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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the United States should “bow down before the Iranian people” in a speech this week. Rouhani also indicated that he would not meet with President Donald Trump unless there was “repentance” on the part of the United States. “Those who have imposed sanctions on our people, and have carried out economic terrorism—any change in our conduct toward them must start with their repentance,” Rouhani said on Aug. 27, according to a translation from Arabic from the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The United State has imposed sanctions on a leading Chinese state-owned company for importing Iranian oil. The sanctions placed by the U.S. State Department bar Zhuhai Zhenrong Corporation, one of China’s largest state-run oil companies, from “engaging in foreign exchange, banking or property transactions under US jurisdiction,” London-based Financial Times reported. “As part of that maximum pressure campaign, I am announcing that the United States is imposing sanctions on the Chinese entity Zhuhai Zhenrong and its chief executive Youmin Li,” Secretary of State Pompeo told reporters on Tuesday. While the U.S. sanctions have deterred almost all foreign buyers in Europe...

It sounded like a historical moment was in the offing. For the first time, Europe’s finance ministers were seriously planning on publicly denouncing tax havens by presenting a black list of countries that lure companies through tax-saving schemes. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the countries on the list were “not doing enough to fight tax evasion.” Fellow Frenchman Pierre Moscovici, the European Union’s commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, called for vigorous sanctions. […] That was one and a half years ago, and that momentum has largely disappeared. This is partly because the black list had several fundamental...

Actor and producer Isaiah Washington, who famously joined the anti-Democratic Party #WalkAway movement earlier this year, said Monday that closeted conservatives in Hollywood are “cowards” for not voicing their beliefs out of fear of being blacklisted. “I have a message for the Hollywood Actors DM’ing me and revealing that you’re Conservatives,” wrote Mr. Washington, best known for his roles in the CW’s “The 100” and ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.” “Don’t DM me again, because you all are lame and I don’t respond well to hypocrites or cowards,” he wrote. “You’re no different than the bystander that is waiting on the blood...

My pastor recently told me that 25 years ago, the first person that people would contact when they faced a marriage crisis was their pastor. Ten years ago, he continued, it was their counselor or psychiatrist. Today, it’s their lawyers. A recent study conducted by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago concurs. “Doctors, teachers, members of the military,” and scientists are, according to the survey, esteemed “more positively than clergy.” Among infrequent churchgoers, clergy are viewed as negatively as lawyers. (For the record, that last line came from a member of our editorial team who’s been admitted to...

The correct answer in economics begins with "It depends ..." Do U.S. consumers pay tariffs on products imported into the United States? Free traders repeat that a tariff is a tax and that consumers always pay it. Your child or grandchild will fail his Economics 101 mid-term without an understanding of the elasticity of demand and the elasticity of supply. The demand curve for a particular product can be elastic or inelastic. That is, demand can be sensitive to price or insensitive to price. You have heard of the supply and demand curves. But those curves are different for different...

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...