same horrendous fact.

The recently released 2024 report lists some of the outrages the Chinese regime is committing against the Uyghurs and others living under its dictatorship. "Significant human rights issues," it says, "included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings; disappearances; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices; arbitrary arrest and detention by the government including, since 2017, of more than one million Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Muslim minority groups in extrajudicial internment camps."

The Chinese regime, says the State Department, also imposed "serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including unjustified arrests and criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others."

In addition, says the report, the Chinese government put "restrictions" on religious freedom and engaged in "instances of coerced abortions and forced sterilization."

These communists, the State Department says, also engaged in "trafficking in persons, including forced labor" and "some of the worst forms of child labor."

So, how has the United States been dealing with this regime that is engaging in genocide?

We have been enriching them.

In the five and a half calendar years from 2020 through the first six months of 2025, according to the Census Bureau, entities in the United States paid approximately $2.5 trillion to import products from this country run by a genocidal communist regime.

During the same five and a half years, the United States ran a cumulative trade deficit with China of approximately $1.72 trillion.

In the first six months of this year, according to the Census Bureau, China has been our third largest source of imports ($167.5 billion) after Mexico ($264.4 billion) and Canada ($198.2 billion). But with a bilateral trade deficit of $111.5 billion in those same six months, it has also been the leading source of our overall $689.7 trade deficit during that period -- beating Mexico ($96.2 billion), which placed second, and Ireland ($82.3 billion), which placed third.

Since the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump has taken a series of executive actions aimed at fixing the U.S.-China trade relationship by threatening to impose increased tariffs on Chinese imports, claiming authority to do so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

In an executive order issued on Feb. 1, for example, Trump responded to China having "subsidized and otherwise incentivized PRC chemical companies to export fentanyl and related precursor chemicals" into the United States, by ordering an "additional 10 percent" tariff on Chinese imports. On March 3, having "determined that the PRC has not taken adequate steps to alleviate the illicit drug crisis through cooperative enforcement actions," he issued another executive order making the change in tariffs on Chinese imports an additional 20% instead of 10%.

On May 12, Trump issued an executive order suspending the increased tariffs on China for 90 days. Then on Aug. 11, he issued another order suspending them until Nov. 10.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled last week that the president does not have the authority to unilaterally increase tariffs on imports.

The taxing power, the court concluded, belongs to Congress.

"We are not addressing whether the President's actions should have been taken as a matter of policy," said the court's majority opinion.

"The Constitution grants Congress the power to 'lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises' and to 'regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,'" the opinion stated. "Tariffs are a tax, and the Framers of the Constitution expressly contemplated the exclusive grant of taxing power to the legislative branch; when Patrick Henry expressed concern that the President 'may easily become king,' James Madison replied that this would not occur because 'the purse is in the hands of the representatives of the people.'"

What those representatives in Congress need to do now is enact a law that deals with the true nature of China as described in the State Department's human rights report and in the Census Bureau's trade data.

A law that gradually increases tariffs on Chinese imports until either those imports completely cease or China stops engaging in genocide and abusive labor practices would not only serve the interests of the American people but of the Chinese people themselves.

To find out more about Terence P. Jeffrey and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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