Free Republic

The Vatican’s new Apostolic Nuncio to Iran says Pope Francis seeks closer bilateral relations between the Catholic government and the Islamic Republic.

President Barack Obama has called on Congress to grant him fast-track trade authority for his Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement. The administration insists the authority, which would give Congress only an up-or-down vote on the agreement, is needed to get the best possible terms from its trade partners along the Pacific Rim. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised to renegotiate and improve the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But it now looks like what he really meant is to expand on that flawed trade model and extend it to other countries. Twenty-one years after NAFTA and four years after...

Tyler Durden 02/16/2015 You know things are bad in the ship-building business when... amid considerably larger than expected losses, China's COSCO announced that it has dis-assembled 8 vessels in January alone (including 3 bulk carriers) and will be decommissioning and disposing of them as it awaits a "more conducive" environment. It appears that is not coming anytime soon, as The Baltic Dry Index just hit 522 - a new all-time low (down a stunning 53 of the last 55 days). As COSCO explains in its HKSE Statement:(snip)

An odd marriage of convenience between liberal Democrats and Tea Party Republicans is squeezing President Obama on his ambitious trade agenda, forcing the White House and top Republicans to fight a two-front war on an international economic effort the president hopes to secure before he leaves office. An alliance between the likes of Representatives Louie Gohmert and Dana Rohrabacher — two of the House’s most conservative members — and Rosa DeLauro and Louise Slaughter — ardent liberals — is unlikely enough. But as the political fringes expand on each end, they are challenging another strange-bedfellows alliance between Mr. Obama and...

Chinese and Argentine leaders on Wednesday signed a batch of agreements, including collaboration on two new nuclear power plants, as Beijing is strengthening its relations with the South American country. On a state visit to China, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the two countries signed 15 agreements covering travel visas, information technology, media, energy, space technology and financing. The financial amounts of the deals were not disclosed.

So, that happened: This week, we learned that President Barack Obama is really upset with our coverage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. So he's not gonna like what we're about to do, which is talk about the fact that the one part of his agenda Congress might sign on to is the trade deal every liberal hates.

PHILADELPHIA – President Obama on Thursday asked wary House Democrats to hold their fire, while the administration negotiates several trade deals opposed by scores of liberal lawmakers. “Keep your powder a little dry,” he told the Democrats assembled here for an annual retreat, according to a source in the closed-door session. "Get informed," Obama also advised, "not by reading The Huffington Post." The president has long sought pacts expanding trade with both Asian and European nations, as well as trade promotion authority, known as "fast-track," from Congress. The issue has sharply divided the Democrats, as centrists tend to support the...

SEE: Critical of Obama’s past actions, GOP now wants to give him more power on trade ”Republicans have consistently railed at President Obama’s exercise of his executive authority, disparaging him as “an emperor” who has ignored Congress on immigration, climate and Cuba. Now that they fully control the Congress, those same Republicans critics are on the verge of handing the president expansive new powers to circumvent those who want to stand in his way on trade. GOP leaders in both chambers are close to introducing legislation that would grant the administration broad authority to finalize one of the largest free-trade...

Stockholm (AFP) - Sales by Russian arms manufacturers continue to expand thanks to Moscow's investments despite a downturn in global defence spending, a Stockholm-based think-tank said Monday. "The remarkable increases in Russian companies' arms sales in both 2012 and 2013 are in large part due to uninterrupted investments in military procurement by the Russian government during the 2000s," said Siemon Wezeman, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Sales by Russian-based arms firms grew by 20 percent in 2013, according to SIPRI. However, figures for the 100 biggest arms-dealing nations excluding China declined for the third year...

Just thought it was worth posting, since it now appears we are about to break the bad record we had established: The US / China trade balance appears to be heading for setting, another (bad) record this year. Go into any store. Pick up anything. Anywhere. Odds are it is imported, from China. Just saying.

China's trade surplus climbed to a record in November after an unexpected decline in imports (CNFRIMPY) on lower crude oil and other commodity prices. (please see link for full article)

With all the economic gloom in the world, many have been perplexed: Why have stocks done so well, especially in the U.S.?

Allows direct business between Canadian dollar and Chinese yuan, cutting exchange costs. Canada and China have signed a reciprocal currency deal that's expected to dramatically boost exports. The hub will foster far easier trade between the Canadian dollar and the Chinese yuan, also known as the renminbi. It makes Canada the first country in the Americas to have a deal to trade in the renminbi.

The goal: Show voters right away that Republicans aren’t mere obstructionists, as Democrats so often claim, but are capable of passing popular bills that even Obama might be willing to sign. This ain’t your daddy’s GOP, they mean to say. And by “your daddy,” they of course mean “Ted Cruz.” With the 2016 presidential campaign already looming large, McConnell (Ky.) and Boehner (Ohio) are both eager to shed the party’s image as an unruly collection of obstructionists and far-right ideologues.The remedy, they have decided: Act quickly to send President Obama bills with bipartisan support to fast-track international trade agreements,...

America needs an intelligent, aggressive, integrated policy of discovering what its southern neighbors want and accommodating them so that all sides gain. Or soon that heat wave coming up from the south will be fire from the mouth of the dragon Bucaramanga, Colombia—Step aside, EU! China is set to become Latin America’s second-largest trading partner in two years. And 13 years later it will be king of the hill according to the journal China Policy Review. Yes, having locked up Asia and Africa, the ever-hungry Chinese dragon is salivating over what the U.S. at least used to consider its “back...

APPEASEMENT POLITICS In a concession to Russia, Ukraine and the European Union agreed delay implementation of a major trade agreement until the start of 2016, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said. They also appeared to be preparing to make more concessions after the ratification of the agreement, scheduled for next week. EU Trade Commissioner Karl de Gucht said in Brussels that Ukraine, Russia and EU also agreed on extending unilateral trade preferences for Ukraine until the end of 2015 as well. They allowed Ukraine to boost exports to EU by 14 percent in the first half of this year,...

Five years ago talent was plentiful, companies could easily recruit for supply chain planners, and it was easier to recruit supply chain graduates - Not so today. The biggest issues are in mid-management roles. Let’s examine some of the facts from recent research. Today, 60% of companies have open positions. Fifteen percent of the planning positions are open for an average time of five months. An IBM surveys report that 51% of companies are seeing an increase in turnover of supply chain leaders. Have I convinced you yet to be worried? If so, let’s start working on an answer. Let...

Tuesday marks the anniversary of one of the most destructive pieces of legislation in U.S. history: the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930, which triggered a disastrous trade war, intensified the Great Depression and helped set the stage for World War II. Unfortunately, as the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act demonstrate, Washington continues its long-held tradition of passing ill-conceived legislation. The Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank, both passed in 2010, clearly have hurt the U.S. economy: increasing business costs, slowing hiring, adding to the uncertainty that investors face. But Hawley-Smoot arguably was worse. The...

And while tea party groups and talk radio hosts are celebrating the downfall of a Republican member of Congress who came to symbolize the “establishment,” there are indications that this enthusiasm is misplaced. In the wake of his victory, Brat joined MSNBC host Chuck Todd on Wednesday where he received a gentle grilling and was asked for his position on a variety of policy matters. Brat seemed entirely unprepared to have to speak on issues of substance. In fact, he suggested – perhaps (hopefully) jokingly – that he thought Todd invited him on the program merely to celebrate his victory....

Members of Congress on Monday learned they were not among the top 90 people to be told of the deal President Obama cut with terrorists for the release of five top Taliban commanders at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a U.S. soldier. [SNIP] Obama’s decision “to trade five battle-hardened Taliban commanders, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, for deserter-collaborator Bowe Bergdahl was unanimously rejected by both houses of Congress, including the Democrat-controlled Senate, when the proposal was brought to Congress in 2011 and 2013.” Farah pointed out that after that rejection, administration officials “publicly and repeatedly vowed to return...