‘Pain. Grief. Anger’: Families heartbroken as Trump backlash smashes adoption dreams

At Christa Webb’s home in suburban Atlanta, a bicycle collects dust in the garage and a bedroom sits empty, its walls painted light pink, its closet full of clothes. They are meant for Cora, a little girl from China who was matched with Webb and her family for adoption more than five years ago.

Webb, her husband and her two biological children have dealt with grief and confusion as their plans to finalize the adoption of the then-three-year-old girl with a congenital heart defect have encountered a series of political hurdles.

Now, President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China are poised to make circumstances worse for the Webbs, one of more than 200 families holding out a last hope to bring home children in foster care and orphanages that they matched with, experts tell Raw Story.

“It's the kind of thing that governments do. ‘You're hurting us? We're going to hurt you. You're hurting our people? You're hurting our exporters? We're going to hurt people who want to adopt children in our countries,’” said Donald Boudreaux, a former chair of the Department of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

“That's the big picture: just the unnecessary antagonism causes foreign governments to take retaliatory actions.”

China suspended its international adoption program last August. More than 200 families were then awaiting approval to travel to China and finalize adoptions.

Webb told Raw Story: “It has been the hardest thing, the pain of this and the grief and the anger and the uncertainty has been the hardest thing my family has had to walk through, and it doesn't pale in comparison to the pain that our daughter feels because she deserves a family.”

Webb’s adoption was coordinated through a Christian ministry, Lifeline Children’s Services. It has been communicating with the Trump administration to try to get pending adoptions finalized.

The ministry’s executive director, Herbie Newell, told Raw Story he hoped Trump would talk to China’s President Xi Jinping, after 115 bipartisan members of Congress signed a letter in March advocating for the finalization of the pending adoptions. When Trump announced as much as a 145 percent tariff on Chinese imports, adoption discussions between the two presidents seemed much less likely, Newell said.

“I'm afraid that these kids are either going to be a bargaining chip on the table, or they're going to be forgotten in the trade war,” Newell said. “That's what we've been trying to highlight for this administration is don't let these kids be a bargaining chip. Don't let them be forgotten amidst the economic reality of the trade war with China.”

The State Department has “urged China to process the adoptions for U.S. families matched with children there,” a spokesperson told Raw Story.

“We deeply sympathize with the families and children affected by the government of China’s decision to end intercountry adoptions,” the spokesperson said. “We are committed to sharing updates with families and adoption service providers when we have them.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) initiated the letter to Trump. Neither responded to requests for comment.

‘A trial like no other’

Before being matched with a child in China, Webb said, she and her husband participated in a four-month, “very rigorous education process,” which involved learning about parenting children from other countries who’ve experienced trauma or have medical conditions and disabilities.

After matching with a different girl in August 2019, Webb and her family “hit some grief” when they learned that a “paperwork error” occurred and another family was adopting her.

It wasn’t until January 2020 that the family’s caseworker gave them the file for Cora, the American name Webb planned to use alongside the girl’s given Chinese name, which Webb declined to share.

“I cried, and we knew that she was our little girl,” Webb said.

Under COVID-19, China halted adoption travel in January 2020 but continued processing paperwork, Webb said. The family matched with Cora in March 2020 and got paperwork approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“There's paperwork that China produced that has mine and my husband's name, and it has her name, and it says you can adopt her,” Webb said. “We have the U.S. immigration paperwork. All of it is set up and ready. We just need the finalization of it.”

While waiting for travel approval from China, Webb prepared Cora’s bedroom and met with doctors to discuss the girl’s congenital heart defect, which would need to be repaired before her fifth birthday for her to have a “sustainable, healthy life,” Webb said.

Cora is now eight — and still at an orphanage in northern China.

The family sent packages, including a tricycle, dresses and a winter coat, plus teas and treats for her caretakers. In return, Webb received videos and photos.

The last photo the family received was in August 2022. It showed Cora eating Rice Krispies Treats the Webbs sent in a care package.

“There's a video of her saying ‘Hi, Mommy and Daddy’ in Mandarin to us … one where she's singing a little nursery rhyme in Mandarin to us,” Webb said.

Webb said the family spent years ready to travel to China at a moment’s notice, and are still prepared to hop on a plane within 24 hours.

“It's a trial like no other to love a little girl 3,000-plus miles away, and you can't get to her and you know she needs medical intervention and therapies,” Webb said.

‘Appalling’ cost of tariffs

The State Department has hosted calls to provide updates on adoptions but the calls have started to peter out, Webb said, adding that families are unclear how China’s August decision to end international adoptions affects them.

“They did not say in that announcement what they were going to do with families that were matched with children, so that is what our government and the prior presidential administration and the current presidential administration, what we've been trying to get them to clarify is if families that were officially matched would be able to complete their adoptions because there's paperwork,” Webb said.

Newell said Lifeline Children’s Services lobbied Trump’s first administration “to talk to their counterparts, President Xi, over in China” to get pending adoptions finalized after the COVID-19 pause.

“Being very pragmatic, the Chinese government said the U.S. is about to go through a large-scale election, let's wait and see what happens with the elections,” Newell said.

Newell said Klobuchar and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption tried to make inroads with former President Joe Biden’s administration, and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to make a “diplomatic ask.”

“That was right when the spy balloon floated across the United States, which derailed that, and there wasn't a lot of action towards the waning days of the Biden administration,” said Newell of the Chinese balloon that flew over the U.S. in 2023.

“We've now started to try to step in with the Trump administration and say, ‘Look, since your first term, there are these 300 kids. They've been promised to U.S. families. Those U.S. families have gone through the immigration process. We need to advocate for these kids to come home.’”

The March letter from members of Congress urged Trump to “elevate this engagement and press the Chinese government to finalize pending adoption cases so these children may finally be united with their adoptive families in the United States.” The letter emphasized that many of the children have “special health care needs.”

Again, Newell hoped Trump would talk with Xi, but “the tariff and trade war has hampered those efforts,” he said.

Boudreaux, a leader of the Anti-Tariff Declaration and author of a new book, “The Triumph of Economic Freedom: Debunking the Seven Great Myths of American Capitalism,” said “damage has already been done” in terms of the U.S. relationship with China, thanks to Trump’s tariffs.

“The antagonism naturally throws up from foreign governments more barriers, bureaucratic red tape, more obstacles, more delays, more expenses and fees for Americans who want to go to China and adopt children,” Boudreaux said.

“It hurts the Americans. It obviously hurts the children, hurts the parents in China, all because one man in Washington decided he thinks Americans should pay more for Chinese washing machines.”

Exports from China have plunged, with China putting 125 percent tariffs on American products.

“Even if there’s no retaliation by the Chinese directly against respective adoptive parents, the higher cost of doing business makes it more costly for parents in the U.S. to adopt Chinese children. It's just appalling,” Boudreaux said. “It's just economic ignorance on stilts.”

To families like the Webbs, the political back-and-forth is exhausting.

“If I put my emotion and my hope in that, it would just be devastating, and there would be no hope because I just don't know — it's so far beyond comprehending,” Webb said.

Still, she hasn’t given up hope that the Chinese and U.S. governments might recognize finalizing adoptions is a “win-win” that could have both countries “come out looking really good.”

“We will never give up hope. Ever,” Webb said, through tears. “She's always our daughter, forever.”