Meet Timothy Trainer, intellectual property attorney, international trade expert, author with spectacular insights into trade with China — and more!

Writing books is a passion for attorney Timothy Trainer, who for more than three decades focused on intellectual property issues in his day job. He has worked in government agencies and in the private sector and his assignments have taken him to 60 countries around the world.

Tim found time to pen a few non-fiction tomes, including his first book, Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights; the 15th edition was published in 2022. Thomson Reuters’ Aspatore Books published Tim’s next title in 2015, Potato Chips to Computer Chips: The War on Fake Stuff.

Fiction was a genre he always wanted to try. In 2019, Pendulum Over the Pacific, was released by Joshua Tree Publishing. “This political intrigue story is set in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and centers on trade tensions between the U.S. and Japan in the late 1980s,” Tim explains, noting that his latest two novels — The China Connection and The China Factor — are about geoeconomics. “The economic and trade tensions between countries provide fertile areas for stories.”

The big news for 2025:

May 2025: The sequel, The China Factor, ranked #63 on the Amazon Asian Literature list.
September 2025: The Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) announced on September 27, 2025, that Timothy Trainer’s third novel, The China Factor, received the Bronze Award in MWSA’s Mystery, Thriller, Crime fiction category: mwsadispatches.com/2025-season. Read more here.

In 2023, his first series hit bookstores: The China Connection.

Here’s the story: It’s a year after Hong Kong reverted to China. Aaron and Kellie’s dual purpose in Hong Kong, their trip for business and pleasure, descends into chaos when Kellie fails to deliver the blueprint Chinese entrepreneurs seek in hopes of greater riches in the U.S. market. After a day-long meeting, she awakens across the border in southern China the next morning without her travel documents. Aaron, while waiting for Kellie’s return, is attacked in his hotel room.

He panics. Helpless, Aaron enlists the aid of Roger, a retired Customs attaché in Hong Kong. Roger questions the nature of the contents of millions of containers leaving Hong Kong and wonders how he can profit from it. Aaron and Roger cobble together a group of people to rescue Kellie from across the border. This small group of government and non-government people engage in questionable tactics to find Kellie. Can the group come together to save Kellie or will their personal ambitions prevail?

About The China Factor: In this novel, Tim takes us back to the spring of 2005. The FBI foils a government employee’s attempt to provide confidential information to the Chinese. As the FBI struggles to understand why the information is valuable, its investigation entangles Capitol Hill staffer Kellie Liang and jeopardizes her nomination to a State Department position.

Under scrutiny, Kellie thrusts herself into the FBI investigation. Seeking a voice of reason, Kellie reaches out to Aaron Foster only to learn that he is vacationing in Vietnam with his uncle, a war veteran. Surprisingly, Aaron believes he has found a Chinese corporate connection to information theft. From two sides of the world, Kellie and Aaron work to thwart China’s efforts and save Kellie’s nomination.

Learn more about this book and Tim’s writing process when he’s interviewed by author Jeffrey James Higgins’ for his new Inkandescent podcast and video show: Elaine’s Literary Salon.

Learn about Tim’s work and books: timothytrainer.com

Read this week’s blog entry from Tim: “Veterans Day 2025: The Undoing?”

November 11, 2025 — The confrontations in the streets of U.S. cities between law enforcement and the people have already caused law enforcement agents and officers to be equated with Germany’s secret police of the 1930s, the Gestapo, because of the tactics used to pursue those illegally in the United States. The fully masked officers and agents whose indiscriminate conduct in pursuing suspects, including U.S. citizens, has caused them to be seen as enemies of the people in the eyes of many.

We’ve seen National Guard troops deployed to various cities around the country. Activated by governors or the president, they are in our cities and on our streets wearing military uniforms. To the civilian citizens who see and encounter these part-time soldiers, there’s likely to be no distinction made between the National Guard, reserve service members, and full-time active army troops.

Essentially, we are seeing Trump use those in uniform as his pawns to punish anyone who disagrees, who fails to knuckle under, who fails to remain silent, and raises a voice against him.

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