Kathy Wilson

ARE YOU WONDERING WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP IS REALLY DOING? Let me tell you what I see. I hear people asking why President Trump is fighting with Canada, dealing with Venezuela, using tariffs and talking so much about energy. Those are fair questions. When people are paying more for gas, groceries and electricity, they are naturally worried about today. I understand that because I am paying those bills too. But if we only look at the price on the gas pump, we are going to miss the biggest part of what President Trump is doing. Remember Clinton and Bush’s new world order? Well for more than 30 years, presidents from both parties managed America’s decline, the only way the new world order works is to tear down America and build up the rest of the world. They sent our factories to China, made us depend on OPEC for oil and allowed foreign countries to control the minerals needed to run our economy. They called it free trade, but there was nothing free about America losing millions of jobs while China grew rich and powerful. President Trump is the first president in my lifetime who looked at that entire system and said we are not doing this anymore. He is not just trying to lower gas prices next month. He is rebuilding America so no foreign country can hold us hostage for the next 50 to 100 years. His administration is negotiating a deal that could give the United States an ownership stake in more than a dozen Venezuelan oil fields holding around 90 billion barrels of proven reserves. If completed, that could more than double America’s oil reserves. That oil will not reach your gas tank next week. Socialism destroyed Venezuela’s oil industry, and rebuilding it will take years and billions of dollars. President Trump is thinking past the next election and planning for the future of our children and grandchildren. The fight with Canada is also about much more than a few tariffs. Canada has some of the world’s largest supplies of uranium, which is needed for nuclear power, and potash, which is needed to make fertilizer and grow food. At the same time, Canada has been sending uranium and potash to China while expecting full access to the American market. President Trump is telling Canada it cannot have it both ways. You cannot expect all the benefits of being America’s closest trading partner while helping strengthen Communist China. Canada must choose which side it is on. That is a major reason behind this trade fight. The tariffs are leverage, not the final goal. Canada depends heavily on the American market and cannot replace it. President Trump holds the stronger hand, and I believe we will win if Republicans stand behind him and give him time to finish the job. Now look at the whole map. The United States has oil, natural gas, farmland and manufacturing. Canada has uranium and potash. Venezuela has oil. Argentina, Chile and Bolivia have lithium. Brazil has iron, rare earth minerals and farmland. Mexico has manufacturing capacity. The Western Hemisphere has almost everything we need to feed ourselves, fuel ourselves, build our own goods and defend ourselves without begging China, Iran, Russia or OPEC for anything. That is what President Trump is really building. He is building an America where Iran cannot raise the price of every gallon of gas by threatening one shipping lane. China cannot shut down our factories by withholding critical minerals. OPEC cannot control our economy by cutting oil production. A war 8,000 miles away may still be a tragedy, but it should not become an American family’s mortgage payment. Our young people should be working good-paying jobs in American factories, mines and refineries instead of carrying rifles through another endless war overseas. I am not telling you every decision will be painless or that everything will happen exactly as planned. No honest person can promise that. I am telling you there is a much bigger plan at work than the media is explaining.