Free Republic

The Senate overwhelmingly passed President Trump's proposed replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Thursday, sending the deal to the president’s desk for his approval. Passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) represents a rare moment of bipartisanship in a bitterly divided Congress. The deal cleared the Senate by a vote of 89 to 10 on Thursday, close to a month after passing the House by a vote of 385-41. Republicans were eager to help Trump accomplish a major pillar of his economic agenda despite their preferences for a deal with looser restrictions. Democrats, who broadly shared Trump’s...

US threats to impose tariffs on European autos did not come up in trade talks in Washington, European Union Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said Thursday. “It was not mentioned; it was hardly mentioned,” Hogan told reporters in the US capital. “I think it should be good news for Germany.” The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to put tariffs on European automobiles imported into the US, citing threats to national security. But a deadline to make a decision passed last November without a comment from the White House after the EU threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on US imports. Hogan’s remarks...

Expected live at 11 a.m. ET: The Senate is expected to vote on the USMCA trade agreement. At noon, impeachment Managers, led by the House Sergeant at Arms, hold a procession ceremony.

Not only has the “Phase One” trade deal now been signed by the United States and China, but official texts have now been released. And my initial read indicates that the Trump administration just might have come up with an effective enforcement regime – though success here will depend on U.S. governments (including this one) displaying nerves of steel. At the same time, the enforcement terms raise the question of why the President felt the need to reach this point via a treaty, rather than simply punish China unilaterally for economic transgressions – as his tariffs on hundreds of...

If you go by the Labor Department’s statistics, the job market was very hot in November. Then it became cold in December. Average the two out and — in true Goldilocks fashion — the economy (like the porridge) may now be just right. I’ve always told you that the government’s employment stats are flaky. Various adjustments are supposed to take care of things like Christmas hiring and new companies just coming into being. But they don’t. They only confuse things. And only after many months or even years of revisions do we learn what the job market was really like....

LONDON — Iran is caught in a wretched economic crisis. Jobs are scarce. Prices for food and other necessities are skyrocketing. The economy is rapidly shrinking. Iranians are increasingly disgusted. Crippling sanctions imposed by the Trump administration have severed Iran’s access to international markets, decimating the economy, which is now contracting at an alarming 9.5 percent annual rate, the International Monetary Fund estimated. Oil exports were effectively zero in December, according to Oxford Economics, as the sanctions have prevented sales, even though smugglers have transported unknown volumes. The bleak economy appears to be tempering the willingness of Iran to escalate...

What a difference a year makes. 2018 was tough on investors, and it ended with stocks in retreat. The decline was triggered by growing fears of a prolonged U.S.-China trade war fueled by President Trump’s “I am tariff man” tweet on December 4.In addition, the Federal Reserve was in a multiyear cycle of rate hikes. Nobody knew it at the time, but the last hike occurred on December 18, 2018. Across nearly every major asset class, 2018 was a bad year. Fast forward to December 2019.A yearlong rally accelerated in the fourth quarter, with stocks ending the year at...

A new Media Research Center analysis found that the three major network evening newscasts only gave President Donald Trump’s booming economy and U.S. trade nine minutes of coverage since the House Democrats’ impeachment push began on Sept. 24, 2019.

U.S. coal-fired power plants shut down at the second-fastest pace on record in 2019, despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to prop up the industry, according to data from the federal government and Thomson Reuters. Power companies retired or converted roughly 15,100 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired electricity generation, enough to power about 15 million homes, according to the data, which included preliminary statistics from the Energy Information Administration and Reuters reporting. That was second only to the record 19,300 MW shut in 2015 during President Barack Obama’s administration. The replacement of coal with power generation from natural gas and renewables has...

So what is the question to which measuring wealth distributions and a wealth tax are the answer? To briefly review, in Part I we met the fact that "wealth is measured as "capitalized income," Y/r. But only some kinds of income and with r choices that blew up measured wealth inequality. In Part II we learned that a big reason wealth inequality widened is that interest rates fell. If r falls, Y/r rises, but it's the same Y. In Part III we noted the distinction between consumption, income and wealth inequality. Wealth is beyond badly measured as a measure of...

IMPOSING SANCTIONS WITH RESPECT TO ADDITIONAL SECTORS OF IRAN By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that Iran continues to be the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and that Iran...

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order (the “order”) with respect to Iran that takes additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 12957 of March 15, 1995.The order takes steps to deny Iran revenue, including revenue derived from the export of products from key sectors of Iran’s economy, that may be used to fund and support its nuclear program, missile development, terrorism and terrorist proxy networks, and malign regional influence.The order blocks the property...

Weeks after switching on the machines of a new production line near Bangkok, veteran manufacturer Larry Sloven has a quip for the stream of companies leaving China: “Elvis has left the building.” After three decades of building up manufacturing bases in China, Sloven helped Capstone International Hong Kong, of which he is managing director, wind one down. Costs were rising before the trade war, but a 25 per cent tariff on the lighting products the company exports back to the United States helped accelerate a shift that was set in motion 18 months ago – moving its production base to...

Immigration makes all of America richer, but it can make some Americans poorer, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says in a report issued January 9. “Immigration, whether legal or illegal, expands the labor force and changes its composition, leading to increases in total economic output,” said the non-partisan report, titled “The Foreign-Born Population and Its Effects on the U.S. Economy and the Federal Budget—An Overview.” But this national expansion does “not necessarily [deliver] to increases in output per capita,” or income per person, the report said: For example, business leaders say the nation’s enormous population of immigrants has expanded the...

* Fewer suicides occur when minimum wages are higher during periods of elevated unemployment, according to a new study. * Every $1 increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 6% reduction in suicide for high school grads. * Boosting the minimum wage by $1 could have saved 27,550 lives from 1990 to 2015, the study says. Raising the federal minimum wage, which hasn't increased in more than a decade, might accomplish far more than simply offering U.S. workers a boost in pay. New research suggests that lifting the baseline wage could also stop thousands of Americans from killing...

Video at link. The Trump administration announced new sanctions on Iran Friday targeting the country’s metals sector and several of its government leaders following Tehran’s missile attacks on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops earlier this week. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held a press conference at the White House to detail the new measures, which President Trump promised were coming earlier in the week. The new sanctions target the Iranian aluminum, copper, iron and steel industries. The U.S. is also sanctioning eight senior Iranian officials who were allegedly involved in Tuesday’s missile attacks against U.S....

The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly surpassed 29,000 on Friday for the first time, setting a new record. The index hit the record earlier in the session following a moderate December jobs report, which found 145,000 new jobs created in 2019 and the unemployment rate staying unchanged at 3.5 percent, the lowest level in nearly 50 years. The Dow then retreated and was down slightly as of late morning. President Trump has frequently touted strong stocks as a sign of a booming economy, which he has made a central theme in his case for reelection. He has also cited the...

In 2016, Donald Trump handily beat Hillary Clinton in the Buckeye State. As commentator George Will noted, for quite some time, the GOP presidential strategy was to win the south, the Midwest, the West, and then spend the equivalent of the GDP of Brazil to win Ohio. There are stories about George Bush knowing that his second term hinged on him winning Ohio, which he did. Barack Obama changed all of that. Yet, public opinion shifts like the tides. Trump won Florida outright, a state that has many worrying about the competitiveness of the GOP in national elections due to...

If you went to bed early Tuesday, you were surprised to wake up Wednesday and learn that World War III has been delayed. No doubt you were also shocked that Iran blinked, oil prices were tumbling and the stock market was soaring. Once again, the Chicken Little chorus got everything all wrong. The sky isn’t falling and Donald Trump pulled off a huge victory. Oh, and he’s still president. Iran’s decision to pretend it was retaliating for the death of Qassem Soleimani by lobbing ineffective missiles is terrific news for America and freedom-loving people everywhere. So was Trump’s Wednesday offer...

After President Trump declared that Iran “appears to be standing down” in the wake of Tuesday's missile strikes on Iraqi airbases, Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane said that Trump had executed a diplomatic strategy that could enable the U.S. to negotiate with Iran without further military action. “It changed from the strategy of appeasement under the Obama administration to confrontation using economic pressure to do that,” Keane told “The Daily Briefing” Wednesday. “The American people should be extremely grateful and happy,” Trump said in an address to the nation from the White House the morning after the...