The Dictatorship
Cheap labor isn’t the only advantage China has over the United States
The trade deficit with China in the current tariff war is overshadowing another important shortfall — our country’s education deficit with China.
As the Trump administration threatens American universities, guts crucial research programs, slashes education spending and threatens to kill the Department of Education, Chinese leaders are steaming ahead to improve their vast nation’s education standards and outcomes. And China is doing this with a laserlike focus on programs around science, technologyindustrial innovation and ai.
As the Trump administration slashes education spending, Chinese leaders are steaming ahead to improve their nation’s education standards and outcomes.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon confused the abbreviation for artificial intelligence with A-1the popular steak sauce brand. The contrast could not be more stark, and the consequences should worry all of us.
China graduates almost twice as many STEM-oriented Ph.D.s in science and technology programs than the U.S. — an estimated 77,000 versus 40,000 according to the Center for Security and Emerging Technology. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story. If you exclude international students from that count, then China outpaces the U.S. 3 to 1.
Their advantage doesn’t end with science and technology Ph.D.s. China has also been forging ahead to create stronger undergraduate engineering programsand vocational engineering disciplines to create a massive workforce of factory and innovation, with workers that have mastered specialized hands-on technological, problem solving and math skills.
There is a 2015 video with Apple CEO Tim Cook that has been re-circulating recently that explains why China is so attractive to foreign manufacturers. Here’s the newsflash: It’s not just about cheap labor. In that interview with former Fortune executive editor Adam Lashinsky at the Fortune Global Forum, Cook spells out why China is so important to Apple’s global supply chain for computers, iPads, iPhones and other products. He says, “The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor costs…. but the truth is China stopped being the low labor cost country many years ago. That is not the reason to come to China from a supply point of view. The reason is because of the skill and the quantity of skill in one location and the type of skill it is.”
Cook said in that video that “the products we do require really advanced tooling and … the tooling skill is very deep here. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers … and I am not sure you could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields. It is that vocational expertise is very deep, very very deep here, and I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on that even when others were de-emphasizing vocational.”
He said workers there demonstrate an “intersection of craftsman kind of skill and sophisticated robotics and sort of the computer science world, that intersection that is very rare to find anywhere.”
Trump defends his torrent of tariffs by promising that such economic saber rattling will bring American manufacturing roaring back. However, his team does not seem to have a plan to rebuild a new model of American manufacturing that is based on brains as much as brawn, as well as the ability to keep up with rapid technological and engineering changes that require precise skills and advanced training.
Whether companies are creating washing machines or weather instruments, the manufacturing models that have become so attractive in China (and also increasingly in places like Vietnam and Indonesia) are based on those advanced skills Cook was talking about. That requires prioritizing academics and investing more in education at all levels — pre-K, K-12, vocational programs and higher education. It also requires investing in the government research programs that partner with universities. But Elon Musk’s DOGE brigade is enthusiastically ravaging the agencies and departments that support such partnerships.
Trump has been all bark and no long-term strategy.
Trump has been all bark and no long-term strategy. What’s sad is that America could continue to be the greatest economic global powerhouse. The ingredients for success are here, but Trump and his team seem hell-bent in destroying the educational and research infrastructure that could insure growth and dominance in the economic sphere. It’s like attacking the fuse box with a blow torch and expecting that the lights and the oven and the computers will all keep running.
It just doesn’t make sense.
In truth, America’s struggles with education predate Trump. Tuition rates have soared to levels that are hard to justify, and almost impossible for most families to finance without steep sacrifice. American students lag behind their international counterparts in several disciplines. A 2019 study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics found that American 8th graders ranked 16th in math and 14th in science. As the Asia Times put it, our kids “were outclassed by students from Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Canada, Dubai and several European countries.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 2018 Program for International Student Assessment found China to rank first — and far ahead of the U.S. — in reading, math and science, but even if we eliminate China’s cherry-picked data, the Asia Times reported, “the US still ranks 34th in math and 15th in science.” It rightly calls that “an appalling result for a country with the world’s best universities.”
Even though China has sometimes presented an overly flattering portrait of its students’ academic achievements, the truth remains that the country has put muscle into building a world-class compulsory education program for young people at the lower rungs of the economic ladder. They’re no longer primarily plowing the best resources into educating the social elite class at the expense of everyone else.
Kishore Mahbubani, the Singapore-based scholar and author of several books on Asia, including “Has China Won?,” argues that the economic standoff between the U.S. and China will be won and lost in the heartland of both countries and that education is the thing that will make the biggest difference.
“At the end of the day, the outcome of the geopolitical contest between the US and China will not be determined by which society is doing a better job at taking care of its bottom 50 percent and by which society’s kids can read, write and count,” Mahbubani argued in the Asia Times.
When you poll voters about what matters to them, they always put education high on the list, but our spending and strategic priorities as a nation don’t reflect that. The education stories that break into the news cycle are more often about school shootings, book bans, restrictions on transgender athletes and debates over critical race theory.
Instead of building America’s world-class education system, President Trump spends his time picking fights with universities or threatening to withhold funding from schools that allegedly teach concepts like white privilege or have what he considers to be “illegal DEI programs.” We have an administration that acts like America’s educational infrastructure is more of a whipping post than a whopping piston of growth.
A country that wants to stay ahead of or even keep up with China doesn’t treat its advanced education system with this kind of disdain and scorn.
Michele Norris is a senior contributing editor for BLN and the author of “Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race & Identity.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Mint has begun producing a new $1 coin bearing President Donald Trump’s face to help celebrate America’s 250th birthdaythe Treasury Department said Wednesday.
The final design for the commemorative coinbeing released in the fall, was approved earlier this year by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump. But the finished product unveiled Wednesday differs from that version in a few aspects, including that it is not made of gold but rather has a gold finish.
The coin is intended “to honor the enduring legacy of liberty and a lasting symbol of patriotism,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X. “Featuring President Trump, it celebrates the strength of American values, and the promise of a nation dedicated to preserving freedom for all.”
The president on Wednesday told Fox Business Network that the move to put his face on a coin is “very unusual, but I was honored by it,” adding that “it’s very cute they gave me a coin.”
Trump, a Republican, has a penchant for putting his name and likeness in the historical record, following his renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleshipsamong other tributes. The move to put his face on the gold coin has drawn criticism in particular because federal law prohibits the depiction of a living president on U.S. currency, though the treasury secretary has the authority to authorize the minting and issuance of coins in some circumstances.
The front of the coin features an image of Trump in a suit and tie and with a stern look on his face. Lettering on the top half of the coin’s arc spells “LIBERTY,” with the dates 1776-2026 on the bottom half of the arc. The words “IN GOD WE TRUST” are in the middle.
The reverse side depicts the traditional image of the bald eagle in the Great Seal of the U.S., with “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” on the top half of the coin and the Latin phrase “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” meaning “Out of many, one,” on the shield emblazoned on the bird’s breast.
Among the other differences from the design approved earlier this year is that Trump doesn’t have his fists resting on top of what is supposed to be a desk as he leans forward. The Treasury Department did not specify Wednesday why the final product diverged from the originally approved design.
The Treasury Department announced in March that it would be putting Trump’s signature on all new U.S. paper currency.
Traditionally, U.S. paper currency carries the signatures of the treasury secretary and the treasurer, not the president.
___
Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
The president couldn’t be decent even for 24 hours. Less than a day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday that it would pause most vehicle stopsDonald Trump posted on social media early Wednesday morning that “we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”
“The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch,” he wrote on Truth Social. Shortly after, Trump reversed the pause on traffic stops.
ICE operates this way because we as a country have allowed it to happen.
In truth, suspending the stops wouldn’t have brought back Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Guerrerothe two Latino fathers killed by ICE agents during separate stops in a span of a week. They are two more victims of an administration that has terrorized immigrant communities relentlessly. The real issue isn’t whether the traffic stops are now ending or continuing — it’s that ICE agents are never held accountable for killing people.
As I have written in the pastICE operates this way because we as a country have allowed it to happen. ICE is now the country’s largest-funded enforcement agency. Just last month Congress passed $70 billion more in funding. Nothing will change until ICE is abolished.
“They’re just trying to cover for the fact that what they are doing shouldn’t be allowable in the first place,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of ICE’s announcement Tuesdaybefore Trump’s post about traffic stops. “And the fact that they’re pausing it is to distract from the fact that in many of these instances they shouldn’t be allowed to do it in the first place.”
AOC is right, and restoring the stops proves her point. There have been many instances. In March of last year, 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez was killed by an ICE agent helping route traffic in South Padre Island. The Department of Homeland Security said Martinez tried to run over the agent, but the video didn’t support that claim.
In January, the nation mourned the deaths of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three shot in her SUV as she left a protest, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse killed during another protest. The federal government withheld the evidence in both cases — body camera footage, hard drives, even Good’s bullet-riddled SUV — from state investigators until this week. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he was “deeply troubled” that it took that long.
This is a pattern of manipulation: stripping away every detail of a human’s life until all that’s left is “illegal alien.”
“There have been at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched his deportation campaign,” The Associated Press reported. Nobody has been charged in a single one of those deaths. Guerrero’s also marks at least the 18th time in the past year that federal officers have fired at people in carsaccording to an MS NOW database. That’s on top of at least 22 people who have died in ICE custody this year alone, along with 33 last year.
The Trump administration claimed that Guerrero was a threat to “public safety” instead of a loving husband and parent to a 3-year-old daughter. It’s the same narrative this administration is trying with Salgado Araujo, who has been in this country for 35 years and raised three sons (who all earned college degrees). A week after his death, the FBI even said it was searching Salgado Araujo’s van for drugs. Never mind that, as the New York Times noted, there was “no prior suggestion that Mr. Salgado Araujo or the others in the van had been involved with drugs or had any relevant criminal history.”
This is a pattern of manipulation: stripping away every detail of a human’s life until all that’s left is “illegal alien,” because it’s easier to kill someone once you have already decided they were never fully a person to begin with. Dehumanizing immigrants is official government policy, and people are dying under it.
“Let’s be clear: it never was about documented or undocumented people — what we’re seeing is pure xenophobia and racism. Our community has been targeted and persecuted with zero accountability,” Voto Latino’s Beatriz Lopez saidcalling for the resignation of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
While the government is in the hands of the prejudiced, the most American things we can do are to reject government talking points when the video evidence says otherwise, and to uplift who the victims really were.
“He had a great vision for getting ahead, so many dreams to fulfill,” Guerrero’s father, Omar Durán, told The New York Times. “My son is a wonderful son — I don’t know why they did that to him.”
Masked agents should not get to decide whether Salgado Araujo and Guerrero get to live.
“He was a hard-working family man who never wanted his name to be known by anyone outside of his family. He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” said Ronaldo Salgado, Salgado Araujo’s sonlast week at a press conference.
“He did not deserve to die,” Ronaldo added.
Masked agents should not get to decide whether Salgado Araujo and Guerrero get to live. Current ICE tactics have communities terrified. It’s part of why half of Americans support abolishing ICE. Immigration as continued militarized enforcement will only lead to more deaths. It may be hard even to visualize a country without ICE, but as Amy Gottlieb, U.S. migration director for the American Friends Service Committee, noted earlier this yearan ICE-less world can include “legal services, case management, social services, and other community-based support” that would help “navigate immigration processes while keeping families together — creating stability in our communities rather than chaos.”
Immigration policy through continued militarized enforcement will only lead to more deaths. What country do we want to be? One that values humanity, or one that wants to dehumanize people who believe in this country’s promise? This is the choice each American has to make. Are you for killing innocent people in broad daylight, or are you for decency and compassion? The America I believe in would choose the latter. So enough with the dehumanization, enough with the deaths, and no more ICE.
Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of “The Latino Newsletter” and co-editor of “Pressing Issues from Free Press.”
The Dictatorship
Ken Paxton hasn’t debated a rival in more than a decade. Talarico is now challenging him to one
This is the July 16, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
“And who is my neighbor?”
— Luke 10:29
A CONVERSATION WITH JAMES TALARICO
Two ICE shootings in nine days have put immigration enforcement at the center of the Texas Senate race. Democratic nominee James Talarico joined “Morning Joe” to discuss border security, the fear in Hispanic communities, and what his grandfather — a Baptist preacher in South Texas — taught him about loving thy neighbor.
MB: Do you believe there should be robust border security?
JT: Absolutely. We have to protect our immigrant neighbors while also securing our southern border with commonsense policies. That means more Border Patrol agents, more surveillance technology, more immigration judges — not this crazy border wall through Big Bend National Park.
JS: Would you agree Democrats made a big mistake not focusing enough on border security?
JT: No question. I’ve called out President Joe Biden for failing to secure our southern border. National Democrats took the border for granted — we stopped showing up, and that’s why people along the border started looking for alternatives.
JS: You’ve been traveling the state, knocking on doors. What are you hearing from Hispanic communities?
JT: So many young people are showing up at our town halls, many of them Hispanic. They tell me they’re worried their parents aren’t going to come home at the end of the day.
The president promised to go after the criminals, and that’s something I support. But that’s not what’s happening. ICE should be cracking down on the cartels, not our communities. ICE should be deporting violent criminals, not small-business owners. ICE should be hunting down human traffickers, not moms and babies.
WG: How are you going to reverse the 30-year trend of Democrats losing statewide in Texas?
JT: The first words out of my mouth when I launched this campaign were that the real fight in this country is not left versus right — it’s top versus bottom. None of us can afford the basics: groceries, gas, utilities, childcare, prescription drugs.
We are trying to take on the megadonors who increasingly control our politics — and the puppet politicians who do their bidding.
WG: Republicans have gone after you personally — calling you a vegan, questioning your “Texas swagger.” How do you answer that?
JT: I think it’s funny. I’m the eighth-generation Texan in this race. Ken Paxton was born in North Dakota, raised in California, and I think transplants like Ken Paxton can become Texans. Texas is a state of mind, as John Steinbeck wrote.
And when I first heard the low-T thingI had to look it up — guys my age aren’t really worried about that. People realize we’re being played by these politicians who want to throw nicknames at each other. They’re ready for a serious senator who’s going to bring both parties together to get this economy back on track.
JS: Ken Paxton spent the Fourth of July on Westminster Bridge — celebrating 250 years of American independence with the British. How about you?
JT: I was with an American treasure — Willie Nelson — at his annual Fourth of July picnic in Austin.
A Tale of Two Fourth of Julys
Talarico and Nelson in Austin. Go”https://www.instagram.com/p/DaZYpSypCGw/”>James Talarico on Instagram
Paxton in London, July 4, 2026. Via @TheLincolnProject on YouTube
JS: Your opponents attack your faith. Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan — a man is left in a ditch, his own people pass him by, and it’s a despised foreigner who saves him. How is what we’re seeing right now the antithesis of that?
JT: My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. When I was little, he told me that as Christians, we’re supposed to follow the two commandments Jesus gave us: Love God and love your neighbor. It’s that commandment to love thy neighbor that got me into public service. I’m trying to love my neighbor through public policy.
And the parable of the Good Samaritan has so much to offer us at this moment. Jesus picked a Samaritan — not just an enemy, but a religious enemy. He lifted up the heretic and said, that is where salvation comes from.
MB: We understand you have a message for Ken Paxton.
JT: Ken Paxton hasn’t appeared on a debate stage in more than a decade. He refuses to answer basic questions — like why he gave an Epstein-style sweetheart deal to Adam Hoffman, an admitted child predator, or how he became a multimillionaire on a government salary.
So I am challenging Ken Paxton to three televised debates. I’ll be on that stage because I answer to the people of Texas. Ken Paxton answers to his billionaire megadonors. We’ll see if they let him show up.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.
- US Mint begins producing $1 coin with Trump’s face on it
- Gillibrand and Boozman roll out new bipartisan paid leave bill
- Johnson preps to punt government funding through midterms
- Todd Blanche’s chances of becoming attorney general could hinge on John Cornyn
- Dems churn through cash ahead of tense Michigan Senate primary
- Vance fails to quell fiscal hawk concerns about GOP reconciliation plans
- Gillibrand and Boozman roll out new bipartisan paid leave bill
- The Maine and Texas shootings are two more reasons to abolish ICE
- Ken Paxton hasn’t debated a rival in more than a decade. Talarico is now challenging him to one
- Facing court losses, Trump turns to primetime to push election conspiracy theories
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words