Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A White House official on Wednesday raised doubts about whether an invitation to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet U.S. President Donald Trump would make sense given Zelenskiy's comments that a minerals deal is not complete."If the Ukrainian leader says the deal isn’t finalized, I don’t see why an invitation would make sense," the official told Reuters. "There’s an expectation that his coming is to recognize a final position (on the minerals deal) and he is not at a final position in his own words in this new wording."The official said Zelenskiy's latest comments from Kyiv suggest...

Since 1985, the first year for which the Census Bureau has posted this nation's bilateral merchandise trade deficits on its website, the United States has accumulated $5.5 trillion in trade deficits with China. No other nation comes close. In 2019, America's seven top trading partners -- when measured by the total dollar value of the bilateral trade in goods -- were Mexico ($614.5 billion), Canada ($612.4 billion), China ($558.9 billion), Japan ($218.3 billion), Germany ($187.8 billion), South Korea ($134.4 billion) and the United Kingdom ($132.3 billion). By far, however, the least balanced relationship -- both last year and in recent...