Free Republic

@RandPaul The American people, like the Great People of Kentucky, do not support Biden spending levels and $5T in new debt. Therefore, I will not. It’s simple.** My Notes / paraphrasing for FR Only *** Rand: This (BBB) is a Military Industrial Complex bill... They love it as it's padding out defense spending by around 320 billion dollars in new money... (I can't vote for that) On tariffs: I spoke to the President about the tariffs this week. He did most of the talking and we dont agree.... I talk to people in Kentucky and none of them support the...

In a ruling heard ’round the world, the U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday blocked President Trump’s sweeping tariffs. This is an important moment for the rule of law as much as for the economy, proving again that America doesn’t have a king who can rule by decree. The Trump tariffs have created enormous costs and uncertainty, but now we know they’re illegal. As the three-judge panel explains in its detailed 52-page ruling, the President exceeded his emergency powers and bypassed discrete tariff authorities delegated to him by Congress. The ruling erases his April 2 tariffs as well as...

We have been frequent critics of Donald Trump’s tariffs, but we understand that there is a case to be made for reconsidering some of our trade policies. The place to make that case is Congress — not by unilateral presidential declaration of open-ended worldwide “emergencies.” The Founders rebelled against taxation without representation; they did not mean for the executive to control the duties on all imports by daily whim. It is Congress that was granted power by the Constitution to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,” and for good reason. It...

@krassenstein BREAKING: Ron Johnson reportedly has enough votes to block Trump’s “big beautiful bill” including Mitch McConnell & Lindsey Graham. Republicans are in disarray.

As the Trump administration cut billions of dollars in federal funding to scientific research, thousands of scientists in the U.S. lost their jobs or grants — and governments and universities around the world spotted an opportunity. The “Canada Leads” program, launched in April, hopes to foster the next generation of innovators by bringing early-career biomedical researchers north of the border.Aix-Marseille University in France started the “Safe Place for Science” program in March — pledging to “welcome” U.S.-based scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered in their research.”Australia’s “Global Talent Attraction Program,” announced in April, promises competitive salaries and relocation packages.“In...

While tariffs make wars more likely, embargoes make wars difficult to avoid. Senator Lindsey Graham’s Sanctioning Russia Act calls for 500% tariffs on dozens of countries and essentially amounts to an embargo.If this bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.In its insistence that Moscow be a permanent enemy of the United States, the foreign policy establishment is pushing to impose more punitive measures on Russia should they refuse to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. The Sanctioning Russia Act seeks to inflict a series of additional sanctions and...

Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly, and as quickly, as President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs—and by Mr. Trump’s own hand. Witness the agreement Monday morning to scale back his punitive tariffs on China—his second major retreat in less than a week. This is a win for economic reality, and for American prosperity. Make that a partial win for reality. The Administration agreed to scrap most of the 145% tariff Mr. Trump imposed on Chinese goods on April 2 and later. What remains is his new 10% global base-line tariff, plus the separate 20% levy putatively tied to...

@RandPaul Tune in now - I’ll be live on the Senate floor soon talking trade and tax policy.

"GOP Sen. Rand Paul says he expects to have enough votes in Senate to pass resolution to effectively block Trump’s tariffs. But Paul, who expects the vote Wednesday, attacked Speaker Johnson’s move to block such resolutions as “dishonesty.”" *** The background to this, via Politico: The White House warned that Trump will veto a bipartisan Senate resolution that would terminate his sweeping global “Liberation Day” tariffs. The statement of administration policy from the Office of Management and Budget, sent to congressional offices Monday, comes ahead of an expected vote this week forced by several Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden...

President Donald Trump said Sunday that his tariff policy will substantially reduce, even completely eliminate, income taxes for some American workers. “When Tariffs cut in, many people’s Income Taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated,” Trump wrote in a 6:06 a.m. post on Truth Social. “Focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year.” Trump continued, “Also, massive numbers of jobs are already being created, with new plants and factories currently being built or planned. It will be a BONANZA FOR AMERICA!!! THE EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE IS HAPPENING!!!

The man behind the president’s tumultuous tariff policies has sought for decades to set off the ultimate trade war with China.One year ago, Peter Navarro sat in a federal prison in Miami, sending messages that he was a martyr for MAGA. He had begged for help paying legal bills that he said would reach $750,000.Now Navarro has a prime seat in the Oval Office, where he is an architect of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy — butting against the secretaries of treasury and commerce and Elon Musk, who called him a “moron.”Navarro’s journey to one of the most powerful positions...

So far, American consumers have been shielded from much of the impact. But as the world of international shipping adjusts to his policies, the president is facing a potential reckoning. With the US-China trade war starting to gum up container traffic between the world’s two biggest economies, freight companies are warning of plunging bookings and a surge in “blank sailings” – where ports are skipped or voyages are called off altogether. Earlier this week, America’s most powerful retail executives trooped into the White House to deliver a blunt prognosis: tariffs on Chinese goods risked causing “empty shelves” in two weeks...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is continuing his push against President Donald Trump's tariffs, with legislation he is co-sponsoring against them to come before the Senate next week. Paul says lawmakers should be in control of tariffs, rather than Trump, through the use of a national-emergency law. The discussion will come less than a month after Paul was one of the only two chamber Republicans to vote against his party's budget, which is seen as a key part of the president's tax cuts, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. "I don't have any bad feelings towards the president, but this is...

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...

The Libertarian Party of Travis County in Texas is calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, citing alleged constitutional violations and the administration’s handling of due process for U.S. residents. In a resolution adopted Monday during the party’s monthly meeting, the affiliate formally called for Trump’s impeachment. The resolution claims that the Trump administration violated constitutional rights by denying due process to legal residents, targeting individuals for deportation based on political beliefs, and issuing executive orders that the party argues is otherwise unlawful. It also raises concerns over past remarks from the president suggesting that American citizens could be...

A group of five small businesses sued President Donald Trump on Monday, seeking to block new tariffs he has imposed on foreign imports in recent weeks. The lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade alleges that Trump has illegally usurped Congress’ power to levy tariffs by claiming that trade deficits with other countries constitute an emergency. The Liberty Justice Center, which is representing the owner-operated companies, said Trump’s new tariffs of at least 10% on imports from most countries and higher rates for scores of other nations are devastating small businesses across the country. “His claimed emergency is a...

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...

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. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) late Friday issued a notice listing products that will be exempt from Mr. Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs that can run as high as 145% on goods from China. The exclusions apply to smartphones, laptop computers, hard drives, computer processors, servers, memory chips, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and other electronics. The CBP...

President Donald Trump was forced to backtrack on his sweeping tariff plans because of a 'fire sale' in the bond market which could have triggered economic meltdown. Alongside causing turmoil in the stock market, Trump's sweeping tariff plans sparked a major US government bonds sell-off, the likes of which had not been seen since the depths of the Covid-19 crisis. Experts are saying that it was this, rather than simply the 'art of the deal,' which caused the White House to backtrack on its tariff proposals. On Wednesday, the President announced a 90-day pause on all new 'reciprocal' tariffs, in...

Donald Trump has repeatedly said that his move to impose wide-ranging tariffs is based on the simple concept of reciprocity: The U.S. should put the same conditions on imports from other countries that they impose on our goods through tariffs and other trade barriers. But the tariff scheme he announced isn’t reciprocal and isn’t based on measuring foreign trade barriers. Instead, it simply measures bilateral trade deficits and comes up with tariff numbers from there. Those are two very different things, and could be one reason why global financial markets are reacting so badly. The upshot is that, in the...