Free Republic

President Trump arrived late to Wednesday’s morning G7 meeting but wasn’t fazed as he walked into the session already in progress, declaring to his fellow leaders he was the “boss.” The rest of the G7 leaders were seated and were beginning their discussion on economic issues when Trump walked into the room. President Emmanuel Macron welcomed him with, “Oh, hello, Mr. President.” Trump paused on his way to his seat and declared, “I’m the boss” as everyone laughed. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was seated at the American place at the table but quickly vacated after Trump’s arrival, letting the president...

Taipei showcased its new American missile launchers through numerous live-fire salvos in a drill this week that Taiwanese troops claimed demonstrated the system’s mobility and long-range strike capabilities.The Republic of China Army fired its recently procured M142 High Mobility Rocket Artillery Systems (HIMARS) on Wednesday as the main highlight of a series of drills designed to validate the island’s precision strike capabilities, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in a news release. The Lockheed Martin-made missile systems rehearsed firing missions and rapid redeployment, with the HIMARS relocating to new firing positions within three minutes of launching, according to the ministry.State...

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that the “new world order will be built from Europe” with his country playing a key role in comments that echo a speech earlier in the year interpreted as a criticism of President Donald Trump. During a visit to Ireland, Carney said that that Canada was “the most European of non-European countries, and we are transforming our cooperation with the EU.” In January, Carney addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, taking aim at the erosion of the rules-based international order in comments which were seen as a pointed reference to Trump’s...

A Chinese tracking device was discovered in the Prime Minister's official car, MPs were told yesterday. The bug is believed to have been found in a sealed part of the vehicle imported from China. Its discovery during a sweep first emerged in 2023, sparking fears that Beijing was aggressively spying on ministers in the then-Conservative government. Now it has been revealed that the device was in fact found in the Prime Minister's car the previous year. Charles Parton, of think-tank the Council on Geostrategy, told the Commons Business and Trade Committee yesterday: 'The prime minister's car in 2022 was emanating...

Scroll through any social media platform long enough and you’ll notice something that doesn’t quite add up. The same talking points, phrasing, and sudden outrage cycles are appearing across completely different audiences at the same time. It feels coordinated. And that’s because it often is. Foreign adversaries have turned modern technology into a new kind of warfare, one the United States hasn’t fully named, hasn’t clearly assigned ownership of, and isn’t yet equipped to fight at the speed it’s being waged. This is something more insidious than traditional espionage: the deliberate, systematic manipulation of how millions of Americans perceive reality—their...

1,102,210 views May 12, 2026 Everyone online keeps saying Chinese EVs are cheap knockoffs that could never compete with Tesla, Mercedes, BMW, or the rest of the world. So I flew 9,000 miles to China to see for myself. From self-driving cars and massive EV factories to battery technology and infrastructure that honestly shocked me, this trip completely changed the way I look at the future of electric cars. I thought I knew what to expect… I was wrong. We got a behind the scenes look at CATL and the battery tech powering the future of electric cars. EV batteries...

The battery retained 76 percent capacity after 500 consecutive six-minute charging cycles. Charging an electric vehicle fast without degrading the battery has been one of the harder problems in battery research. A team at Adelaide University says it has a way through it. Six minutes. That is how long it took their new battery cell to reach 85 percent charge, while delivering an energy density of 240.4 watt-hours per kilogram. The result comes from a team led by Professor Shi-Zhang Qiao, an ARC Industry Laureate Fellow in the University’s School of Chemical Engineering, working alongside researchers from Imperial College London....

DONALD Trump has warned Taiwan not to declare independence after his crunch talks with Xi Jinping at his Beijing summit. The US president revealed Xi asked him directly if America would intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion to which he refused to answer.

Key Points Canada is allowing 49,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles to be imported for retail sales annually at a tariff rate of 6.1%. That’s opening the market for auto dealers in the country to sell Chinese EVs. “I think it is going to a be a huge eye-opener,” Michael MacGillivray, who oversees 10 dealerships in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada, told CNBC. ============================================================ HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Michael MacGillivray sees the arrival of Chinese electric vehicles in Canada as a potential game changer. “I think it is going to a be a huge eye-opener,” said MacGillivray, who oversees 10 dealerships...

Donald Trump has revealed that Xi Jinping offered to help the US break Iran's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. 'President Xi would like to see a deal made,' Trump told Fox News. 'He said, 'If I can be of any help at all, I would like to be of help.' Anybody that buys that much oil has obviously got some kind of relationship, but he'd like to see the Hormuz Strait open.' Trump did not say what Xi would want in return for China's assistance, but there have been reports that Beijing is seeking tariff relief and access to...

President Trump arrived in China alongside a delegation of billionaire U.S. executives, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, underscoring the high stakes for American companies as Washington and Beijing negotiate over trade, artificial intelligence and the Iran war. The executives — whose combined net worth approaches $1 trillion — lead companies with major business interests in China, despite years of trade disputes between the world's two largest economies… Filmmaker Brett Ratner, who directed the documentary "Melania," was also on the flight. Additional U.S. business leaders who are traveling to Beijing include Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, with...

The full nationalisation of British Steel is expected to be announced in the king’s speech this week, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner. The steelmaker, which employs 3,500 people at its plant in Scunthorpe, came under government control last April amid fears that its owner, Jingye, was planning to shut down the site. British Steel operates the last two remaining blast furnaces in the UK, but its economic control remains with the Chinese company, which bought it out of insolvency in early 2020. An announcement confirming the plans...

At least two oil and chemical tankers were forced to turn away from the Strait of Hormuz on Monday after the United States moved to enforce a naval blockade, according to maritime tracking data. One of the vessels, Rich Starry, which had listed its destination as China, reportedly reversed course within minutes of the blockade taking effect, data from MarineTraffic showed. Responding to the developments, China issued a strong message signalling it would continue its maritime activity in the region. Defence Minister Dong Jun said Chinese vessels would keep operating in the area and warned against external interference. “Our ships...

American intelligence agencies have obtained information that China in recent weeks may have sent a shipment of shoulder-fired missiles to Iran for its conflict with the United States and Israel, according to U.S. officials. The officials said that the intelligence is not definitive that the shipment has been sent, and that there is no evidence that the Chinese missiles have yet been used against American or Israeli forces during the conflict.

Construction of a “transformational” new railway line linking China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan will allow goods to transit from east to west across Eurasia a whole week faster. On the way, it’s also predicted to have a transformational impact on the economy of Kyrgyzstan, one of the slowest developing countries on the continent. Now, the “CKU” will give direct transit options for most of Central Asia while unlocking substantial natural resource opportunities among a depressed, mountainous region of Kyrgyzstan. The trilateral agreement to build the 300-mile-long railway was signed on December 27th, 2024, and construction began the following year. $1.1 billion...

The French president said that the objective is not to be the vassals of two hegemonic powersPARIS, April 3. /TASS/. During his visit to South Korea, French President Emmanuel Macron called for the formation of a "coalition of independence" to counter the unpredictability of the US and the alleged hegemony of China. "I think our objective is not to be the vassals of two hegemonic powers. None of these hegemonic powers, I would say. And we don’t want to depend on the dominance of, let’s say, China, nor do we want to be too much exposed to the unpredictability of...

Multiple sources have claimed that the Chinese government is suspiciously repositioning its military assets, signaling possible future activity around Taiwan. The reports come from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, which tracks Chinese military might and defense systems. The China Airpower Tracker reportedly showed lines of typically retired Chinese fighter jets, which have drawn suspicion from experts. The J-6 fighter (also known as the Shenyang J-6) was first developed in the late 1950s. China retired the line of jets in the late 1990s, but now, experts say, China is retrofitting the old fighters to serve as unmanned craft and staging...

[HONG KONG/TOKYO] TCL Electronics Holdings agreed to buy a majority stake in Sony Group’s global home entertainment business as the Chinese company seeks to expand overseas. TCL will pay 75.4 billion yen (S$610 million) for a 51 per cent stake in a new joint venture that will hold Sony’s home entertainment business including Bravia televisions, according to a statement on Tuesday (Mar 31), which confirmed an earlier Bloomberg News report. Sony will retain a 49 per cent stake in the business, which also include research and development, design, manufacturing and product sales, as well as home audio equipment. As part...

Declassified intelligence showed that Chinese signals-intelligence collection facilities had been operating in Cuba since at least 2019. "China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida's coast." — The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2023. President Donald Trump acted before the Chinese could base missiles in Cuba.

The Chinese did, in fact, meddle in the 2020 presidential vote in the United States, and the intelligence community did hide that information from President Donald Trump. That's according to a new investigative report at Just the News on the clouded vote results that already are known to have been under the undue influence of two factors. Those are the FBI's decision to interfere by falsely claiming that accurate information about Biden family scandals revealed in a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden was Russian disinformation and Mark Zuckerberg's decision to put his thumb on the scale by handing out $400...