Just when you think the Biden Administration can’t get any more bizarre, it proves you wrong. Not that long ago, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the dollar’s share in global reserves will continue to decline as other countries diversify their reserves with other currencies. Now, instead of working with our allies, with nations close geographically close to the U.S., or even with our own government to deal with the diversification, Yellen is jetting off to China. After all, the government there really wants to help us maintain economic supremacy–NOT!

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to visit China this week to deepen communication

Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/ZIKcsplKxg#JanetYellen #China #US pic.twitter.com/TVgXH8G6ls

— ANI Digital (@ani_digital) July 3, 2023

I don’t know about you, but it frankly terrifies me when I think of anyone in the Biden Administration working “to deepen communication” with the Chinese. That point was driven home as I read the announcement about Yellen’s trip later this week and then considered the comments of our former ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, this morning. She warned that China has been preparing for war with the US “for decades. . . If you look at the military situation, they now have the largest naval fleet in the world. They have 340 ships, we have 293. They’re going to have 400 In two years, we won’t even have 350 in two decades. They have started developing hypersonic missiles. We’re just now getting started. . . They are modernizing their military, our military’s taking gender pronoun classes,” she said. “Look at what they’re doing on cyber, artificial intelligence, space — they’re ahead of us.”

But Biden, via Yellen, wants to talk economics with them. Just how much appeasement do you think will happen–and not from the Chinese?

Maybe I’m wrong. After all, Yellen’s talked in the past about how we shouldn’t “de-couple” from China.

How much of a disaster that would be and, yes, it would cause problems with our economy. But so will bending over and asking for another ala Animal House.

Of course, the latter all too often seems to be the general foreign policy of the Biden Administration. So we shouldn’t expect too much to come out of the Yellen’s meeting.

The goal of her visit is to deepen and increase the frequency of communication between U.S. and China, the official said. While there are clear areas of common interest where Yellen can make progress, the official said, there are also significant disagreements that will not be resolved through a single trip. . . The treasury secretary’s visit will be more focused on stabilizing the global economy and challenging China’s support of Russia in its ongoing land invasion of Ukraine.

Okay, talking is good, especially if no one gives Biden the phone (or forgets to give him his crib notes). Talking more frequently might not be a bad idea, with the same caveats. But am I the only one giving the Administration the stink eye at the thought of our Treasury Secretary challenging China on military policy?

That said, I am all for moving as many of our supply chains away from China as we can. However, I doubt the Chinese will take kindly to the idea. That’s especially true considering China’s own economic downturn of late.

One of the issues Yellen is expected to discuss while there is the recent decision by the Chinese government to ban Micron Technology sales there:

The Chinese government in May barred companies that handle critical information from buying microchips made by Micron, after the Biden administration recently took steps to bar Chinese chip makers from gaining access to crucial tools needed to make advanced chips. The company’s chips, which are used for memory storage in all kinds of electronics, like phones and computers, were deemed to pose “relatively serious cybersecurity problems” by China’s internet watchdog after a review.

Hmmm, sounds like a bit of tit-for-tat on Beijing’s part. After all, our own government has done the same thing. Just last week, it was also announced the US and the Netherlands were working together to prevent China from gaining possession of certain chip-making equipment.

But Yellen wants to work more closely with China. Except she wants to pull supply chains from there. Could she be talking out of both sides of her mouth?

Or does she not know what she wants?

Or does she–and the rest of the administration–hope the average voter doesn’t look too closely at the trip, what comes out of it and its ultimate cost to the US economy and, honestly, our freedoms?

When even the NYT notes that Yellen has taken a “softer stance” with China in recent weeks, it should give everyone with at least one working brain cell a moment of pause. Softer is not what is needed. That’s especially true if softer is not accompanied by a bigger stick.

Since this is the Biden Administration, there will be no stick.

Let’s just hope Yellen et al don’t find themselves reliving the flying monkey scene from Wizard of Oz because this trip has all the makings for a complete and utter disaster for the US.

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Featured Image: Janet Yellen caricature by DonkeyHotey, Yellen’s photo is in the public domain available via Wikimedia. The mimeograph is based on an image in the public domain from Wikimedia. The dollars are adapted from Nadya Peek’s Flickr photostream.