Free Republic

One of the standard criticisms of President Trump’s trade war with China is that China has the upper hand because it is not a democracy. Meanwhile, President Trump faces voters in 14 months, so therefore it was a mistake to challenge the status quo that allows China to steal intellectual property and pay for its economic and military growth via unending half-trillion-dollars-a-year trade surpluses with the United States. Foolish Trump! The problem with this view is that it greatly underestimates the vulnerability of Xi Jinping -- or any other Chinese Communist Party head. The Politburo and its Central Committee can...

China’s exports fell unexpectedly in August, as the trade war with the United States continued to hit the world’s second-largest economy. Shipments fell by 1 per cent in the month after growing 3.3 per cent in July in dollar terms, and below the 2.1 per cent growth expected by analysts in a Bloomberg poll. Imports in the month dropped by 5.6 per cent, leaving a trade surplus of US$34.84 billion, according to China’s General Administration of Customs. July’s expansion now seems like an anomaly, likely driven by front-loading as new tariffs of 15 per cent on about US$110 billion of...

What a difference two weeks makes. Two Fridays ago, pundits seemed to be beside themselves over what was the latest flare up in the U.S.-China trade war. President Trump raised tariffs in retaliation for China’s retaliatory tariffs, he called Fed Chairman Jerome Powell an “enemy,” and the Dow plummeted 623 points while the Nasdaq closed 3% lower. Now it seems like trade deal optimism is back in the air. New formal talks between the U.S. and China have been announced for next month, and there are even high-level Chinese sources suggesting a breakthrough could occur at those meetings.

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Tired of all this WINNING yet? – This damn Trump economy just will not cooperate with all the Democrats and their media toadies who keep rooting for a recession. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report released on Friday showed the Trump economy adding another 130,000 new jobs even as the economy approaches full employment. FED Chairman Jerome Powell called the report another sign of a growing and healthy economy, indicating that he sees no sign of any recession on the horizon. Democrats everywhere recoiled in horror. Other highlights of this...

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC: And Rick Tyler, here we go with the Republican Party again, here in the state of Alabama, a state I know well and love, but you can go around the country and see the Trump effect on one Republican Party after another, and it is truly distressing all in support of a president who says he's going to seize private lands and told his aides to do it illegally and he would pardon them. From a president who ordering private companies to move out of other countries, a guy who's running up the biggest debt ever, some...

Did Beijing blink? Just days after massive new tariffs went into effect on both sides of the US-China bilateral trade relationship, China announced it would send a team of negotiators to Washington next month. “Serious” mid-level talks would begin almost immediately in an effort to wind down the trade war, China also announced: China said Thursday its trade representatives will fly to Washington in early October to resume negotiations with the United States, raising the possibility that both sides might arrest a recent deterioration in the bilateral relationship that has cast a shadow over the world economy.China’s top trade...

Once upon a time in America a presidential campaign was decided on the phrase “Rum, Romanism & Rebellion.” It was not exactly true, but it worked. Now, 125 years after that controversial campaign and election, the slogan shaping up for Democrats running against Donald Trump is another Triple R — “Russia, Race & Recession.” None of that is exactly true, either

Several offices within the Trump administration are studying a policy that would lower taxes for investments such as stocks and real estate, according to a senior administration official. The Treasury Department, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the Council of Economic Advisers are studying the possibility of indexing capital gains to account for inflation, according to the senior official. The review includes a look at the distribution table for savings to investigate whether the reform would disproportionately benefit wealthy people who are able to invest more of their money.

Doug Ogden doesn’t know what to do. The 75-year-old retired law enforcement officer is disgusted by President Donald Trump. But he can’t imagine voting for a Democrat in 2020, either. A self-described independent in South Carolina, Ogden doesn’t recognize the modern-day Democratic Party. “The state of the Democratic Party is wild against wilder,” says Ogden, standing with his arms crossed at a recent town hall meeting for Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg. “It scares me.” At the core of Ogden’s concern is a broader question about the direction of the Democratic Party and its values in the age of Trump....

President Trump and other mercantilists are hoping that his tariffs will drive U.S companies out of China, perhaps even back to the United States. They can keep hoping. It’s not likely to happen. In a further escalation of his trade war, on August 23 Trump “ordered” U.S companies to leave China, or even return to the United States. This prompted a debate among legal scholars as to whether he even has the authority to do that. Regardless of whether he does or doesn’t, it is unlikely to have any impact. A proviso is called for here. Some U.S companies are...

Gov. Kay Ivey joined executives of DaikyoNishikawa US (DNUS) and local leaders at a groundbreaking event to officially launch construction on the auto supplier’s $110 million manufacturing plant in North Alabama. The DNUS facility, which will produce plastic automotive parts for the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing U.S.A. (MTMUS) assembly plant, will employ approximately 380 people at full production. The groundbreaking ceremony was held at the site on the MTMUS campus where construction crews are poised to begin work on DNUS’ first U.S. manufacturing plant. “I’m proud to welcome another great Japanese company, DaikyoNishikawa, to Sweet Home Alabama, and I know that...

President Trump deserves enormous credit for his exceptional commitment to free speech at the G7 summit in Biarritz, France. Foreign leaders, like our own illiberal, liberal activists, are chomping at the bit to introduce ever more online censorship. At the G7, European leaders introduced a measure that would have drafted tech companies into the role of government censors, forcing them to police online content and remove anything that bureaucrats deem to be insensitive. Emmanuel Macron struggled in vain to conceal his disappointment as he announced that the United States had refused to sign on to his pet G7 compact, which...

It will be a day at the beach for President Trump’s re-election campaign on Labor Day. The campaign is taking to the skies on Labor Day to fly banners over beach-goers to show its thanks for workers fueling the economy. “Labor Day is the perfect time to thank American workers for everything they do for our country,” said Tim Murtaugh, Trump campaign communications director. “Under President Trump’s policies, the economy is strong and growing, and more Americans are working than ever before. The American economy is the envy of the world and our American workers are the best on the...

as someone who has spent years with the knife edge of the Chinese Communist Party bearing down on my throat for my human rights work, I know that the president is on to something. Tariffs and economic threats may be blunt tools, but they are the kind of aggressive tactics necessary to get the attention of the CCP regime, which respects only power and money. ... It’s about justice, and doing what’s right for ordinary Chinese and American people. Presidents before Trump naively believed that China would abide by international standards of behavior if it were granted access to institutions...

The largest solar panel production facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere is continuing to add staff at its $157 million factory in Dalton, Georgia, which began production six months ago. The Korean solar panel maker Hanwha Q CELLS is conducting a hiring fair Thursday in Dalton, Georgia, as it adds another 50 jobs at its 200,000-square-foot plant in the Carbondale Business Park in Dalton. The plant already employs 600 workers and is expects to reach full production — and to conduct a ceremonial ribbon cutting — in the next month. "Our first products shipped from the factory this...

As the world watches President Donald Trump wage a protracted trade war with China, many people are scratching their heads, wondering if he knows what he’s doing when it comes to my home country. Mr. Trump is regularly criticized for being unpredictable and erratic — praising Chinese President Xi Jinping one moment, then escalating the confrontation the next — for ignoring diplomatic conventions, and for upending a tense but supposedly workable economic relationship. But as someone who has spent years with the knife edge of the Chinese Communist Party bearing down on my throat for my human rights work, I...

<p>Support for the president rebounded in the past year, with 67% of farmers saying they’d back him for reelection in 2020, according to a survey of 1,150 growers carried out by Farm Futures between July 21 and Aug. 3. That’s up from last year, when backing fell to just under 60% following the introduction of Chinese retaliatory tariffs on American soybeans...</p>

No question about it—Bernie Sanders was born a Jew. So what? .... To a serious, practicing Jew, the fact that Bernie Sanders makes use of his Jewish birthright, is somewhat disturbing. Senator Sanders has done almost nothing Jewish throughout his entire life. His disdain for Israel, his recent support for Linda Sarsour, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, his hatred of Prime Minister Netanyahu, makes him much more of a “Sonay Yisrael—an Israel hater,” than a supporter of the Jewish state. So why is it that a Jew, who has dropped virtually everything Jewish from his life, from keeping Kosher to...

“We are talking to China, the meetings in September, that hasn’t changed,” Trump told reporters Sunday on the White House South Lawn after returning from Camp David. Tariffs went into effect early Sunday on $112 billion of Chinese imports. The 15% tariffs cover a wide range of consumer goods, including everything from certain types of clothing and shoes to some consumer electronics like cameras and desktop computers.

Last week, my brother-in-law stopped by here in Southern Maryland for an overnight visit with my nephew. They were driving from New Hampshire to South Carolina, where my nephew attends college. Prior to the visit, I thought I’d get a new tablecloth and placemats to show off my cooking and decor abilities. I thought I’d get a new lightbulb to replace one from a set of multiples in the bathroom vanities. Maybe a new soap holder. Maybe a new computer desk lamp. Little things to make the house look nice. Stuff that I’d buy at the spur-of-the-moment from my local...