Free Republic

In response to ongoing concerns about Boeing’s delays, President Donald J. Trump has asked L3Harris Technologies to provide an interim presidential aircraft by the end of the year, according to The Wall Street Journal. This decision marks a significant change in how presidential flights will be handled. Boeing, which was awarded a $3.9 billion contract to deliver two next-generation Air Force One aircraft, has fallen significantly behind schedule by years and is now billions of dollars over budget. Trump’s newly selected contractor, L3Harris, headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, is tasked with retrofitting a previously Qatari-owned Boeing 747 as a temporary command...

Tesla started a formal process to find its next CEO last month, amidst declining public opinion about billionaire Elon Musk, according to a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal. “Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive,” the Journal reported Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter. “The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm … The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or...

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...

WASHINGTON — Many Republican lawmakers lie low when they have differences with President Trump. Sen. Rand Paul has taken the opposite approach. “Congress needs to grow a spine, and Congress needs to stand up for its prerogatives,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters, complaining that Trump relied on a national-emergency law to impose tariffs that Paul believes should be controlled by lawmakers. His comments came just days after he was one of only two GOP senators to vote against the party’s budget framework that is key to Trump’s tax cuts, saying it didn’t do enough to reduce the deficit. The libertarian...

Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, seemed set to become Canada’s next prime minister at the start of 2025. For more than a year, his party had a 20-point lead in opinion polls over then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party and momentum toward a landslide victory. Then came President Trump. Trump’s trade war and threats to annex Canada have upended Canadian politics. In less than three months, the Conservatives have gone from heavy favorites to underdogs in an election set for April 28. Poilievre’s problem is bad timing. His preferred foil, the unpopular Trudeau, resigned in March, when Trump’s...

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...

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...

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...

“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...

Roofing-products manufacturer IKO North America has been on a factory-building spree in the U.S., with one plant completed and four more under construction. After President Trump launched a barrage of tariffs on U.S. trading partners, the math abruptly changed. Chief Executive David Koschitzky said IKO’s just-finished factory in Texas now faces higher prices on the steel it uses to fabricate metal shingles, while the plants that are still being built need machinery that isn’t made in the U.S. The company will continue with the projects, he said, but tariffs will make them much more expensive. “If we’re to be successful,...

DETROIT—If President Trump’s trade war has a physical battleground, it is Michigan, where companies and workers are already feeling the beginning of an onslaught that could blow a hole in the state’s economy. Nearly 20% of the economy is tied to the auto industry, which has become increasingly dependent on parts and vehicles from Canada, Mexico and China—imports Trump hit with steep tariffs in recent weeks. This trade has grown so large that Michigan ranks fifth in the nation by the size of its imports and exports, even though its total economy ranks 14th. Detroit’s automotive executives have shifted into...

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...

President Trump proclaims his tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Good luck finding workers to fill them. A common lament among employers, especially manufacturers, is they can’t find reliable, conscientious workers who can pass a drug test. Single women might commiserate: A good worker, like a good man, can be hard to find these days. Blame government, which showers benefits on able-bodied people who don’t work while at the same time subsidizing college degrees that don’t lead to productive employment. The result is millions of idle men and millions of unfilled jobs—what an economist would call a...

WASHINGTON—In naming a set of unconventional nominees to run federal departments, Donald Trump this week also took steps to push for a broader goal: realigning the balance of power among Washington’s major institutions so that more authority flows from the White House. Trump has threatened to take steps that would undermine the Senate’s confirmation powers and Congress’s role in budgeting—the most essential powers of the two chambers. He has insisted that senators allow him to place some nominees directly in their jobs, bypassing the Senate’s public hearings and confirmation process. He has said he would move to impound—or decline to...

The need for stability and experience should eliminate the young MAGA-in-a-hurry types like Sen. J.D. Vance or Members of the House. As the GOP convention nears, and voters focus on the election, the race remains closer than it should be given Mr. Biden’s infirmities. Swing voters still worry about Mr. Trump and the possibility of four more years of turmoil. The former President can help his campaign, and the country, by projecting stability and calm. We know many readers will think this is impossible, and maybe it is. Yet he showed admirable restraint after the debate last week, letting Democrats...

In the span of just a few days, Donald Trump’s financial position has moved from seemingly dire—facing the seizure of prized real estate if he doesn’t obtain a large bond—to potentially dazzling, with revelations that his social-media company could bring him more than $3 billion. It is nothing new for a man who has long ridden a roller coaster of luck, acquiring and losing valuable assets repeatedly. When his financial position appears to be the most at risk, again and again, he finds a way to squirm out of it and emerge strong. A big question: Would the windfall come...

Last week the Wall Street Journal published an unsigned op-ed unworthy of one of the best teams of commentators in the country. The subject was some comments Donald Trump made on Truth Social that, by surprise, displayed his trademark turbo-charged hyperbole. The Journal is usually a reliable source of sober, judicious, and fact-based analysis, but this editorial is a troubling portent that Republican Trump-Derangement Syndrome hysteria may have a negative impact on next year’s election. Trump’s heinous sin, according to the editors, is saying “that Gen. Mark Milley, the nation’s highest military officer, deserves execution—as in death. He said NBC...

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is taking steps to run for president, people familiar with his plans said, adding to the stable of Republicans looking to wrest the party mantle from former President Donald Trump. Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, is testing a message with GOP voters in key early states focused on unity and optimism as some Republicans say it is time to move on from the Trump era. Mr. Trump has announced a bid for president in the 2024 election. Jennifer DeCasper, a Scott senior adviser, said he was “excited to share his vision...