I serve as a Member of the European Parliament, and for many years, I have advocated for the automotive industry. I have spent years fighting misguided climate and automotive policies that cripple our industries. From that front-row seat, I can tell you plainly: Europe’s leaders have bankrolled China’s empire. If America follows the same path, you will hand Beijing the 21st century.
As President Trump reminded the United Nations, nations that surrender their sovereignty in pursuit of applause inevitably collapse into dependence. His warning—that global bureaucrats do not answer to working families—was prophetic. Europe ignored it, choosing ideological prestige over resilience. America cannot afford the same fatal miscalculation.
China’s ambition isn’t subtle. For centuries, it saw itself as the Middle Kingdom, the center of civilization. The West humiliated it in the Opium Wars, and it never forgot. When Deng Xiaoping opened China in the late 1970s, his bargain with the West was simple: we’ll build anything, at any price—if you ignore pollution and human rights. The West agreed. Forty years later, China is stronger than ever, and the West is weaker.
Japan rose from the ashes of World War II, and then South Korea followed with its own miracle. But China learned something far more dangerous: don’t just copy the West; weaponize the West’s own ideals.
That’s exactly what Beijing has done with the climate agenda. Europeans buy “green” cars to feel virtuous. Yet every electric battery depends on lithium, cobalt, and rare earths mined in Africa under horrific conditions and refined in Chinese plants. Beijing locked down the African mines, built the processing capacity, and turned it into a choke point. If you need batteries, wind turbines, or solar panels, you go through China. That’s not environmentalism. That’s economic warfare.
Europe walked right into the trap. Brussels shut down clean, efficient factories for steel, glass, and cement. China opened dirtier ones at double capacity. We lost jobs and sovereignty. China gained leverage. This isn’t policy. It’s surrender.
And it’s all connected: China’s colonization of Africa, its rare earth monopoly, and Europe’s blind climate obsession are part of one concerted strategy. Build dependence, tighten the grip, and watch the West congratulate itself into irrelevance.
Here’s the good news for America: you still have time to avoid Europe’s fate. That’s because you now have leadership that understands the game.
On day one, President Donald Trump tore up Biden’s climate mandates and DEI rules with a single executive order. He began rolling back the regulatory chokehold that bled American energy, manufacturing, and industry. Vice President J.D. Vance has been just as blunt: America cannot survive if it outsources its supply chains and sacrifices its workers to Beijing. Together, they are restoring the “America First” framework that puts sovereignty and strength ahead of elite applause.
Not everyone in Brussels is blind. Some of us fight every day against policies that sell out our citizens and enrich Beijing. But here, we are badly outnumbered. The Green Deal has become a religion. Families pay more, industries vanish, and China laughs. Europe is turning itself into a green museum: lots of virtue signaling, no real power.
China deserves respect for its discipline and ambition. Its people work hard. Its leaders think in decades while Western elites chase headlines. But admiration cannot mean self-delusion. If America copies Europe’s climate dogma, you’ll end up just as dependent, just as weak, and just as humiliated.
The difference is that you now have Trump and Vance in the White House. They know that China’s so-called “green” policies are not about saving the planet. They are about domination.
The choice is simple: keep reversing Biden’s failed policies, rebuild your industry, and stand strong—or repeat Europe’s mistake and bankroll China’s dream.