Free Republic

China has quietly exempted some semiconductors from tariffs, and is considering more exclusions for certain US industries, as the world’s two largest economies attempt to navigate a trade war with potentially devastating effects, according to reports. Taxes on at least eight classifications of US microchips have been lowered to zero, a huge drop from China’s 125% retaliatory tariff on all other US goods, Caijing, a Chinese financial magazine, reported on Friday. Though the article was later deleted, two importers confirmed that certain semiconductors have been spared from the hefty duties, according to The Washington Post. Chinese officials are weighing further...

President Donald Trump told Time magazine in an interview published Friday that genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping called him to discuss trade negotiations — a day after the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed any reports of such negotiations were “fake news.” China and America are embroiled in an ongoing trade conflict that began when President Trump announced a plan to overhaul America’s trade relations with all economic partners. On April 2, Trump unveiled a list of tariffs imposed on nearly every country that exports goods to the United States, including a 34-percent tariff on China. The White House later told reporters...

China claims the President Trump started the trade war against China by imposing his reciprocal tariffs: This is a complete lie. China has been waging a full-scale trade war against America for decades—President Trump just happens to be the first President to stand up to China—and they don’t like it. Case in point: China steals anywhere between $225 and $600 BILLION of American technology and intellectual property every year. Depending on the range of the estimate, this is roughly equal to—perhaps double—the value of the trade deficit in goods, which stood at $295 billion in 2024.

China just scrapped 12,000 metric tons of pork orders from the US — the largest cancellation since 2020. That single move dragged US pork export sales to their lowest level in over six months. Lean hog futures immediately took a hit in Chicago, sliding as much as 1.6% before recovering slightly. Behind the scenes, it's not just about pork — it's about tariffs, trade power plays, and a shifting global protein map that could catch some investors off guard. The sharp pullback from China isn't random. It's a direct response to longstanding US tariffs — some dating back to Trump-era...

A delegation from a Chinese Communist Party-run think tank identified by the U.S. government as carrying out “undercover intelligence gathering” operations and seeking to coerce foreign actors into backing the Chinese Communist Party’s “preferred policies” met with Hillary Clinton and a host of high-level military leaders during the Obama-Biden administration, The National Pulse can reveal.The exchange with the controversial group – China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC) – occurred in October of 2009, while Clinton was serving as Secretary of State. The CAIFC delegation, composed of China’s former top military leaders, visited Clinton after stopping in Hawaii to meet...

China will send a new team of astronauts to its space station on Thursday (Apr 24) as it marches towards its ambition of becoming a space power to rival the dominance of the United States. Beijing has pumped billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years in an effort to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the Chinese people's "space dream". The world's second-largest economy has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the moon by the end of the decade and eventually build a base on the lunar surface. It will mark its latest milestone...

China on Thursday denied any suggestion that it was in active negotiations with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over tariffs, saying that any notion of progress in the matter was as groundless as “trying to catch the wind.” China’s comments come after Trump said Tuesday that things were going “fine with China” and that the final tariff rate on Chinese exports would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.

As China’s Belt and Road initiative tightens worldwide, the U.S. has a rare opportunity to stymie its inroads into Latin America. “We often say that to get rich, we must first build roads; but in coastal areas, to get rich, we must also first build ports.” – Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the China Central Committee The Chinese Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop CopiaPort-E, Chile’s deep-water port on the Pacific, raises national security questions given that Todd Callender, Esq., the CEO of the insurance conglomerate Cotswold Group in Barbados, would prefer to sell to the...

It could take up to five years to develop a domestic supply chain to supplant China’s global monopoly in processing rare earths into materials needed to produce everything from iPhones to F-35 fighter jets. While the United States has most of the 17 rare earth elements and 50 critical minerals underground, it has no industrial capacity to refine them into processed metals and magnets, according to Melissa “Mel” Sanderson, American Rare Earths board member and Critical Minerals Institute co-chair. “Currently in the United States, we have zero magnet manufacturers,” Sanderson told The Epoch Times. She said that’s why China imposed...

Kevin O'Leary describes the situation with China succinctly. Video transcript with timestamps (courtesy of OpenAI 4o): [0:00] So nobody's talking—like nobody's talking about China like you are. Why? [0:05] Because I've lived it. I've lived it for almost a quarter of a century. Um, the way it works—let me be very specific so it's not just noise, okay? Let's say you have a great innovation here in America. Somebody comes along and creates a product that reduces the cost of maintaining a hotel bathtub or sink by 30%. A company like Drain Wig. You know, it's just a very simple...

Stock markets have risen around the world after Donald Trump said his tariffs on China would come down “substantially” and he had “no intention” of firing the chair of the American central bank, Jay Powell. The president told reporters in Washington on Tuesday he plannned to be “very nice” to China in trade talks and that tariffs could drop in both countries if they could reach a deal, adding: “It will come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.” The comments sparked a fresh rally on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 blue chip index and the Nasdaq ending the...

Beijing instructed South Korea to halt rare material products such as transformers, EVs, aerospace and medical equipment.. Beijing has asked South Korean companies to cease exporting products containing Chinese-originated heavy rare earth metals to U.S. defense firms, warning that Seoul could face sanctions. China’s Ministry of Commerce sent official notices to at least two South Korean companies recently, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Tuesday, citing sources in the South Korean transformer industry. The outlet said the letters did not specify what type of penalties South Korean companies could face if the industry continues to export equipment to the U.S....

Global leaders, including Trump and Putin, condemned the Pahalgam terror attack, expressing condolences and solidarity with India against terrorism. US President Donald Trump, Russia's Vladimir Putin and other world leaders condemned the terrorist attack on tourists in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on Tuesday and extended unstinting support over the terror strike that left 26 tourists dead. The attack took place in Baisaran meadow, around five kilometers from Jammu and Kashmir' resort town of Pahalgam. Donald Trump said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the “incredible people of India, have full support” of the US and deepest sympathies. Track Pahalgam terror...

BRICS member China has unveiled the world’s first Gold ATM that melts, tests, and converts gold into instant bank transfers. The ATM has already witnessed long queues of people trying to sell off their generational gold. Users need to book an appointment to use it, and according to early reports, appointment slots are full until as late as May. The Gold ATM is operated by China’s Kinghood Group and is installed at a mall in Shanghai. The machine weighs, checks the quality, and analyses the Gold before dispensing the money equivalent to the price that was put in. The ATM...

The new weapon could be used for area denial or destruction of targets like swarms of drones. Chinese researchers have allegedly developed a new kind of non-nuclear explosive weapon based on hydrogen fuel. While not nuclear, the new 2kg (4.4 lbs) bomb is designed to cause massive heat and fire damage over a long duration and is far more potent than traditional TNT-based bombs. According to the team behind it, the secret sauce is magnesium hydride, a powder that stores hydrogen in a solid form. The weapon is detonated using a standard starter explosive that breaks the solid main payload...

Now that Pat Gelsinger is no longer occupying the corner office at embattled chipmaker Intel (INTC), he can acknowledge one thing about the semiconductor industry.Nvidia (NVDA) has a wide, wide lead over its rivals on the tech front..."They have built meaningful moats around their franchise," he added.Gelsinger led aggressive efforts to turn around Intel for more than three years. He slashed thousands of jobs, improved costs, secured CHIPS Act funding, built chip foundries, and promised fast AI chips that could compete with Nvidia and AMD (AMD).He was fired in early December amid missed financial targets, lack of progress on the...

China is doubling down: China has just announced that they will be pulling back from US private equity investments. Chinese state-backed funds are halting new investments in US PE firms due to government pressure. According to PE executives, funds like China Investment Corporation (CIC) have already begun withdrawing planned commitments. Chinese investors are also avoiding US-linked deals, even when managed by non-US based PE funds. Just 24 hours ago, China warned they would retaliate against countries that cooperate with the US in ways that compromise their interests. It's very clear what's happening here: China is seeking to isolate the US...

Don’t go by the defiant rhetoric, China is hurting and in deep trouble over Trump’s tariffsFor the purpose of writing this column, I had to do some research as I always do. What struck me was how effortlessly China is winning the battle of narratives. It’s all a little confusing. We are apparently in the middle of a trade war, caught in the crossfire as the world’s two largest economies slap each other with tariffs in an escalatory spiral with the Donald Trump administration imposing 145% levies on most Chinese goods this month. That’s more than a little concerning for...

China prepares war LIKE footing

Former Secretary of the Treasury during Biden's presidency Janet Yellen called Trump's efforts to revitalize America's manufacturing capabilities "a pipe dream. Not only will it not happen, it's not even a desirable goal. America has entered a post-industrial phase. Generation Z quite sensibly rejects the idea of having to work for a living. We won't have the workforce needed to run complex industrial output in another 20 years." "In contrast, China has millions of workers willing to accept extraordinarily low wages," Yellen contended. "Why not let them do the work making products so Americans can concentrate on consuming them? China...