Free Republic

President Donald Trump said Monday that trade talks with China, which had stalled out in May, have “already begun” following his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit over the weekend. The renewed talks were being held by phone, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The president added that any deal between the two economic superpowers would need to be somewhat tilted in the U.S.′ favor. Trump and Xi had agreed during a bilateral meeting at the summit in Osaka, Japan, to hold off on imposing new tariffs on imports of each other’s goods and to...

The solid economy is doing little to bolster support for President Donald Trump. Americans give Trump mixed reviews for his economic stewardship despite the growth achieved during this presidency, according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Nearly two-thirds describe as “good” an economy that appears to have set a record for the longest expansion in U.S. history, with decade-long growth that began under Barack Obama. More people consider the economy to be good today than did at the start of the year. But significantly fewer approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, even...

How do Democrats sell their policies when the economy is doing well and unemployment is at 50-year lows? By avoiding the subject. At least, that’s what Democrats did during the two nights of debating. The very first question asked in the first debate, by Savannah Guthrie, was about whether the Democrats’ far-left agenda would risk the economic growth we’ve been enjoying. “Seventy-one percent of Americans say the economy is doing well, including 60% of Democrats,” she said. “What do you say to those who worry this kind of significant change could be risky to the economy?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the...

The U.S. economy broke a record for its longest expansion ever Monday. Economic expansion has continued for more than 10 years. Growth is now in its 121st month since the Great Recession ended in June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The economy set its previous 120-month record between March 1991 and March 2001. That growth period ended after the dot com bubble burst. The rate of growth, however, has been slower than during other periods of economic expansion. For example, during that previous record-holding period in the 90s, the average growth was 3.6 percent per year....

President Reagan was the left's most hated POTUS, evah, until President Trump. He was an outsider with no fedgov or foreign policy experience. A pro-life Christian conservative and an America-loving patriot. His anti-Communist, anti-USSR rhetoric was inflammatory, reckless and dangerous. His name-calling ("evil empire'), inexperience, war-mongering and direct confrontational (and bungling) style was going to bumble us into a nuclear conflagration. His tone was the worst. And his photo op meetings and one-on-one summits with dictatorial soviet leaders produced no immediate tangible results. Total failures. And then (unexpectedly and shockingly) the walls began crumbling... followed by a complete collapse. Now...

Asia Pacific markets mostly rose in Monday morning trade after U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to hold off on slapping additional tariffs in an effort to resume trade talks. Mainland Chinese shares surged in early trade. The Shanghai composite added 1.74% while the Shenzhen component skyrocketed 2.65%. The Shenzhen composite also added 2.424%.

Vietnam and the European Union signed a free trade agreement on Sunday, opening opportunities to further boost trade between the euro bloc and one of Southeast Asia’s biggest manufacturing nations. The agreement, which was signed by European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom and Vietnamese Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, will eliminate almost all tariffs for goods traded between Vietnam and the EU’s 28 member countries. “It is a special day for relations between the EU and Vietnam. The agreement has opened a new horizon for the development of both sides,” Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc...

China is set to demand that President Trump remove a ban on Huawei and lift punitive tariffs to reach a trade agreement, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Chinese President Xi Jinping will reportedly present those terms to Trump when the two leaders meet at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Osaka, Japan. Chinese officials told the Journal that Beijing is insisting the U.S. remove telecommunications giant Huawei from its “Entity List,” which virtually bars the company from buying components from American firms without U.S. government approval. U.S. officials have said Huawei's products pose a national security risk. Beijing...

Hispanic Americans are set to overtake African Americans as the second largest demographic group in the 2020 presidential election. That is bad news for Democrats, who are convinced they are entitled to these millions of voters. They cannot understand why so many Latinos, especially in important battleground states such as Florida, continue to line up firmly behind President Trump. The thought terrifies them. Even more frightening for Democrats is the ineffectiveness of their main “outreach” strategy: extol the virtues of illegal immigration and speak in Spanish. As President Trump has pointed out, Hispanic Americans are no more enamored with a...

The United States and China have traded since the early days of our republic, but only recently has the scale of that trade become a political issue. More than any other point, Donald TrumpÂ’s rhetoric against outsourcing to China gave him the blue-collar Midwestern votes that made up his margin of victory in 2016. His election was a break with the generation-long bipartisan consensus that more and freer trade is better, whether the trading partner is a liberal democracy that respects the rule of law or a communist dictatorship where unfree people labor in unsafe conditions for government-suppressed wages.Even...

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said President Donald Trump’s style of “harum-scarum” was exhausting the America people. Noonan said, “Do you remember on the Ed Sullivan show when we were little children? There was a guy who came and balanced plates. There would be a stick, put a plate up, get it going, get another and then he would run back and forth just trying to keep them all up. Balancing plates is part of the tone of this administration and of this president.”

President Trump’s economic nationalist fight against Chinese dominance is the “number one issue” driving Hispanic voters to back the president in the 2020 presidential election, a campaign official says. In a statement to Time Magazine, a Trump campaign official revealed that above every other issue, the administration’s fight against China is the most motivating issue for Hispanic voters who are on the fence about supporting the president in his re-election bid. Time noted: [The campaign is] also testing how to pitch Latino voters in New Mexico and Nevada on Trump’s Chinese tariffs. “The No. 1 issue driving Latino voters to...

Over 600 American companies have signed a letter in support of President Donald Trump's tariffs on China, citing a boost to American jobs and reducing costs for their businesses.The letter will be submitted during testimony Friday before the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). China This week, the USTR has been conducting hearings regarding proposed tariffs on approximately $300 billion of Chineses goods.Chief Economist of the intention of Coalition for a Prosperous, Jeff Ferry, will present the letter Friday morning during his testimony to the USTR.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador convened a special legislative session to hold the vote after the Senate convened in April..“The USMCA is synonymous with opportunity in the short and long term,” Mexican Sen. Verónica Martínez García said of the pact. Canada has already introduced legislation through its parliament to ratify the agreement and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to lobby Democrats to support the USMCA during his visit to Washington, D.C., this week. Meanwhile, the deal is running into some roadblocks , Speaker Nancy Pelosi has the authority to bring legislation on the matter before the chamber,...

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping “will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan.” In a tweet, Trump said that he and Xi “had a very good telephone conversation,” and that “our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting.” _____________________________________ Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump Had a very good telephone conversation with President Xi of China. We will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan. Our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting. 24.5K 9:39 AM - Jun 18, 2019...

Last week, Ed Morrissey pointed to some pretty clear evidence that things were changing in Mexico in response to direct pressure from President Trump. Specifically, it appears Mexico is making a more concerted effort to stem the flow of migrants from Central America to the US border despite some claims in the media that Trump’s tariff threats hadn’t accomplished anything. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported some more evidence Trump’s plan is working: Mexican authorities increased immigration enforcement along well-traveled routes for migrants in southern Mexico over the weekend, checking identifications, pulling migrants off public transport and intercepting four trucks...

33% of likely voters say President Trump has made life better for African Americans. When Obama left office in 2099 only 13% of likely voters said he made life better for African Americans. This is not the first time Trump has seen his numbers climb among African Americans. A VoterLabs poll in May found that 29% of female African Americans approve of President’s Trump.

The Hong Kong demonstrations reveal that President Trump was right in many ways to identify China early on as a threat to the United States. He saw them as an economic threat and dishonest trading partner. To a lesser degree, he saw them as a military threat. He was right, although ultimately, their military — including space and cyber warfare — are probably the largest threat. To be clear, China is a bigger, long-term threat economically and militarily than anyone else, including Russia which has aging nukes but otherwise is a virtual third-world economy and a vastly weakened military. Modern...

Walmart and Target are the problem. EVERYTHING sold in Walmart (except most groceries) is from China. Don't know about Target, but I presume they are exactly the same. I know, not (everything). But close enough.

A massive crowd on the streets of Hong Kong Sunday as the protest continues against the extradition law. Organizers say some two million people took to the streets.... 30 killed and 40 wounded in a suicide bombing attack in northeastern Nigeria..... At least 12 killed, more than a dozen wounded in a jihadist rocket attack on a government held area in northwestern Syria... Turkey says it attacked the Syrian army in northwestern Syria in response to an attack by Syrian government forces on a Turkish observation post... Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the Russian S-400 air defense system is...