Staff Reports
This week’s Washington summit between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping produced a headline-grabbing tariff package. Good for trade. But let’s not pretend a deal on goods erases what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to Christians across China. The summit is a chance to push back — and human-rights advocates rightly pressed the White House to use it.
Trade Wins Are Not Moral Pardons
Yes, a tariff rollback helps American producers and shoppers. But economic wins should not come with a quiet nod to repression. International Christian Concern and other religious-freedom groups begged the administration to raise the plight of detained pastors, shuttered house churches, and the wider campaign of “Sinicization.” That was the right move. Past diplomacy helped free Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri earlier this year, so pressure can work. It should not be a one-off headline grab that lets Xi off the hook.
Prisoners, Raids, and the Evidence That Pressure Helps
Advocacy groups point to real cases: leaders tied to Zion Church still detained, raids on unregistered congregations like Early Rain continue, and outspoken figures such as publisher Jimmy Lai remain behind bars under Hong Kong’s security rules. NGOs estimate thousands of arrests and persistent surveillance of believers. Those figures are offered by monitors, and they show the problem is not isolated. If quiet diplomacy once helped get a pastor on a plane home, loud, public insistence ought to be part of the follow-up to any tariff deal.
What the White House Should Demand
This summit should not be the end of the road. The White House should demand named releases, secure access to detained believers for international monitors, press for the return of seized church property, and make religious-freedom benchmarks part of follow-through talks. Congress can help with targeted sanctions, visa restrictions for officials tied to abuses, and clear U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommendations. If trade carrots are handed out, human-rights sticks and checks must come with them.
Americans — from the Oval Office to our local parishes — should care about this. Economic policy without moral clarity is just business as usual with a softer price tag. The tariff package is a diplomatic opening, not a curtain call. If President Trump truly wants to call it a win, he’ll make sure the next chapter includes freedom for believers who have been robbed of it under Xi Jinping. Otherwise, congratulations: we got cheaper goods and handed the CCP a cheap pass.
