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The public continues to hear or read that President Trump's trade policies are hurting the U.S. economy and destroying our relationship with the world and hurting the U.S. consumer.  They say the tariffs are especially harmful and causing price increases.  I am having trouble finding factual data that support those talking points.  Why do we see general statements in the media instead of the actual data? Here are some of the data: In 2016, the last year of President Obama, exports were $1.45 trillion, and imports were $2.19 trillion. In 2017, the first year of President Trump, exports were $1.55 trillion (up around...

WASHINGTON/DECATUR, Ill. (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Wednesday made official its extra 5% tariff on $300 billion in Chinese imports and set collection dates of Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, prompting hundreds of U.S. retail, footwear, toy and technology companies to warn of price hikes.

Over the last few weeks, we've been exploring the competing narratives about the US economy -- with the White House insisting that all is well, as many in the media hype up the possibility of a coming recession.  My general conclusion at this point has been that while there are some soft spots and genuine warning signs, the economy's fundamentals remain quite strong.  Unemployment has been quite low, the job market has been quite robust, and wage growth has broken free from years of frustrating stagnation.  We also recently received positive news on other indicators, including productivity, retail sales, and...

When the White House decided to levy tariffs on goods from China, U.S. leaders were divided on whether a prolonged trade dispute was a wise course of action. Now, so is Beijing. China's leadership is being confronted by government factions offering contradictory approaches to resolving the ongoing trade war with the U.S. Some argue for cutting a deal as quickly as possible to save China's economy; a vocal and growing group of hawks argues China should push back against the United States and avoid an agreement at all costs. As U.S. and Chinese negotiators head into their 13th round of...

One day later, China is still insisting no phone calls took place over the weekend that President Donald Trump claimed showed its willingness to talk again. “I have not heard of this situation regarding the two calls that the U.S. mentioned in the weekend,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at press conference on Tuesday. He had denied on Monday that the calls had taken place. “Regretfully, the U.S. has further increased the tax rate on China’s exports to the U.S. This extreme pressure is purely harmful to both sides and not constructive at all,” Geng said, according to...

China and the United States traded punches last week in the ongoing trade dispute, after China announced tariff increases on $75 billion of U.S. agricultural and other goods. The Trump administration responded by ending a delay in the imposition of U.S. tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods and by tacking on a five percent increase in overall tariffs to boot. But President Trump landed a haymaker on Sunday at the previously scheduled G-7 meeting when he announced that the Japanese would replace China’s broken corn purchase promise with $7 billion of agricultural product purchases. The bilateral deal will also...

China signaled on Monday it was now seeking a rapid and "calm" end to its ongoing trade war with the U.S., as Asian markets crumbled and China's currency plummeted to an 11-year low following the latest tariffs on $550 billion in Chinese goods announced last Friday by the Trump administration. News of the possible opening in negotiations came shortly after President Trump threatened to declare a national emergency that would result in American businesses freezing their relationships with China.

Has there been a president in living memory who relishes a fight more than Trump? I don't think so. That is a major reason why he remains popular with conservatives and has seen his favorability ratings rise. Sure, I like President Trump's actions on job-killing regulations, tax relief, border security, energy independence, military funding, judicial appointments, and so on. But what really invigorates me and millions of other EverTrumpers is that he is fearless -- impervious to attacks by his adversaries and merciless in responding to them. Trump is an oddity: a Republican president who stands up to the Left's...

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President Trump yesterday announced that the US will increase tariffs on China and then ordered all US firms to begin seeking alternatives to doing business with China! The Chinese regime is in a lethal position and has only two choices. The regime can either give the US what it wants or perish. President Trump recognizes that China is in an all out war with the US in regards to information and economics. For years Western leaders have done nothing but negotiate into weak positions, never standing up to the Communist regime. Former US Presidents treated China like they did Russia...

The president is irked by the dollar’s persistent strength, but he shouldn’t blame China or the Fed. This month the Trump administration officially declared China a currency manipulator. This declaration, the latest salvo in the ongoing U.S.–China trade war, came after the Chinese government allowed its currency, the yuan, to fall to its lowest value in a decade. It is now trading at just over 7 yuan to a dollar. The currency-manipulation designation is one of the most unwarranted charges volleyed against China by the Trump administration. The depreciation of the yuan was largely caused by market forces and, by...

During Friday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told host Martha MacCallum the United States had a good hand when it came to engaging China in a trade dispute. Graham downplayed market jitters and encouraged President Donald Trump to “play it out.” “The goal is to get China to stop cheating the United States out of market share, to play by the rules that everybody else in the world plays by,” he said. “When it comes to a trade war, we’ve got more bullets than they do, so I think the president is determined to...

While speaking to reporters on Friday, President Trump stated that he has “the absolute right” to order American businesses not to do business with China. Trump said, “Well, in 1977, we had an act passed, a national emergency act. I have the absolute right to do that. We’ll see how that goes, but I have the absolute right.”

A shadowy group in France has issued the French government with an unusual ultimatum: raise the price of wine or blood will flow. The group's name is the Crav, which stands for nothing more threatening than the Union for Viticultural Action in the Languedoc region in the south. The Crav's deadline to the government runs out this weekend, which marks exactly 100 years since wine-makers in the region led their last revolt. That ended with the French army shooting dead six demonstrators. No wine-maker will publicly admit to being part of Crav but many sympathise with their demands, if not...

BELLEVILLE-SUR-SAONE, France (AP) - At some of France's most celebrated vineyards, vintage wine is being transformed into alcohol for disinfectants or gasoline additives - a high-tech process winemakers hope will help them stay afloat.Chronic overproduction, dipping domestic consumption and fierce overseas competition have created a European wine crisis of unprecedented scale.With lakes of unsold wine threatening to undermine prices, the European Union has resorted to paying vintners to destroy some of their stock each year, distilling billions of bottles of perfectly drinkable wine into pure alcohol.The steaming grape juice that's left is hauled back to the vineyards, where it will...

MORE than eight million litres of this season's production of Beaujolais wine is being turned into near-pure alcohol for use in disinfectants, cleaning products or fuel additives, as French vineyards face up to a massive overproduction crisis.A chronic wine glut, falling domestic consumption and fierce overseas competition have converged to create a wine crisis on an unprecedented scale. With "lakes" of unsold wine threatening to undermine prices, the European Union has resorted to paying vintners to destroy some of their stock each year, distilling billions of bottles of perfectly drinkable wine into pure alcohol. Sceptics say the measure, which cost...

It is the ultimate irony. For the wine growers of Bordeaux, already suffering a financial crisis, the season has been too good. Though the quality appears to offer hope of salvation, the quantity of the 2006 vintage is causing problems.

NEARLY a billion bottles of French and Italian wine are to be turned into fuel and disinfectant because producers cannot find buyers.The EU agriculture commissioner yesterday announced plans for a radical shake-up of the wine market to prevent over-production. In the meantime, it was agreed that the EU will finance the conversion of millions of bottles of French and Italian wine into industrial alcohol. The growing popularity of wines from the New World has been blamed for the decline in the appetite for traditional European produce. "Europe is producing too much wine for which there is no market," the commissioner,...

VAUVERT, France Olivier Gibelin tilts a glass of deep red wine, sniffs and sips at a table set between tall concrete vats of fermenting grape juice in his rustic stone winery here. The air is heavy with an odor of yeast. "Do you want to try what will be going into your tank?" he asks ruefully, pouring a visitor a glass. "If my grandfather could taste what I'm turning into alcohol, he'd turn over in his grave."

Paris – French winemakers got some long-awaited good news this week: their wines are selling well in the United States. Or at least some of them are. Fat Bastard, for instance, is highly popular, and so too are Wild Pig, Red Bicyclette and Pont d’Avignon. Those four were among the labels on display at Vinexpo, a wine fair in Bordeaux, and they set the tone for the debate about how French vineyards confront a crisis that has resulted in a lake of unsold Gallic wine of 2.5 million hectolitres (66 million gallons). It has two causes. At home, the French...