China has already suspended material essential to America's tech and defense industries after President Donald Trump announced his first round of tariffs, but if it opts to suspend pharmaceuticals and medical supplies as well, the country will need to buy such items from third parties, China expert Gordon Chang said Sunday on Newsmax.
"I think what will happen will be we will get all of those items," Chang told Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend." "It's just that it's going to take a little bit longer because we'll buy them from third parties and, of course, we're going to pay a little bit more."
He pointed out that in 2010, when China imposed an embargo on rare earth exports to Japan over a South China Sea issue, the embargo collapsed in a few months because the Japanese bought what they needed elsewhere.
"They were also able to buy directly from China with state enterprises that were ignoring Beijing's dictates," said Chang.
Meanwhile, it's important to start manufacturing pharmaceutical ingredients and finished products on U.S. soil, he added.
"President Trump, at the end of his first term, started an initiative on this," said Chang. "The initiative was flawed, and because he wasn't reelected, he didn't have the chance to improve it. But this is something that we need to do."
The U.S. under former President Joe Biden started producing semiconductors through the CHIPS Act, and Trump has gotten TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest manufacturer of sophisticated computer chips, to build in Arizona, said Chang.
"This is what we're going to have to do for pharmaceuticals as well," he said, adding that the country has the talent, land, and money to move forward. "The only issue is, let's do this faster than what's presently contemplated."
Meanwhile, China has been closing many of its export factories, which could cause further shortages.
"Even before President Trump took his second oath of office, they were in precarious positions for various reasons," said Chang. "And now, of course, with the tariffs, they have not been able to continue. So you have workers who have not been paid for a long time. They're demonstrating on the streets, and we have these factories closing. So workers are going back to their hometowns, back to farms. This is a very bad situation."
Normally, 21% of China's exports go to the U.S., but Trump has closed most of that through tariffs, said Chang.
"So right now China is trying ot take its products that it would have sold to us and sell them domestically, but that's creating another problem," he said. "That's deflation, and that's an even worse problem."
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