Free Republic

The bottom line is Jerome Powell has screwed up. No, that’s not from President Trump. That comes from legendary investor Louis Navellier.In yesterday’s Special Market Podcast in Growth Investor, Louis weighed in on President Trump’s attacks on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell:The latest criticism is, President Trump wants to get rid of Jerome Powell. Ok, well, unfortunately, I have to agree with him because Powell is fighting a mythical inflation that hasn’t occurred yet.We’re not going to have more tariffs other than the Chinese tariffs because everybody is caving. Everybody is meeting with the administration; everybody is dropping their barriers....

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is due in Washington on Thursday to meet with President Donald Trump. She is expected to make a personal appeal for less punitive tariffs on European Union (E.U.) trade with the world’s biggest economy. Meloni is the first trans-Atlantic leader to sit down with Trump since he announced, and then quickly suspended, 20 percent tariffs on European exports. AFP reports Meloni — described by Trump as a “fantastic leader” who also aligns with his conservative views — has worked hard to keep communication channels open as Trump looks to rework trade with the E.U. through...

President Trump held his “Liberation Day” press conference on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. In this presentation, he announced a new additional 10% baseline tariff on top of whatever other tariffs are currently in place (with a few exceptions) for the goods of most countries. For most of our major trading partners, this 10% rate would be replaced by a much higher rate the following week, some as high as 46% (Vietnam) and 49% (Cambodia). Markets tumbled, perhaps forgetting that with President Trump, most big announcements are his way of beginning a negotiation, so these often terrifyingly high percentages are not...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that his state will file a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's authority to impose sweeping tariffs that have set off a global trade war. The suit will argue that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China or a 10% tariff on all imports is unlawful. The act enables a president to freeze and block transactions in response to foreign threats.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced its intent to withdraw from the 2019 Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico, with termination effective in 90 days. The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports, as Commerce has been flooded with comments from them urging its termination. This action will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace.With the termination of this agreement, Commerce will institute an antidumping duty order on July 14, 2025, resulting in duties of 20.91% on most imports of tomatoes from...

“Tariffs are advertised in the name of helping American workers, but what do you know? They turn out to favor the powerful and politically connected. That’s the main message of President Trump’s decision to exempt smartphones and assorted electronic goods from his most onerous tariffs. “All of this exposes the arbitrary political nature of tariffs. Some industries benefit but others don’t. Too bad if you make shoes, or clothing, or thousands of other consumer products that must pay the tariffs but lack the political or market clout to win exemptions. Too bad, too, if you’re a small manufacturer that relies...

On Wednesday’s “Alex Marlow Show,” Breitbart News economics editor John Carney discussed the policy legacy of Pat Buchanan. Carney said, “Pat Buchanan, really, was pretty formative for me. He, correctly, convinced me that America’s post-Cold War interventionism was crazy. So, I opposed — I was a kid at the time — but I opposed our toppling of the government of Panama, I opposed the incursion that we did in Somalia — I still can’t get anybody to explain what the heck we were doing during the ‘Black Hawk Down’ days in Somalia why were we there. I opposed the bombing...

President Trump, Treasury secretary Bessent, and Commerce secretary Lutnick are effectively teaching a course right now on the fundamentals of international trade. How many Americans previously understood that nations around the world use tariffs and other economic tools to keep American-made products from reaching their markets? Hasn’t the United States been spreading the gospel of “free trade” for centuries? Doesn’t commitment to “free markets” separate the civilizational West from more authoritarian countries with “closed” economies? Shouldn’t a “rules-based international order” ensure that the rules are the same for all participating countries? Or asked another way: How “free” can international trade...

Thailand is staring at a crisis caused by the rising number of factory closures in recent years, partly attributed to an influx of cheaper Chinese products. “The Indian Express had reported Saturday that a high-level meeting had taken place at the Commerce and Industry Ministry to assess the situation with fears of a potential surge in imports in the backdrop of the reciprocal tariffs. "Necessary action will be taken. The Customs department and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) are vigilant, the official said.”

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett appeared on Fox News to discuss the first week impact from President Trump’s global trade reset and implementation of reciprocal tariffs. Director Kevin Hassett notes that so many countries are calling and requesting to renegotiate their trade agreements, the National Economic Council is having difficulty keeping up with appointment scheduling and establishing a prioritization list for President Trump to review. That said, Hassett notes that Japan and South Korea will likely be the first two nations for U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and President Trump to engage with. Apparently, Xi Jinping (China) and Ursula...

It was imperative to get the administration’s tariff communications aligned, Bessent told Trump, and more focused on the endgame for Americans: better trade deals with foreign nations, according to people familiar with the conversation.

"Ah, the delicious smell of peak fear on Sunday/Monday...and max NOISE on X." —Raoul Pal That ruckus you hear in the capital markets is the sickening howl of the Fugazy Economy meeting its extinction. Fugazy means fake, unreal, dishonest, misaligned to what societies need to thrive. Fugazy means mis-using the time-value of things that purport to be wealth to multiply fake wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the many. The pernicious effects of that system are visible all across the ruined landscape of our country, a nation of broken cities, failed towns, and a demoralized...

Over the past few years, there has been a tremendous amount of buzz about an imminent “reset” of the global economy. Well, what we are currently witnessing may not look like what they were anticipating, but a “reset” of the global economy is definitely here. Trillions of dollars were invested to set up the global supply chains that we have today. I have always argued that we should have never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on goods that are made elsewhere, and making more things in this country is a goal that every administration should pursue. Unfortunately, you can’t...

WASHINGTON/TAIPEI/VERONA, Italy- More than 50 nations have reached out to the White House to begin trade talks since U.S. President Donald Trump rolled out sweeping new tariffs, top officials said on Sunday as they defended levies that wiped out nearly $6 trillion in value from U.S. stocks last week and downplayed economic fallout. On Sunday morning talk shows, Trump's top economic advisers sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the U.S. in the global trade order. They also tried to minimize the economic shocks from last week's tumultuous rollout, ahead of Monday's expected bumpy opening of Asian...

In this video, Victor Davis Hanson exposes the left's lies about tariffs. Hanson takes a deep dive into how progressive critics misrepresent tariffs as harmful, often portraying them as economic poison that hurts American workers and consumers. He argues that the left’s criticism of tariffs is rooted not in economic reality, but in a broader ideological opposition to Donald Trump's policies. Hanson reveals how tariffs, in many cases, are a strategic tool aimed at rebalancing trade and protecting American industries, rather than the disastrous tactic the left claims.

More than 50 countries have reached out to the White House to begin trade negotiations, US National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on ABC News on Sunday. Hassett also denied that US President Donald Trump's tariffs were an indirect means to pressure the central bank to cut interest rates In a separate interview on NBC News, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed the stock market drop since Trump announced the tariffs and said there was "no reason" to anticipate a recession based on the tariffs.

Much like every other major story, the dying news media have managed to take a really interesting topic and thoroughly dumb it down to a limited set of monotonous slogans. In this case, variations of “tariffs hurt working people the most” and “the cost is passed onto consumers.”NBC News: “Trump’s new tariffs will hit lower-income households the hardest.”Associated Press: “Companies buying foreign products pay the tariffs imposed on them — and, as a result, face higher costs that are typically passed on to customers.”USA Today: “[S]ome economists predict Americans will feel the pain – at least in the short term...

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that California will look for ways to expand trade and persuade international partners to exempt the state from global payback as President Trump’s sweeping round of tariffs have sent U.S. and global financial markets tumbling.“Donald Trump’s tariffs do not represent all Americans,” Newsom said in a video posted Friday on the social media platform X. The 40 million residents of California, he said, live in “the tent pole of the US economy” that represents 14% of the nation’s GDP and is the fifth largest economy in the world.Newsom said he had directed his administration to...

Let’s clear something up right away—tariffs aren’t just about economics. They’re not some wonky tax on imported widgets that only policy nerds care about. They’re a statement. They are an attempt to change bad behavior. A line in the sand. Tariffs are about protecting a nation’s backbone—its ability to stand on its own two feet. In a world that’s grown dangerously dependent on global supply chains, the idea of sovereignty is starting to hit home. National security begins with self-reliance. Think about it: how secure are we, really, if we’re relying on adversaries for essentials like steel, aluminum, pharmaceuticals—even ships...

#Czechia looks to dig a new canal to connect three peripheral seas: the #BlackSea, the #BalticSea, and the #NorthSea. #European commerce and trade would flow uninterrupted from one end to the other.