The tariffs have hit China where it hurts, but they could do even more damage by targeting China’s formidable levels of pollution.

President Donald Trump has fundamentally shifted the Republican Party’s economic thinking toward tariffs and trade policy. Reshaping the world economy and global trade has already produced massive victories for the United States, ranging from an expected $300 billion raised for tariffs to a slate of trade deals.

But the tariffs have given America something else: an economic weapon with which to combat the People’s Republic of China, our main adversary. We should creatively use these new tools by hitting the country with a tariff on its abysmal environmental standards, which act as an inherent subsidy for cheap exports.

To be clear, the Trump administration has already taken clear action against China. While the Chinese Communist Party would like to have Americans think otherwise, the administration’s tariffs are already taking a bite out of their economy. Manufacturing is slowing down, as have construction projects. This isn’t a surprise: China’s entire economic strategy over the past 30 years has been built on taking America for a ride. Now that America is prioritizing the needs of its own people — rather than focusing on getting them the cheapest plastic toys possible — the CCP does not know how to respond.

But what is a surprise is that the United States has seemed hesitant to really hit the Chinese where it hurts: their pollution. This is because China’s growth hasn’t been built on just taking advantage of America. It has also been built on the ability to pollute as much as the country needs.

And they pollute a lot. The PRC’s air pollution kills at least two million Chinese citizens per year. 80-90 percent of their groundwater is estimated to be “unsuitable for drinking,” and half is so contaminated that it cannot be used for agriculture. High levels of lithium have even been detected in newborns.

This is not all by accident, and China is not unaware of the scale of its pollution. In fact, the government has repeatedly tried to cover it up. In 2021, analysts discovered that the Chinese government had manipulated data in order to make it appear that they polluted less than they had. But this is not done on accident, or because Chinese officials are too lazy to reduce pollution. The Chinese government is allowing this to happen because it must happen: pollution is simply critical to China’s growth. China’s economy has rapidly expanded over the previous few decades; had China severely limited pollution during that time — or if it started to now — that growth would have been imperiled without this inherent subsidy.

The problem this has created is two-fold. For one, China has effectively gotten away with it. As President Trump said in his recent United Nations address, China “now produces more CO₂ than all the other developed nations in the world.” And that growth has come at the expense of the American people — not just in the traditional sense of China having stolen American jobs, but also in terms of damaging American health.

President Trump continued: China’s polluted air and garbage “flow right past Los Angeles” into the heart of the United States. This is not an exaggeration. Over the years, multiple studies have found that a great deal of the smog and other air pollution in the Western United States came from China. And up to 95 percent of all plastic in the oceans comes from just 10 rivers, seven of which are almost entirely found in China.

That plastic ends up in our own waters and even in our brains (research has found that there is enough plastic in the average human brain to create a fork). The Trump administration is correctly pursuing a goal of making America healthy again, but its efforts will be stymied if foreign actors can pollute our environment and our bodies with impunity.

The solution cannot be yet another giant multilateral agreement, the likes of which are often backdoor wealth transfers away from the West and to other countries or are used to push unrelated progressive ideas.

Instead, America should pursue a tariff focused on pollution standards. Such a tariff could be passed into law by Congress or put into effect by President Donald Trump using his executive authority. The specifics could be worked out by the administration, but it would be easy to set certain metrics — from emissions to plastics —  which would uniquely hit the biggest polluter on Earth: China. As President Trump is stymied by liberal Democrats and their lawyers who are seeking to kill the America First agenda, a tool that avoids getting caught up in endless legalities entirely could solidify this policy decision for the long term as well.

A tariff such as this would leave China with no good options. The Chinese government could tone down their pollution, but that would force them to dramatically scale back growth. They could charge ahead instead, but then the tariff would take yet another bite out of China’s already inhibited economy. Either way, the Chinese will no longer get unhindered access to the deeply desired American consumer that they have taken for granted for far too long.

This means America would have a cleaner environment and healthier people, or its main competitor would be knocked on its back foot. All with a single tariff. We should get it done.