Free Republic

One of the nation’s top labor leaders on Wednesday called on the Obama administration to immediately release the text of a far-reaching trade deal that spans the Pacific Rim to Latin America. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote a letter to President Obama arguing that stakeholders, lawmakers and the American public need to see the final text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to start what is expected to be a long process of evaluating the deal brokered by the United States and 11 other nations. House and Senate Democrats have made similar appeals since the pact was brokered a week ago...

President Donald Trump’s most powerful weapon is what makes him Big Government Democrats’ worst nightmare and the trait that most baffles Establishment Republicans who don't have it. .... (quoting Bill Hobbs' Facebook essay) .... "Donald Trump instinctively knows almost immediately where his opponent's jugular vein is, and that is where he attacks, and that is where he exerts the most pressure and the most leverage to get the best deal." "For example, in the primary, Jeb Bush was the odds-on favorite to win. He had the money, the Establishment, the résumé, and the name. All of the other candidates tried...

President Trump mocked conservative mega-donor Charles Koch early Thursday for complaining that tariffs hurt foreign workers, telling the billionaire he is “correct.” “Charles Koch of Koch Brothers, who claims to be giving away millions of dollars to politicians even though I know very few who have seen this (?), now makes the ridiculous statement that what President Trump is doing is unfair to ‘foreign workers.’ He is correct, AMERICA FIRST!” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is getting an earful – on Twitter – from teachers union boss Randi Weingarten for reportedly keeping the door open to a possible Trump endorsement in 2020. Newsmax reported Wednesday that Trumka would not rule out a union endorsement for the president. “Every [candidate] will be looked at,” Trumka said. He added, “we will consider every candidate who’s running.” Trumka simply may have been stating union policy, not wanting to get ahead of an endorsement process that is nowhere close to starting, for an election more than two years out. At the same time, he noted...

China appealed to Washington on Thursday to stay calm and “correct its attitude” following a U.S. threat to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods in a dispute over technology policy. A foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said Beijing was open to dialogue but gave no indication about the status of possible negotiations. […] “We urge the United States to correct its attitude and not to try to blackmail China because it will never work,” said Geng at a news conference. “We advise the United States to be level-headed and avoid simply acting on impulse, otherwise it will ultimately...

RALEIGH, N.C. — Residents in a North Carolina town hoping to read “Rex Morgan M.D.” with Sunday coffee are in for a rude awakening. And a newspaper says it’s all President Donald Trump’s fault. The Robesonian in Lumberton announced it’s dropping an eight-page color comics section from Sunday editions. A newspaper editorial last week said it made the “not-so-funny” decision to cut the comics because of rising costs spurred by Trump administration tariffs on Canadian newsprint. “This newspaper has made the difficult decision to drop the Sunday comics, a decision that we really believe was made at the White House,”...

Senior officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration said on Wednesday that proposed tariff rates on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods would be raised from 10 percent to 25 percent, in an effort to “encourage” China to change its trade policies. The Trump administration aims to push changes on China’s policies on intellectual property protection, technology transfers and subsidies for high technology industries. The move comes as the US and China have been tangled in a trade dispute, since President Donald Trump announced earlier this year that the US would apply punitive tariffs on steel and aluminum worldwide and...

Despite strong condemnations of the Trump administration for what he calls the “growing wage inequality” among Americans, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka on Wednesday refused to rule out his union endorsing President Donald Trump for re-election in 2020. “Well, he will be looked at [for the labor endorsement],” Trumka told Newsmax, “Everyone [of the presidential candidates] will be looked at.” Pressed as to how serious he was about the AFL-CIO considering not endorsing the Democratic nominee for president for the first time since 1972, Trumka insisted “we will consider every candidate who’s running in 2020.” Recalling the last presidential race, the...

On Monday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo led a team of Cabinet-level officials to unveil the economic piece of the administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. While he didn’t actually call out China by name, the entire scheme is meant to show the countries of East and Southeast Asia they have an alternative to what many see as China’s predatory debt approach to energy, infrastructure and digital economy investment, which is already resulting in backlash in countries including Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Critics may call the plan a drop in the bucket compared with the multitrillion...

The price of a can of Coca-Cola? Likely going up. A package of Pampers? That too. Plane tickets? They also may be more expensive. These items and more may cost more in the coming months as people start feeling the effects of higher fuel prices and raw-material costs as well as a range of tariffs. Janette Hendricks said she has noticed higher prices on “just about everything” in the past three months or so. That’s put a little pressure on the recently retired nurse in Washington. So she goes shopping less often, “makes things stretch,” and she always shops for...

China said on Wednesday that "blackmail" wouldn't work and that it would hit back if the United States takes further steps hindering trade, as the Trump administration considers slapping a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Billionaire plutocrat and GOP mega-donor Charles Koch says President Donald Trump’s tariffs on aluminum, steel, and thousands of Chinese-made imports are “ridiculous” and “unfair” to foreigners. Koch, who funds a network of organizations with his brother, David Koch, told the media during a conference with donors over the weekend that Trump’s ten percent tariff on imported aluminum and 25 percent tariff on imported steel was not fair to foreign countries and foreign workers. The Trump administration has said the tariffs on imported goods are necessary to protect American jobs and industries from foreign competition where foreign-made products are sold much...

Waking up 18 months ago to discover Donald Trump had been elected US president filled me with despair. What on earth had happened to politics? How could a reality TV star with no experience of government – and multiple character flaws to boot – have been chosen by American voters to be their leader? My 13-year-old daughter was also deeply troubled. “How could America vote for a man who said these things about women?” I didn’t know what to say. She went off to school. And I went off to a dance studio to practise a Gangnam Style salsa for...

The media and other Trump haters can't seem to let themselves admit it, but President Donald Trump scored a big victory for the American economy on trade last week. Trump and the European Union reached a handshake deal that is designed to lower tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic. They agreed to shoot for zero tariffs. Sounds like freer and fairer trade to me. The exact details are still a bit murky, but what we do know is that the EU has pledged to lower its tariffs and other trade barriers on American soybeans, oil and gas, pharmaceutical...

President Trump earlier this month told CBS News that the European Union is America’s “foe” because of “what they do to us in trade.” The European Council President Donald Tusk frantically responded, claiming that America and Europe are the "best of friends" and anything else is "fake news." Many free traders see this as far more than simple rhetoric. Economic historian Adam Tooze took to the pages of the New York Times last week to argue Trump is “deliberately foster[ing] economic nationalism.” In this way, Tooze suggests, Trump is little better than China’s President Xi Jinping or Russia’s Vladimir Putin....

Why trade deficits are not a sign of economic trouble, and trade surpluses are not necessarily a sign of economic health. The problem with all this trade-deficit talk is that nobody seems to know what trade deficits are, what they mean, or what causes them. A trade deficit is nothing like a budget deficit. Each year’s federal budget deficit adds to the total debt owed by the federal government. Trade deficits don’t do that, which is one reason why “trade deficit” is not a very useful term. A trade deficit is just a bookkeeping entry, not a debt that has...

One thing came through loud and clear in President Trump’s press conference Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. When they announced an alliance against third parties’ “unfair trading practices,” they didn’t even have to mention China by name for listeners to know who their target was. Cooperation between the U.S. and EU will squeeze China’s protectionist model, and even before this agreement, there’s been evidence that China is already running up the white flag.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The trade relationship between the United States and Europe is improving, German Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner said on Saturday, but there is no guarantee the bloc will buy the quantity of soybeans that Washington expects. U.S. President Donald Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, struck a surprise deal on Wednesday that ended the risk of an immediate trade war between the two powers. After the talks, Trump highlighted benefits for U.S. farmers. “The European Union is going to start, almost immediately, to buy a lot of soybeans,” he told...

President Trump didn’t start a trade war with China – he’s trying to end and win the trade war that China launched against the U.S. As the president has frequently pointed out, the Chinese have been undermining the world trade system for years, and no country has been hurt more by China’s unfair actions than America. America’s trade deficit with China is so large it almost defies comprehension. Since 2012, our yearly deficit in the trade of goods with China has consistently topped $300 billion. Last year, it was over $375.5 billion. In the first five months of this year...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush offered a rhetorical hat tip to one-time rival President Trump on Friday for the nation’s surging economy. The man deemed “low-energy Jeb” on the 2016 campaign trail by Mr. Trump took to Twitter to marvel at America’s high-octane economic growth — 4.1 percent in the second quarter. “Today’s news confirms that 4% growth isn’t just aspirational, it’s achievable through policies that unleash the power of the market,” Mr. Bush wrote. “Credit to @POTUS’s economic policies. To sustain this growth, we must pursue a free trade agenda and move to a merit-based immigration system.” Mr. Bush...