Free Republic

In this week’s Live from the Vault, Andrew Maguire welcomes back Lynette Zang, who breaks down the patterns driving financial collapse and explains how to spot these signals to secure the future with gold and personal preparedness. Zang warns that the systemic reset might already be underway, with the dollar collapsing under the weight of inflation and debt. As central banks hoard metal and gold surges past $3,300, Lynette urges immediate action to embrace real-world assets. Check out Lynette: ‪@TheLynetteZang‬ https://www.lynettezang.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Start 02:55 Patterns of collapse: history's warning signs 09:00 Central banks stock up on gold – why...

Americans barely remember the Mexican-American War, but in Mexico memories of the war and other military quarrels with the United States remain deeply felt. Mexico lost half its territory, including California, in the war that broke out this week in 1846. President Claudia Sheinbaum, who often speaks of Mexico’s sovereignty, said, “We are neither a protectorate nor a colony of any foreign nation.” MEXICO CITY — At the entrance to Mexico City’s largest park lies a towering marble monument to six young military cadets killed in battle. The Niños Héroes — “boy heroes” — died while defending Mexico’s capital...

President Trump continues to walk back his original tariff assault, and markets are pleased. They rose again Wednesday after Mr. Trump said he won’t fire the Federal Reserve Chairman and is likely to retreat from his highest China tariffs. Is this Mr. Trump’s François Mitterrand moment? Readers of a certain age will recall how the French Socialist President swept into power in 1981 promising a far left agenda of government control over the private economy. The market reaction was brutal. Within a year he had put socialism on pause and by 1983 he had abandoned most of it. He went...

So much crazy happens with the Trump administration every day that some downright weird but incredibly telling stuff gets lost in the noise. A recent example was the scene on April 8 at the White House where, in the middle of his raging trade war, our president decided it was the perfect time to sign an executive order to bolster coal mining. “We’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” said President Trump, surrounded by coal miners in hard hats, members of a work force that has declined to about 40,000 from 70,000 over the last decade, according to Reuters....

Australia’s cattle industry is experiencing a significant boost in exports to China as US beef shipments have ground to a halt amid escalating trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The US’ $2.5 billion beef trade to China has effectively ceased after about 300 abattoirs failed to have their export licenses renewed, creating an unexpected opportunity for Australian producers. Statistics from Meat and Livestock Australia show Australian grain-fed beef exports to China have surged nearly 40% in February and March compared to the same period last year, with 21,886 tonnes shipped during those months. “Australia is now the lone...

Not since Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff has a president chosen to disregard a larger body of informed opinion than President Trump did when he instituted his protectionist trade policy. Based on a series of verifiably false grievances—wages haven’t grown in 50 years, manufacturing has been hollowed out by imports, countries with trade surpluses are “ripping us off”—Mr. Trump used constitutionally questionable powers to abrogate congressionally approved trade agreements and undermine the world’s trading system. Markets convulsed in anticipation of the massive wealth annihilation that would accompany the shredding of global supply chains and a transition to a more...

CNN anchor Dana Bash cut away from President Donald Trump’s Oval Office remarks on Monday to protest his claim that CNN “hates our country.” Trump made the comment during an Oval Office meeting with Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele, jabbing at the network over coverage of illegal immigration, particularly at the southern border, and saying that CNN “didn’t like putting out good numbers” that reflected well on his presidency. “We’re a great country, but we had stupid people running this country. And I can say what they’ve done to us at the border should never and can never be forgotten. It’s...

Former President Joe Biden’s U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen blasted President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Monday, saying the return of American manufacturing is just a “pipe dream” that may not even be a “desirable goal.” Yellen, who chaired the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018 prior to heading the Treasury from 2021 to 2025, took to CNBC’s Squawk Box to spew her anti-American rhetoric: Things have been just chaotic,” the former secretary said. “The reciprocal tariffs put on and paused … This is really creating an environment in which households and businesses feel paralyzed by the uncertainty about what’s going...

The European Commission is issuing burner phones to officials traveling to the United States amid fears of espionage in Trump’s America. It’s the kind of security measure typically saved for trips to China or the Ukraine, where the fear of IT surveillance is high. But three European Commissioners will test out burner phones and basic laptops at International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, sources told the Financial Times. The move from the European Commission, the primary executive arm of the European Union, marks a new era of American-European relations, which have all but dissipated since...

Europe is once again talking about forming its own defense alliance. The idea of a European army—discussed on and off since the early days of the Cold War—was revived in February by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president claims that Donald Trump’s retraction of military support for Ukraine and ambivalence towards the EU shows that the bloc urgently needs its own military unit. Zelensky has reignited a debate that has failed to generate consensus within Europe, despite its long history.Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is the latest EU leader to echo Zelensky—and according to a YouGov poll conducted in 2022,...

Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs.The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era. It may now be getting a...

ETFs tracking the U.S. dollar are gaining investor attention as the greenback faces increased pressure amid increasing global trade tensions and indications of a weakening U.S. economy. As sentiment turns bearish at a record pace, ETFs such as Invesco DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund UUP -0.90% are becoming crucial tools for investors trying to deal with the volatility. The most popular dollar ETF is UUP, which provides exposure to the greenback versus a basket of currencies including the euro, yen, and pound. It’s constructed to profit when the dollar rises — but has underperformed in recent days as bearishness...

Tesla’s sales in the United States fell almost 9 percent in the first three months of the year even as the overall market for electric vehicles grew, according to data compiled by a research firm. Car buyers are moving away from Teslas and toward models like General Motors’ Chevrolet Equinox electric vehicle, which starts at around $35,000 and can travel more than 300 miles on a charge, Cox Automotive, the research firm, said in a report. Sales of all-electric vehicles in the United States rose 11 percent during the first quarter to about 300,000 cars and light trucks, Cox said,...

Helena DaSilva Hughes, president of the Immigrants’ Assistance Center, said she’s been talking with Portuguese officials in the Azores to understand what families will need in order to “self-deport.” Credit: Jodi Hilton/The Public’s Radio Lucia flips through immigration papers she keeps in a large pink folder at her home in New Bedford. She’s originally from the Azorean islands, an autonomous region of Portugal, and has lived in the U.S. with her husband and two children for about 12 years. The walls of her home are lined with family photos and potted plants with little Portuguese flags stand by the entrance....

MAGA ally Ben Shapiro has stunningly turned on President Trump and urged him to listen to Elon Musk's criticism of his tariff policy. Shapiro, a long-time supporter of the president, smashed the illusion that tariffs are a good business deal for Americans to smithereens, with a startling insight on Monday: 'Musk is right. Musk happens to be 100 percent right about this.' The Tesla CEO has been in lockstep with the president on key voter issues since he returned to the White House, but came out swinging against tariffs and exposed a feud with the key advisor who helped bring...

The fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf by Karmelo Anthony during a Texas track meet has ignited controversy. Anthony’s self-defense claim has drawn comparisons to Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted in 2021 for a deadly protest shooting under a similar defense, fueling heated and polarized reactions online.The Karmelo Anthony-Austin Metcalf case has sparked intense reactions on social media. Anthony fatally stabbed Metcalf after an altercation during an athletics meet in Frisco, Texas, on April 2 and has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The case has led many on social media to compare Anthony to Kyle Rittenhouse, who famously claimed...

Financial experts are seeing a spike in affluent working Americans looking to resettle in Europe. They say it's time for Europe to prepare for their arrival. Russian-American *Julia had wanted to leave the United States for a couple of years, but the start of President Donald Trump’s second term forced her to start taking the idea seriously. "I noticed people who are immigrants [like me], they were a lot more worried after the election happened," she told Euronews Next. "We saw the warning signs right away". The anesthesiologist worked on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City...

At least three dozen more international students and recent alumni of pristine California universities have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration as it continues to zero in on anti-Israel protesters. Stanford University and several colleges part of the University of California system all confirmed to NBC News members of their school communities were caught up in the ongoing crackdown that began last month with the high-profile detainment of Columbia University alum and activist Mahmoud Khalil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month he’s pulled back 300 visas from foreign students, claiming they should be kicked out of...

The formula used by the Trump administration to levy reciprocal tariffs contains a serious math error that over-inflates the impact by about a factor of four, economists at the American Enterprise Institute said. Why it matters: The conservative think tank says the error led to tariff rates massively higher than they should have been to achieve the goals the administration sought.

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Thursday for European companies to suspend planned investment in the United States after US President Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs on American imports. “Investments to come or investments announced in recent weeks should be suspended until things are clarified with the United States,” Macron said during a meeting with French industry representatives. “What would be the message if big European actors invest billions of euros in the US economy at the very moment they are hitting us?” he asked. […] The comments come weeks after French shipping firm CMA CGM announced plans to...