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The preliminary agreement suggests there is a path forward to lowering the auto duties on other major trading partners, as well.President Donald Trump’s “massive” trade deal with Japan is buoying foreign carmakers — and alarming American car companies who fear they are now at a disadvantage.Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on all foreign auto manufacturers in early April, a duty that also applies to cars made by U.S. companies from parts imported from Mexico and Canada. But now, the president is planning to lower the tariff to 15 percent for Japanese autos and auto parts, the White House confirmed...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday said the U.S. has taken in about $100 billion in tariff income so far this year, and this could grow to $300 billion by the end of 2025 as collections accelerate from President Donald Trump's trade campaign. Bessent, speaking to a White House cabinet meeting, said the major collections from Trump's new tariffs only started during the second quarter, when Trump implemented a near universal 10% duty on U.S. imports and boosted duties on steel, aluminum and autos. "So we could expect that that could be well over $300 billion by the end of...

The leader of a Swedish criminal network accused of assisting Tehran in attacks on Israeli-linked targets in Europe is currently living in Iran under the protection of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), sources told Iran International. Rawa Majid received funds from Iran’s embassy in Denmark to help coordinate attacks against Israeli diplomatic facilities in Copenhagen and Stockholm, according to a source familiar with the matter inside the IRGC. The source also said the gang leader travels between Iran and Afghanistan for operations overseen by the IRGC. Majid leads a criminal group, Foxtrot, recently sanctioned by the UK and the...

WASHINGTON — Today, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Foxtrot Network, a transnational criminal organization (TCO) primarily based in Sweden that has trafficked illicit drugs and that carried out attacks on Israelis and Jews in Europe, along with its fugitive leader Rawa Majid. In January 2024, the Foxtrot Network orchestrated an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, on behalf of the Government of Iran. “Iran’s brazen use of transnational criminal organizations and narcotics traffickers underscores the regime’s attempts to achieve its aims through any means, with no regard for the cost to communities across Europe,”...

A notorious Kurdish gangster has fled Turkey to avoid extradition on drug-trafficking charges, a Swedish prosecutor has told The National. Rawa Majid, 39, known as the Kurdish Fox, had been living in Turkey, where his citizenship protected him from being extradited to Sweden, and was widely accused of playing a major part in gang violence. Authorities had hoped Majid’s prosecution on forgery charges would result in his citizenship being revoked, allowing his return to Sweden. But Henrik Soderman, who submitted the first extradition request to Turkey, has now confirmed that Majid, who leads the Foxtrot Network of criminals, is no...

The head of one of Sweden's biggest crime organizations, accused of instigating a surge in violent crime, has been arrested more than 1,600 miles away in Turkey, Swedish police said on Friday. Police did not identify the man by name but Swedish media named him as 35-year-old Ismail Abdo, head of the Rumba crime organization and alleged to have been orchestrating operations from abroad. Abdo is one of Sweden's most wanted criminals and the subject of an international arrest warrant since 2024. The Scandinavian country, once known for its low crime rates, has struggled for years to rein in organized...

On Monday’s “Alex Marlow Show,” host and Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow discussed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent rebuffing host Margaret Brennan on inflation Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Bessent said, “When we were here in March, you said there was going to be big inflation. There hasn’t been any inflation. Actually, the inflation numbers are the best in four years. So why don’t we stop trying to say this could happen, wait and see what does happen.” Marlow said, “This is the exact same thing with the egg prices. We were told the egg prices are not coming down and...

If you come at a career business savant like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, you better not miss. CBS Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan hilariously had to learn that the hard way on Sunday. Brennan tried to corner the Treasury Department head from a number of fronts on the economy, such as tariffs and inflation. In response, Bessent repeatedly made Brennan look completely foolish. Regarding inflation in particular, Brennan whipped out a piece by anti-Trumper strategist Karl Rove (whom she dubbed a “conservative”), arguing that Walmart wouldn’t be able to break even if it just ate the tariffs President Donald...

A Massachusetts man on Thursday was charged with attempting to assassinate a member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet, after he brought Molotov cocktails to the Capitol in January. Ryan English, who turned himself into Capitol Police over the incident, allegedly admitted in January that he brought knives and two Molotov cocktails fashioned out of 50 milliliter Absolut Vodka bottles, which were stuffed with cloth doused in hand sanitizer, to Capitol Hill. The man is now charged with carrying a dangerous weapon or incendiary device on the grounds of the Capitol, and unlawful possession of an incendiary device, the department said....

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Switzerland this weekend to discuss economic and trade matters, their offices announced Tuesday.“We have shared interests,” Bessent said later on Fox News’ “Ingraham Angle.” The current tariff war “isn’t sustainable,” said Bessent, “especially on the Chinese side. And, you know, 145 percent [tariffs], 125 percent, is the equivalent of an embargo. We don’t want to decouple, what we want is fair trade.”Bessent and Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts on both Saturday and Sunday, the Treasury secretary said.

The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was replaced Friday, only three days after assuming the role, as his appointment triggered a power struggle between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Elon Musk of the Department of Government Efficiency, the New York Times reported. Gary Shapley was replaced after Bessent complained to President Donald Trump that Musk circumvented Bessent’s office to secure the position for Shapley, the NYT reported. The outlet cited people who said they were familiar with the situation. Shapley was a longstanding IRS agent who accused the Biden administration’s Department of Justice of dragging out its...

In the tariff war between China and the United States, a lot of chatter in the Pravda Media is about Xi Jinping's defiance, his outreach to European countries and other less important but collectively significant developing countries, and his retaliatory moves against America. They make it sound like China has a lot of cards to play in the trade war with America. China has put civilian government officials on a "wartime footing” and ordered a diplomatic charm offensive aimed at encouraging other countries to push back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. https://t.co/rZWU2zsARQ— The Japan Times (@japantimes) April 14, 2025Collectively,...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that China’s escalation of tariffs is a “big mistake” because it is playing a “losing hand.” Bessent said, “If we put up a tariff wall, the ultimate goal would be to bring jobs back to the U.S. But in the meantime, we will be collecting substantial tariffs. If we’re successful, tariffs would be a melting ice cube, in a way, because you’re taking in the revenues as the manufacturing facilities are built in the U.S., and there should be some level of symmetry between the taxes we begin taking in...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday the U.S. holds a substantial advantage over China as the two nations exchange threats in a burgeoning trade war. “I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they’re playing with a pair of twos,” Bessent said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “What do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us? We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us, so that is a losing hand for them.” The comments come a day ahead of the U.S. raising its duties on China and dozens of other...

Inside the White House, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been perhaps the biggest proponent of ”Liberation Day,” President Donald Trump’s promised unveiling of sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday. But as the day nears, the potential fallout from those tariffs may well liberate Lutnick from his role in the administration, according to half dozen people close to the White House. While Americans and much of the world brace for a possible season of pain following the imposition of the new tranche of tariffs, Trump’s orbit is ready to play the blame game should things go poorly for the White House. And...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained why he fully supports Elon Musk, DOGE, and their speed of operation. “I am completely aligned with what Elon’s doing, and everyone said, do you have to do it so fast … like I said, I’ve only been in this business for seven weeks, I’ve only been in DC for eight weeks, but the thing I can tell you is if you don’t move fast the vested interest will weigh you down like the quicksand will come up, or the claws ..everybody’s got lobbyists … “I mean, think about it. Within a 10-mile radius of...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Tuesday that two Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblowers who faced political persecution over their roles in the tax evasion investigation of Hunter Biden will return to the agency as advisers. Bessent said that Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler will join the Treasury Department as senior advisers after they were wrongfully targeted for their role in the investigation. Shapley was a senior supervisory special agent at the IRS, while Ziegler was a special agent. "I went and decided I would bring them into Treasury, give them a year to investigate the wrongdoing that's going on at...

Scott Bessent on CNBC: “The market and the economy have become hooked, become addicted, to excessive government spending and there’s going to be a detox period.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects the US housing market to pick up steam after recent indicators came in below forecasts., and sees potential for inflation to return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target “quickly.” “We’re still living through this Bidenflation” for now, Bessent said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s David Westin, referring to the Trump administration’s contention that former President Joe Biden drove up consumer prices with his economic policies. “Over the next six to 12 months, as we deregulate, drill more American energy” and bring certainty to extending the 2017 tax cuts, “we could very...

President Donald Trump celebrated the Treasury Department’s recent announcement that it is suspending enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act against U.S. citizens and domestic reporting companies. "Exciting news! The Treasury Department has announced that they are suspending all enforcement of the outrageous and invasive Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting requirement for U.S. Citizens," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "This Biden rule has been an absolute disaster for Small Businesses Nationwide. Furthermore, Treasury is now finalizing an Emergency Regulation to formally suspend this rule for American businesses. The economic menace of BOI reporting will soon be no more." In a statement...