Granting the Philippines the status of Puerto Rico could only be achieved through a bill, not an executive order. Under the system of separation of powers, U.S. President Roosevelt could issue executive orders but could not submit bills to Congress. Although Roosevelt used the immense influence accumulated during the implementation of the New Deal, he could only persuade a portion of Democratic lawmakers to submit this bill.

The first hurdle was the Senate. Senator Fleming, a Democrat who proposed the bill, was 45 years old this year, belonging to the "young" ranks within the Senate. Facing senators who wore expressions of genuine astonishment, Senator Fleming calmly stated his view, "Who is currently the United States' largest trading partner? It is China."

Senator Fleming went straight to the core issue. China had always been a massive market the United States attempted to open, but after it was truly opened, the U.S. discovered this market was even more colossal than imagined. Sino-US trade volume had surpassed the total trade between the U.S. and Europe in just a few years, a scale the American upper echelons had not anticipated.

"China is not only the United States' largest trading partner; China is also France's largest trading partner. China is also the largest trading partner of the Soviet Union and Japan. China is even Britain's largest trading partner. Gentlemen, there are also two South American countries whose largest trading partner is China. Can you guess which South American country one of them is?"

Senator Fleming deliberately paused for effect. When the other senators focused their attention, Fleming revealed the answer, "That is Chile. China is the largest trader of Chilean copper ore and is also currently the largest supplier of radio and broadcasting equipment to Chile."

The senators were genuinely somewhat swayed. China becoming the largest trading partner of the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, France, and Japan was already shocking news for America, as this was a trade position the U.S. coveted but could not attain. Not to mention Chile was a South American country. The U.S. hoped to turn South America into its backyard, yet unexpectedly, China had cut in and become Chile's largest trading partner. Today it was Chile; who would it be tomorrow? This was indeed becoming somewhat intolerable!

Senator Fleming's voice became more resonant and forceful. "Gentlemen Senators. The Great Powers fought for hundreds of years to vie for the status of the largest trading partner of various countries in the world. They shed the blood of tens of millions and spent countless amounts of money. Yet, the Chinese government only fought two wars against Japan and Britain to achieve such a status. More importantly, this is not a situation unique to the He Rui administration. For at least 300 years after the Spanish started the Age of Discovery, China continuously traded its handicraft products with countries around the world, and countless amounts of gold and silver flowed into China like a tide. At that time, China was undoubtedly the world's largest exporter of goods and the country with the largest trade surplus.

"Now, China is regaining its historical status. Last year, that is, 1935, the total Sino-US trade volume was 500 million USD. Of this, the U.S. exported 300 million USD to China, and China exported 200 million USD to the U.S. The U.S. invested 260 million USD in China, and China invested 11 million USD in the U.S. In 1928, the total U.S. exports were 1 billion USD. Now, total U.S. exports are 500 million USD. Last year, 60% of U.S. goods were exported to China. The export data for the first two months of this year is similar to last year.

"Gentlemen Senators, to protect the U.S. trade route to East Asia, the United States must strengthen its presence in Asia. Hawaii cannot bear this heavy responsibility; the Philippines is the most suitable choice. The United States needs to establish a financial center in the Philippines to undertake the duties of a financial trade hub between the U.S. and China. To protect the financial center in the Philippines, a new anchorage for the U.S. Pacific Fleet also needs to be built there. The U.S. Navy and Army will be used to protect this financial center.

"If the Philippines remains merely a colony as it is now, it obviously cannot bear such a heavy responsibility. Only by granting the Philippines a status equivalent to Puerto Rico can construction be carried out there. This is the core reason for this proposal."

In the view of Japanese Navy Vice Admiral Yamaguchi Tamon, the U.S. upgrading the status of the Philippines was for the purpose of invading Asia. But in the mind of U.S. Senator Fleming, he had not thought of offense at all, but was considering defense. Senator Fleming was 45 years old this year. When he was three, the Philippines became a U.S. colony; at that time, Senator Fleming could not even speak clearly.

In the following 42 years, the Philippines had consistently been a U.S. colony. The only thing the U.S. worried about was the Philippines being taken away by others; it had truly never considered invading Asian countries. When the Sino-Japanese War ended in 1923 and He Rui led his army south, killing quite a few U.S. troops stationed in China, the U.S. just endured it.

It wasn't that the U.S. didn't want to kill its way into China like the Eight-Nation Alliance, but after discussion, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that even if the U.S. poured 300,000 army and navy troops to attack China, the navy with a maximum speed of 30 knots would be completely sunk by suicide attack aircraft with speeds over 120 knots in China's coastal waters, just like the British Navy. The 200,000 U.S. troops without logistics would be encircled and annihilated by 2 million Chinese army troops, with not a single one escaping.

The U.S. Army Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations at that time both believed that even if some fool might formulate such a plan in the future, they were not fools at present.

After the end of the Sino-British War in 1927, the U.S. had even less intention of actively invading China. Usually, war plans were basically contests between the U.S. Navy and the Chinese Navy. After the revolution in Japan and Japan's entry into the East Asian Economic Community, U.S. operational plans changed to naval battles between the U.S. and the Sino-Japanese allied forces.

With the development of the East Asian Economic Community, U.S. military plans added the scenario of guarding against an East Asian allied forces attack on Hawaii. They were also preparing to conduct a large-scale fleet raid military exercise on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1936.

If Senator Fleming were discussing U.S.-East Asia relations face-to-face with Vice Admiral Yamaguchi Tamon now, Fleming would probably shout, "Bullshit! It's clearly the U.S. worrying about the East Asian Alliance attacking the U.S., okay!"

The old guys in the Senate were much older than the 45-year-old Senator Fleming. Among the crowd of senators, there were even old men born before the Civil War era. Although they could understand the views of this youngster Fleming, the older the senators were, the less interested they were in this proposal.

In the youth or prime of these old men, the United States had just seized the Philippines from Spain. As for China becoming the U.S.'s largest trading partner, that was something that happened only in the past few years. The old men did not feel it was necessary for the U.S. to change its traditional policies just because of this minor change. Puerto Rico was at least considered a house slave; why should the yellow monkeys of the Philippines gain the same status as a house slave? If they did this, the United States would no longer be the United States.

President Roosevelt soon received the news that the proposal to upgrade the status of the Philippines was blocked in the Senate. Although it had not yet been voted on, it was basically certain that it would not pass. President Roosevelt was not surprised by this; he had long expected the old guys in the Senate to have such a reaction.

The Democratic Party's base was the southern states, where racism was deeply added. Being able to first persuade the Democratic caucus to accept this proposal was already very difficult. The Republican Party would certainly sing a different tune from Roosevelt; this was not only because the Republicans insisted on opposing him, but because this year, 1936, was an election year. The Republicans naturally hoped to pull Roosevelt down from his horse. And the Republican view was that Roosevelt's victory in the 1932 election had a flavor of an unfair win.

President Hoover had struggled to support the country during the Great Depression. In the last few months of his term, because he signed a grain export agreement with China, the U.S. grain prices, which had fallen to rock bottom, barely began to be pulled back. It was just that the Republicans had bad luck; just as they were about to succeed, Roosevelt picked the peach.

After Roosevelt took office, taking advantage of the rapid development of Sino-US trade, he successfully ended the chaos caused by the Great Depression and allowed the economy to begin recovery. A large part of the assistance for this came from projects that President Hoover had started to promote during his term, which should have borne fruit in his second term.

So Roosevelt was not in a hurry. U.S. presidents basically spent their first term cleaning up the problems caused by the previous term and began to forcefully implement their own policies in the second term. Due to Roosevelt's New Deal, there was basically no suspense in this year's election. Unless Roosevelt went crazy and suddenly came up with some decisive proposal. Roosevelt clearly hadn't gone crazy; he decided to bring these proposals out first and then push them with full force after his reelection.

Among the two matters Roosevelt had to face immediately, the first was the Third Naval Treaty Conference to be held soon in Paris, France, and the second was that Roosevelt prepared to have the Federal Reserve raise interest rates after his reelection in '37. Roosevelt reached out and patted the shapely buttocks of the secretary beside him, ordering, "Go get the Secretary of the Treasury."

Upon learning that the President had summoned him, the Secretary of the Treasury immediately called along several professors. These professors had contributed greatly to Roosevelt's New Deal and were highly trusted by President Roosevelt. Learning that the President was holding another meeting, they hurriedly followed the order to gather at the Secretary of the Treasury's side first. The few who arrived first had already begun to discuss in low voices.

There were two and a half core elements that made Roosevelt's New Deal effective. The first was rectifying finance and restricting speculation, thereby restoring the financial system. When banks could operate normally again, the economy naturally bottomed out and rebounded.

The second was lowering the gold content of the dollar from 24 dollars per ounce of gold to 36 dollars per ounce of gold. This was equivalent to being able to issue at least 50% more currency than before.

While the second policy was being executed, the U.S. strictly prohibited private ownership of gold; gold had to be exchanged for dollars at the Federal Reserve Bank. For this, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) turned out in full force, demanding the public hand over gold in exchange for dollars. If they encountered hotheads who refused in the name of freedom or whatnot, they would be shot on the spot, and then the gold would be searched for and taken away.

The other half was the trade agreement reached with China during Hoover's term. Roosevelt had absolutely no psychological burden when utilizing this part of the resources. In the initial diplomatic war between China and the U.S., Roosevelt was the matchmaker. He helped guarantee He Rui's special envoy, allowing the envoy to meet the then-President Coolidge, thereby ending the Sino-US diplomatic war and normalizing Sino-US relations. In this contribution, Roosevelt unhesitatingly felt he should share this political dividend.

Promoted by these two and a half factors, through the issuance of astronomical amounts of dollars, the U.S. economy restored order. But such massive investment led to a rapid rise in prices, and danger signals of inflation had already appeared. Corresponding to the inflation was that the U.S. unemployment rate had dropped from 30% to 17% during the New Deal, but subsequently could not be lowered any further.

And the main object of this inflation turned out to be agricultural products, not industrial products. The U.S. exported over 10 million tons of grain to China annually. Although this drove the economy, it also pulled up grain prices. The Great Depression had looted the wealth of the American people, leading to a consumption downgrade in the U.S. While consumption downgraded, installment plan consumption in the U.S. also suffered a heavy blow. Moreover, installment plans were for industrial product consumption and could not be used for household grain purchases. This led to the majority of American people's expenditures being on food. Rising grain prices caused the suffering felt by the American public to skyrocket. Furthermore, speculators also believed that grain, a necessity of life, was currently a very good speculative commodity in the U.S., and many people were making trouble in this sector. Although the Roosevelt administration promulgated various decrees, they were useful, but not as useful as expected beforehand.

Moreover, new anti-China sentiment appeared within the U.S. The poor shouted: "The American people are starving to death; why export grain that could have saved American people to China?"

The growth of anti-China sentiment also triggered actions to boycott Chinese goods. Because in recent years, the quantity of Chinese goods exported to the U.S. had also increased greatly. With a 17% unemployment rate in the U.S., workers began to believe that the Chinese had stolen American job opportunities.

Although a portion of politicians with noble character and firm will resisted such venting emotions, most politicians would not do so. Even though they knew perfectly well that it was precisely by relying on large-scale exports to China that the U.S. economy was actually revitalized. And the current He Rui government in China was not the Qing government; the He Rui government naturally would not let the U.S. turn China into a dumping ground for goods. The reason the He Rui government endured a trade deficit of 100 million USD in goods annually was that every year the U.S. had a capital investment surplus of 200-300 million USD in the capital account.

But firstly, the American people did not understand these economic issues, and secondly, even if they understood, it would not solve the suffering they endured in reality. Therefore, the current U.S. economics circle began to generally believe that the U.S. needed to raise interest rates to curb inflation. Although raising interest rates would inevitably affect the economy, the New Deal had, after all, solved the Great Depression and restored economic order. As long as the economic order could run smoothly, the problem would not be too big.

Led by the Secretary of the Treasury (Economic Minister equivalent), the elite team of economists met with the President and detailed their views on the economy to him.

Roosevelt did not immediately state his position in the end, but judging from his expression, Roosevelt was relatively supportive of the view to raise interest rates.

When the economists left, Secretary of State Hull sent a list of personnel from various countries for the upcoming World Naval Treaty Conference. The Secretary of State pointed to the name of the Chinese representative, Vice Premier Li Runshi, and said to Roosevelt, "Mr. President, this head of the Chinese delegation named Li Runshi is somewhat unexpected."

Roosevelt roughly looked at Li Runshi's resume. He was in his early 40s this year, which was a very common age within the He Rui government. He Rui was already a few years older in his government; although He Rui had high political seniority, he was only 46 years old this year. Those who were He Rui's pillars during the Northeast Government era were basically in their early 40s.

"Mr. President, this person did not participate in the Northeast Government. And according to our investigation, before joining the Civilization Party, this person was a true Communist Party member."

"Is he not one now?" Roosevelt laughed. In the view of Roosevelt and quite a few American elites, He Rui and the Civilization Party were not Soviet-style Communists. In terms of philosophy, the Civilization Party was more in line with the concept of a socialist party leaning towards communism held by the American elite class. If Roosevelt had to choose a Communist Party that was not an enemy between China and the Soviet Union, Roosevelt naturally believed the Civilization Party was the [true/acceptable] Communist Party.

Secretary of State Hull was not amused by the President's joke. He said seriously, "Mr. President, this person is the first core leadership member in the He Rui government who is truly not from the Northeast Government background. The State Department believes we need to pay some attention to this person."

Roosevelt just nodded but said nothing. In the eyes of the 54-year-old Roosevelt, Li Runshi, who was more than ten years younger than him, was just a political symbol. What the U.S. government truly needed to pay attention to was He Rui, not those around him. The U.S. elite layer had conducted very serious analyses of the Chinese government several times, and the conclusion reached was that He Rui could not be treated as a Chinese person at all. But those who followed He Rui were still standard Chinese people.