Free Republic

Fox Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino reported on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s administration is giving insider information to Wall Street executives about ongoing trade deals. Citing “senior Wall Street execs with ties to the White House,” Gasparino wrote on X that people within Trump’s administration have alerted business leaders about an “agreement in principle with India.” He further reported that the deal could be used as a template for other trade deals the administration is working on with Japan and other countries. Markets have taken sharp hits amid uncertainty surrounding Trump’s tariffs and trade deals. “People inside the Trump...

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...

Washington -- The infighting and backstabbing that plagued President Donald Trump’s first term have returned as a threat to his second, with deepening fissures over trade, national security and questions of personal loyalty. The latest turmoil threatens to engulf the Pentagon, where Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed out top advisers and faces fresh controversy over sharing sensitive information about airstrikes in Yemen outside of classified channels. A former Pentagon spokesperson who was ousted last week wrote in Politico that Trump should fire Hegseth for presiding over a “full-blown meltdown.” The interpersonal drama is not - at least yet -...

If the White House wanted a test of how firing Jerome Powell would go over in the markets, it succeeded on Monday. U.S. stocks and the dollar plunged while yields on long-term Treasurys climbed after President Trump renewed his attacks on the Federal Reserve Chairman. Monday was the first full trading day for markets to absorb National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett’s comments Friday that the White House is studying if Mr. Powell can legally be fired. On Monday Mr. Trump demanded again that Mr. Powell make “pre-emptive” interest rate cuts to avoid a slowdown. Cue the meltdown in stocks,...

A popular knock on this second Donald Trump term is that the president stocked his administration with nothing but saluting loyalists. Tell that to the staffers scheming to undercut his signature tax reform—by “managing” him into surrendering to the left’s favorite talking point. A (delighted) mainstream media several weeks ago started writing stories about a new Republican interest in raising taxes on “the rich”—namely hiking the top individual tax rate from 37% to 40%, higher than even under Barack Obama. These reports all come from anonymous White House officials, and always take care to insinuate Mr. Trump is “open” to...

They needed to get the president alone. On April 9, financial markets were going haywire. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wanted President Trump to put a pause on his aggressive global tariff plan. But there was a big obstacle: Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff-loving trade adviser, who was constantly hovering around the Oval Office. Navarro isn’t one to back down during policy debates and had stridently urged Trump to keep tariffs in place, even as corporate chieftains and other advisers urged him to relent. And Navarro had been regularly around the Oval Office since Trump’s “Liberation Day”...

After the 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Gracia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, made the first appearance since his arrest, US President Donald Trump took to social media to share an alleged altered photo of Kilmar's hand and linked it to the MS-13 gang, stating he is “not fine and innocent”. The photo of Abrego Garcia w/Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) from Thurs clearly shows no “MS-13” tattoo shop on either hand - nor in earlier photos”. Another said, ”Why did Donald Trump just lie to the American people even more about Kilmar Ábrego García being a gang member? Just...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has come a long way since 2018. When she first arrived on the political scene by beating out not just an incumbent, but a member of her party’s leadership in a Democratic primary contest, she was a rebel — an avatar of insurgent impulses within her coalition. And, among Republicans, something of a joke. Now, she’s the Democratic Party’s most popular elected official. A Yale University poll released this week found that among Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez boasts the single highest net favorability rating of all the party’s many potential 2028 presidential candidates — a sky-high 62%. In addition, 41%...

A shocking new exposé from The Wall Street Journal alleged that Elon Musk, billionaire tech mogul and Trump administration insider, is attempting to quietly build a “legion” of offspring protected by secret settlements and NDAs while using his social media influence on X to approach influencers he hopes will have his children. The sprawling, 6,000-word article published Tuesday lays bare the tactics Musk allegedly employs to manage the mothers of his many children and his privacy, all while reshaping public policy and chasing a vision of human survival that veers into sci-fi territory. The profile begins with a dive into...

... In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Garcia to America from El Salvador so that his claims can be adjudicated. (He currently sits there under an agreement negotiated by the Trump administration with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for the use of his notoriously brutal mega-prisons to house potential deportees.) This weekend the Trump administration refused, claiming, on stunningly disingenuous logic, that because Garcia had been dumped quickly into El Salvador he was now beyond American jurisdiction. (“He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”) Why not...

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...

President Trump is taking exception to the idea that his Administration is offering exceptions to his punishing tariffs. That’s the story after a confusing weekend that offers more lessons in the arbitrary nature of Trump trade policy. Late Friday his own Customs and Border Protection (CBP) department 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 notice takes the tariff rate...

From ancient Rome to modern America, the impulse to wall off economies in times of crisis has proven consistently disastrous. Whether through tariff wars, currency debasement, or autarkic fantasies, economic nationalism has repeatedly triggered collapse -- not recovery Politicising structural economic fundamentals always leads to chaos, as history tells us. In the early 1930s, American President Herbert Hoover faced an agonising decision. The global economy, already reeling from the crash of 1929 and the calamity of the Great Depression, presented Hoover with mounting demands from his supporters for protectionism as a means of shielding the American economy from further harm....

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...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. Treasuries extended heavy losses on Wednesday in a sign investors are selling even their safest assets as a global market rout unleashed by U.S. tariffs takes an unnerving turn towards distress and a dash for the safety of cash. "This is beyond fundamentals right now. This is about liquidity," said Jack Chambers, senior rates strategist at ANZ in Sydney. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, the globe's benchmark safe-haven anchor, was up 20 basis points and rising in Asia - a remarkable move in a time zone where it's usually fairly steady. At 4.46% the yield is...

While President Trump projected confidence, the White House was haunted during the latest round of tariff turmoil by the possibility of a “bond market death spiral.” Having worked as a venture capitalist before entering politics, Vice President J.D. Vance had previously regarded the phenomenon as one of his greatest concerns. A plunging stock market took center stage, but it was another sell-off that alarmed Wall Street. Ahead of the tariff deluge, investors offloaded government securities, sending the yield on Treasury bonds ever higher. Amidst the trade uncertainty, the 10-year Treasury bond climbed to 4.51% while the 30-year hit 5% –...

Some thoughts on a climbdown for the ages. The reaction was widespread relief in America and the world. Americans want their country to be the world’s growth engine but not, as a former Reagan administration official put it, through policies “that risk the collapse of the global financial system.” Donald Trump scared people he hadn’t scared before. He didn’t use to scare his policy allies—small-business people, workers, retirees. He did this week. Fear dampens reflexive support. Politicians need reflexive support from the bottom of their base as a platform from which to move. The president weakened his position. It is...

President Trump finally blinked. It took a week for the plunge in the stock and bond markets—along with a sustained campaign by executives, lawmakers, lobbyists and foreign leaders—to prompt Trump to roll back for 90 days a major element of his sweeping tariff plan. The president said that the reaction to the tariffs was getting a bit “yippy”—like a nervous athlete unable to perform—and he relied on his instincts to change course as he watched the bond market tank and listened to business leaders including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon express fears of a recession. The episode was classic Trump:...

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...

President Trump says trade wars are easy to win. Investors think otherwise, and on Wednesday Mr. Trump decided maybe investors are right. After a flight from U.S. assets and a rout in the bond market, Mr. Trump announced a pause for 90 days on the worst of his “liberation” tariffs on most countries, China excepted. Markets celebrated with a stock-market rally on hope that perhaps Mr. Trump isn’t entirely oblivious to the damage he’s causing. The rout in dollar assets reversed, at least somewhat, and the rise in the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield eased. It would be hard to find...