Yesterday Today Tomorrow

Inseong J Kim: Hello, this is Inseong J Kim from Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Still Happy New Year. We started the program last week with the good news that more than two million Bibles were distributed in Eastern Europe. A miracle is happening when people are in need of the truth and looking for God.

I think we need a miracle here in America. How does a miracle start? It starts with reading the Bible. The word of God speaks to us and changes us. Then God blesses us. That can happen here in America where many things are changing and departing from the actual book, the Bible.

Today, I will read a scripture and begin my program. The Bible discourages debt, viewing the borrower as a slave to the lender (Proverbs 22:7), and urges believers to owe no one anything except love for each other (Romans 13:8). While it does not explicitly forbid all debt, it focuses instead on stewardship, repayment, and forgiveness, highlighting its potential burdens and stressing financial responsibility. While the Old Testament law offers debt forgiveness during the Sabbatical year, New Testament principles emphasize timely repayment, warn against guaranteeing loans, and contrast the servitude of debt with freedom in Christ. This is a lesson we can implement in our lives.

I'm going to share a little bit about this debt. Rather than being shocked, discouraged, or fearful, we should analyze and understand how we can go from here. My program is Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. We visit yesterday to assess it and understand what went wrong so we can fix it today and change tomorrow. That is the goal. Today is an opportunity to wisely adjust our path without causing more harm to our economy.

Here is a number that should make every American stop and think. It is a perspective I am trying to bring. The US goods trade deficit with China has increased by roughly 4.9 million percent since 1985. Not 400 percent, not 4,000 percent, but 4.9 million percent since 1985, 40 years ago.

Honestly, I’d be thrilled if our stock skyrocketed by 4.9 million percent in the next 40 years. There is no harm in dreaming big, but I want to give some perspective on what 4.9 million percent means. In 1985, our deficit with China was only $6 million. Even then, we were struggling and looking for an economic solution.

Even back then, I hope all of us did not feel hopeless because it was a much better situation than now. It was barely a blip on the radar. Today, it is nearly $300 billion every single year that we owe to China. $6 million in 1985 is worth approximately $17 million in today's money. With 191 percent cumulative inflation, the money worth $6 million then is $17.5 million now. So, it still went up quite a lot.

Investors say that in starting a business, year one is survival, year two is stability, and year three is profitability. Every business always looks for profitability, not just cash flow. Entrepreneurship should prioritize profitability over cash flow from the start. A common rule of thumb is to ensure the business can cover all fixed expenses within the first 18 months.

When we started dealing with China, many people built businesses there. Since 1985, working with a single vendor in China caused significant harm to our country as a corporation. This isn't about negativity; this is about clarity and perspective. It's about understanding how we got here, why it matters, and what it will take for America to stay strong in a rapidly changing world.

For the next 30 minutes, I am going to walk through the story of how this happened, decade by decade, and the historic moments that caused the deficit to explode so we don't repeat the same mistakes. When we are in a crisis, if we are not careful, we will create an extra crisis to avoid problems, which only causes more problems. That's been going on since 1985. Waking up is the number one thing we need to do. After we wake up, we have to analyze what is happening and actually plan to execute a solution. We need a literal plan to execute how we deal with this. As we see the American economy as a corporation, how do we balance the book? That is critical for now, while we still have hope.

This is not a story of decline. It is a wake-up call, a reminder that nations, like people, grow stronger when they face reality with open eyes. When parents are broke, they cannot be Santa forever at Christmas. Sometimes parents have to sit down with their children and explain that this is our reality. We must come out of delusion and, as a family, corporately process the situation so we can grow from there.

The same thing applies to a nation. Just sit down and think about what happened over the years. A lot of people are using AI and can just search for it. You can use Copilot, ChatGPT, or Gemini. Everything will tell us the data from the same source. Type in "deficit from China from 1985 to 2024," and it will give you a table showing how it grew. The conclusion is a 4.9 million percent growth in the deficit since 1985.

Part 1: 1985 to 1990. The historical trigger was China opening its economy. That was the first time they opened the economy. They were skeptical, but we were successful in opening it. The problem is that in China, they have an oligarchy, or people in power forever in the same system. They don't have a disconnect, so they can see from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In our case, leaders come and go. We want to solve the immediate problem in four or eight years, so we don't see it from the past, today, and tomorrow. It's all about the election and temporary solutions that cause problems.

To understand how this all began, we need to go back to a very different China and a very different America in 1985. We were still in good shape. In 1978, China launched its reform and opening-up policy under Deng Xiaoping. For the first time in decades, China invited foreign investment, allowed private enterprise, and began building export-oriented factories. By 1985, the US recorded its first meaningful trade deficit with China of $6 million. It was very tiny compared to today, but it was the spark. From that moment on until today, it was never profitable. Instead, we incurred debt.

Part 2: 1990 to 1995. The historical trigger was China’s coastal special economic zones. The 1990s were the decade when the US-China trade relationship truly took off. China designated coastal cities like Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Shanghai as special economic zones—areas with low taxes, cheap labor, and almost no regulation. Meanwhile, our labor costs went up, taxes went up, and regulation was more difficult. American companies rushed in. By 1999, the deficit had grown to $68 billion. From 1985 to 1999, it went up to $68 billion. It was okay even during those times. We could think of it as an investment time, a planting time, or an incubation time for future profit. But we couldn't stay there.

Part 3: The 2000s. The historical triggers were China joining the WTO in 2001 and Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR). Those two decisions affected the American economy as well as the Chinese economy. If the 1990s were the acceleration, the 2000s were the explosion. In 2000, the US granted China PNTR, removing annual reviews and opening the door to deeper trade. Then, in 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization. This was the moment that changed everything. Tariffs fell, trade barriers dropped, and China's manufacturing engine roared to life. The deficit jumped from $83 billion in 2001 to $268 billion in 2008.

People might think the housing market crisis had nothing to do with the Chinese economy, but I think specialists or whoever is in an important position should be able to answer whether there is some relationship between this deficit and the housing market crash. Entire industries shifted overseas. Economists call this period the "China Shock." Millions of American manufacturing jobs disappeared. Because millions of American manufacturing jobs were lost, people didn't have income and couldn't pay their mortgages. The consequence of the housing market crash was inevitable. Think about it: $83 billion in 2001. In just seven years, it went up over three times to $268 billion in 2008.

Part 4: 2010. This was the peak imbalance. The historical trigger was China rising as the world’s factory. Another trigger was US concerns over intellectual property theft and technology transfer. In the beginning, it was an investment; now it has become theft and technology transfer. It escalated tremendously, along with education. I have a little concern about giving green cards to the graduate students from foreign countries, knowing that IP theft and technology transfer happened in 2010. I hope the policy we make today is not a repetition or a continuation of the past. Hopefully, every single policy we make factors into this situation that we have to reverse.

This isn't a conspiracy theory or an attempt to make China look bad or discourage people in America. It is a reality and a fact. According to this fact, every policy has to be made for America. The slogan of the elections in 2016 and 2024 was "Make America Great Again." From an economic standpoint, that affects the American people according to the policies we make. It's more of a science than an emotional reaction. We must sit down and think about a strategic plan for how we go from here. By 2010, China had become the world's factory, producing everything from smartphones to solar panels.

After 2010, it just kept escalating: $318 billion in 2013, $344 billion in 2014, $367 billion in 2015, and $418 billion in 2018—an all-time high. Concerns grew about intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer, and the sheer scale of American dependence on Chinese manufacturing. In 2018, the US imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods, China retaliated, and a trade war began.

If we don't understand the actual numbers, we just talk superficially for the sake of the election. That's not what we should do, regardless of whether we are on the left or the right. We all need to know the numbers and understand how the economy works because when the economy collapses, everybody suffers. This is a reality check and a wake-up call for 2026. Where we go from here over the next year is very sensitive. Everyone has to study in their own way and be a part of bringing this country back to a healthy state so everybody becomes strong and healthy. Thank you for listening to Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. We'll be back next week. Thank you.