Free Republic

US President Donald Trump has signaled a potential U-turn on his trade war with China amid continued market volatility, saying the high tariffs on Chinese goods will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.” Trump’s remarks, made at a White House news event Tuesday, appear to mark a rhetorical climbdown after weeks of tough posturing and tit-for-tat retaliation that sent tariffs on China beyond a staggering 145%. “145% is very high and it won’t be that high,” Trump said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in the Oval Office. “It won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down...

Trump's tariff announcement introduced uncertainty to the markets. Leading to the worst April performance in a long long time for stocks. The media believe this is a threat to Trump's support, but is it?

Dan Caldwell was one of the strongest voices at the Pentagon opposing war with Iran. Then he was falsely accused of leaking classified documents and fired. (0:00) Introduction (1:10) What Would Happen if the US Went to War With Iran? (9:13) The Real Reason the US Invaded Iraq (15:38) The Military Power of Iran (22:25) The Global Coalition Iran Has Formed Because of the US (26:37) Is This Evil or Stupidity? (31:10) How Trump Exposed Regime Change Wars (41:37) Caldwell’s Experience in the Marine Corps (50:31) The Impact of the Iraq War on Veterans (1:00:59) How Caldwell Helped Pete...

So what's up with the "HUGE TESLA ARRESTS" that she spoke about yesterday, stating that we would see them in the next 24 hours. As for me, I am growing weary with her empty bravado and empty promises. She is making herself look bad.

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...

According to Irakli Kobakhidze, the same thing is happening with financing of organizations engaged in "anti-state processes," including in Georgia - these organizations are now funded only from the EUTBILISI, April 7. /TASS/. The so-called deep state has ordered European structures to continue military operations in Ukraine, said Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze. "The deep state has instructed European institutions to continue the war in Ukraine. Before that, American structures were also involved in this process. Now the deep state has exclusively tasked European structures with prolonging the war in Ukraine," Kobakhidze told reporters. According to him, the same thing...

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.

One of the surprises out of Wednesday's big tariffs announcement was that the Trump administration used a surprisingly simplistic approach to calculating these much-hyped reciprocal tariffs. Why it matters: This was not a finely tuned set of import taxes calibrated to exert pressure on trading partners to adjust specific policies with which the U.S. has grievances. Rather, it was some simple arithmetic, based on overall trade data, that became the justification for the most sweeping U.S. duties in generations — a trade-weighted 22.5% tariff, per the Yale Budget Lab, up from around 2.4% last year. It implies fewer off-ramps for...

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) continues to buy unprecedented amounts of gold as the global financial is deleveraging (i.e. investors exchange credit assets for gold). In 2024, the Chinese central bank covertly bought 570 tonnes, encouraging gold’s ascent in global international reserves by 4%, the largest gain in four decades. Gargantuan Gold Purchases by the Chinese Central Bank This article is an analysis of formal and informal sources that indicate the PBoC is currently sitting on more than 5,000 tonnes of monetary gold located in Beijing – more than TWICE what has been publicly admitted. Legacy media outlets routinely...

President Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his Cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man. The president remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency initiative but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role, according to three Trump insiders who were granted anonymity to describe the evolving relationship. Musk’s looming retreat comes as some Trump administration insiders...

A bipartisan pair of senators is warning the White House that recent US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen risk “emboldening” the Iranian-backed group and flouted the law regarding congressional oversight of military operations. The letter from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., shared first with Semafor, concerns the strikes that have made headlines recently.... “Neither the U.S. strikes since October 2023 ordered by President Joe Biden, nor the previous years-long campaign against the Houthis conducted by Saudi Arabia were successful in establishing deterrence against the Houthis,” Merkley and Paul wrote in the letter sent to President Donald...

@IanCarrollShow BREAKING- The RFK jr blackmail story is breaking from multiple angles right now It’s bad. Even worse than I say in this video. Blackmail by… certain people… at the highest levels of American politics. Right now in 2025. Buckle up. It’s about to get weird.

If you think President Trump is just goofing around about Greenland or just using it for some sort of negotiation leverage, you would be wrong. And President Trump FULL TRANSCRIPT: We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security. We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of “Do you think we can do without it?” We can’t. If you look at Greenland right now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place. And we’re not going to be able to do that. We’re not relying on Denmark or anybody else to...

Private contact details of the most important security advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump can be found on the internet. DER SPIEGEL reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials. To do so, the reporters used commercial people search engines along with hacked customer data that has been published on the web. Those affected by the leaks include National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some...

There was an oft-repeated message in Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s press conference on Wednesday: Tariffs will raise consumer prices. The U.S. central bank raised its inflation forecast for 2025, as have many economists, due to the expected impact of a trade war initiated by the Trump administration. “A good part of it is coming from tariffs,” Powell said of the Fed’s elevated inflation estimate. “I do think with the arrival of the tariff inflation, further progress may be delayed,” Powell said. His statement comes at a time when pandemic-era inflation has gradually declined but hasn’t yet been fully tamed...

Wally Rashid @wallyrashid One of the less known things John F. Kennedy was doing that Israel saw as a direct threat: Putting forward a UN resolution demanding Israel to accept the 800,000+ Palestinians displaced in 1947. Israel’s PM at the time stated he would “fight this down to the very last man” 1:43 / 1:43 11:02 AM · Mar 19, 2025

President Donald Trump's goal is to eliminate taxes for people earning less than $150,000 per year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said. "I know what his goal is — no tax for anybody making under $150,000 a year. That's what I'm working for," Lutnick told CBS News on Wednesday. He said that major tax cuts could be implemented without causing spiraling national debt through tackling overseas tax fraud. Why It Matters The proposal to remove taxes for people earning less than $150,000 per year would impact the vast majority of Americans. In 2022, around 93 percent of Americans aged 15...

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital on Thursday morning that he had hauled in $261,000 in campaign donations in recent days since President Donald Trump targeted him for ouster for opposing a government-funding measure. "In less than three days, I’ve received $261,000 through 3,203 individual donations, without sending an email, a text, or a phone call. It’s a fundraising record for me and it’s boosted my current cash on hand north of $1.1 million," Massie said in a statement. After Trump took a swing at Massie in a Truth Social post on Monday night, the congressman responded in...

The deadline has quietly passed on Attorney General Pam Bondi delivering a report to President Donald Trump on whether any leftover Biden administration policies infringe on Americans' right to bear arms. It came just days after Democratic leaders sent her a letter suggesting there is "plainly no need for any new plan of action." Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 7 after making campaign promises to gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) that "no one will lay a finger on your firearms." The president instructed Bondi to "examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other...

A BlackRock-led consortium has agreed a $22.8 billion deal to buy two major Panama Canal ports owned by a Hong Kong-based conglomerate following intense pressure from US President Donald Trump over alleged Chinese interference in the critical trade route. The sale is a victory for Trump, the Financial Times noted. The president had repeatedly suggested the US could take the Canal back, citing national security concerns: The waterway is controlled by Panama, but the ports at either end are privately owned. This deal brings two at either entry to the Canal under US ownership. The BlackRock-led group will acquire a...