Bannon’s one agenda in the White House was China

Gstaad, Switzerland

Two years or so ago I had back-to-back New York luncheons with Steve Bannon, and boy, have some of his predictions and fears ever come true! Bannon’s White House days as chief adviser to the Donald were numbered right off the bat. He had only one agenda, and that was China. He never mentioned Trump or attempted to settle any scores when talking to me — Steve’s much too sophisticated for that. Whiny ex-big shots selling their stories are as ubiquitous in DC, London and New York as name-droppers and influencers are in Hollywood.

Steve’s main theme was that certain critical American technologies and resources are controlled by China. This was 18 months before the Chinese communist government disappeared or punished various scientists who set off alarms about the virus. Total world domination through commercial means is China’s goal, according to Steve. But his one-trick pony act began to grate in the rapid news cycle that is the White House. Steve wanted Trump to stick it to the Chinese, which the Donald eventually did, but there are those who believe that’s when all the problems began.

Now, as they say down South, the chickens have come home to roost. But the media’s hatred and loathing of Trump has blinded them to the fact that the Donald had absorbed Steve’s lesson about the Chinese threat and was way ahead of the curve when he accused China of stealing Uncle Sam’s technology and intellectual properties. Trump was called everything under the sun that the globalists and the media mob could come up with, especially when he turned the screws on China with the tariffs. Then came the virus. Now the Chinese economy is up and running while the West’s is dead in the water. Draw your own conclusions.

Looking back, the orgy of anti-Donald propaganda surpasses anything Pravda and the Soviet machine managed during the Cold War. It’s a conspiracy theorist’s dream, the New York Times and the media daily injecting poison while a vast army of Chinese apparatchiks grind away at America’s foundations. China has even managed to censor Hollywood films that portray it negatively. The vast Chinese audience can make or break a movie where profits are concerned, so Hollywood has caved. Britain, needless to say, has not been asleep at the wheel, at least not Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who has repeatedly warned against appeasement of a communist regime that initially covered up the virus.

I know, I know, this all sounds like the stuff of cheap novels, but just look at the results: the West is reeling and its economies are dead in the water, while China is up and running and raking it in. As if that was not enough, China is refusing to shut down the wet markets that have been producing pandemics since the word was invented. And if you’re among those useful fools who still believe in the UN, China controls almost all of Africa’s votes in the chamber. And don’t get me started on the WHO, an institution totally infiltrated by Chinese agents.

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But let’s get back to my buddy Steve. Bannon was pushed out by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and for a very simple reason. Kushner wanted to do business with China and Saudi Arabia, two countries whose long-term interests Steve saw as inimical to those of Uncle Sam. Kushner’s real-estate holdings and business were in deep trouble when the Donald got elected in 2016. He owed one billion big ones for 666 Fifth Avenue, a white elephant that was doing to the Kushner purse what Bomber Harris did to Dresden’s skyline. Here were two moneybags itching for influence in the White House and willing to invest in New York real estate. It was a natural fit, but not as long as there was someone whispering Iago-like in Trump’s ear about Uncle Sam’s real enemies. We know the rest.

Mind you, this is the Taki version of what really happened. Steve’s response was sphinx-like when the great inquisitor brought up his departure from the White House. As things now stand, Trump’s reelection seems a pipe dream, although six months in politics is a century in real life. A multi-pronged attack by those that profit from unrestrained globalism, coupled with the media’s excoriation of anything Trumpian, means sleepy Joe Biden will be America’s 46th president. The problem, of course, is who will take over once he’s declared incompetent because of dementia. It will be a woman, needless to say, probably a black woman, or Amy Klobuchar, the only presidential candidate who didn’t call him an incompetent fool during the debates.

One thing I am sure of is that his twice-married son who likes booze and drugs (who doesn’t?) and used to hang out in Ukraine will enjoy the White House. The whole point of having a father is to benefit from him, at least that’s what my own dear father refused to say to me when I told him that I was not interested in owning ships but wished to write about those who did. And how wrong I was. A laid-up tanker nowadays makes $150,000 a day and I owned half a fleet of 20. Do the math and you’ll see that my Spectator salary does not match that.

This article is in The Spectator’s June 2020 US edition.