Free Republic

The annual 2019 trade figures for the United States came out last week, heralding some encouraging news. America’s enormous international trade deficit actually declined slightly from 2018. This was the first decrease in six years, with the deficit in goods and services dropping 1.7%, to $616.8 billion. Better yet, America’s bilateral trade deficit with China fell for the first time in four years, dropping a hefty 17.6%, to $345.6 billion. These are promising numbers and they show that tariffs on Chinese products are successfully moving the needle on U.S. trade flows. In fact, America’s 2019 imports from China actually fell...

"Hello Goodbye" by the Beatles, a number one song from early 1968 here in the USA. That's around the time my father left the factory to higher paying and longer lasting government employment as inflation kicked in here in the USA. Lyndon Johnson was ramping up government with Medicare and Medicaid and the cost of medical care was beginning to skyrocket, debt was beginning to accumulate and wow here we are 23 trillion dollars plus later. The 2021 federal budget proposed by President Trump adds another 966 billion to that. Well the currency is devalued and its easy to tell...

French winemakers hit by US tariffs imposed in a transatlantic trade war over airplane subsidies on Tuesday demanded help from their government and European planemaker Airbus. French wine exports to the US have plunged since President Donald Trump in October imposed 25 percent tariffs on a range of European delicacies in retaliation for EU subsidies of Airbus, arch-rival of America’s Boeing. The French finance ministry last week announced that wine exports to the US — the second-biggest export market for French wines after Germany — had fallen by 44 percent in value from October to November. On Tuesday, the vice-president...

Retaliatory duties on some U.S. goods will be cut from 10% to 5%, and from 5% to 2.5% on others, according to a statement from China’s Ministry of Finance. The adjustments will take effect from 1:01 p.m on Feb. 14, it said, without specifying which time zone it was referring to. The statement said the move was made in order to “advance the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. trade.” China said that the next adjustment will depend on how Sino-U.S. trade ties evolve, adding it hopes to work with Washington to completely eliminate all tariff increases.

President Trump wasn’t called a racist until he ran against Hillary. That’s how liberals operate. Play the race card every time. They’ve done it for decades. Fortunately, minorities aren’t falling for it as much as they used to. The black people no longer think they are victims – but free men – to do and achieve as they can. Just like all should be able to do. In November, two polls found that President Trump’s approval rating among black likely voters had reached 34%. An Emerson poll found that Trump has a 34.5% approval rating among black likely voters and...

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) - India on Saturday raised taxes on imports of goods such as electronic items, toys and furniture, aiming to give impetus to domestic manufacturing in a move that will hit Sweden's IKEA and other foreign firms. The measures, announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her 2020-21 budget, come amid criticism from some companies that India has increasingly resorted to protectionist rules that discriminate against foreign companies. Listing the new taxes, the government said they were in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" programme aimed at promoting domestic industry. Taxes on imports of items...

Tariffs were once a mainstay in U.S. trade policy. Constituting the main source of federal revenue from 1790-1914, and at one point providing over 90% of government income, they were a pivotal component of U.S. fiscal and foreign policy. Their main motivation in those times: protect U.S. industry from foreign opposition. It wasn’t until colossal industrial growth coupled with the introduction of the income tax rendered them less critical to the government balance sheet, and their use declined. Post-World War II, tariffs took on the negative connotation you see today. The West largely eschewed them in favor of free trade...

Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its advance estimate for United States GDP for the fourth quarter of 2019 and the entire calendar year of 2019. The release estimates that real GDP grew 2.1 percent at an annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2019 and 2.3 percent over the four quarters of 2019. Consumer spending and residential investment posted notable gains, propelling GDP growth and setting the stage for future economic expansion. These results show that the economy remains resilient despite a slowdown across the rest of the world and the continuation of the longest expansion in American...

Paul Krugman slammed President Trump for threatening 25% tariffs on European vehicles and auto parts as they posed potential risks to national security. The Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist also criticized Trump's refusal to turn over to Congress a report about an investigation into the national-security risks. "Pretty sure that's just plain illegal," Krugman tweeted. "Congress ... didn't make him a dictator free to set tariffs wherever he likes without even offering an explanation."

Nancy Pelosi famously proclaimed that Democrats had to pass ObamaCare to find out what was in it. On the other hand, Democrats in California last year passed legislation outlawing many freelance and independent contracting jobs knowing the disruption it would cause—and voters are now discovering the damage. Ride-hailing app Uber this week rolled out changes for drivers and riders in California in an effort to duck the state’s new labor law AB5. That law reclassified a large swath of independent contractors from freelance journalists to Uber drivers as employees who are owed rest breaks, workers compensation, health benefits and paid...

I was very skeptical when U.S. and Chinese officials announced the two nations had reached a “Phase One” trade deal last December. Neither country released any details regarding the agreement. Chinese officials have been exceptionally muted since the announcement, only emphasizing that the United States would remove a number of tariffs, without mentioning any commitments China had made. Neither the United States nor China even articulated a specific dollar amount of the additional U.S. farm products China pledges to purchase.Last week, both the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office posted the full text of the agreement, immediately...

The American Left (along with the never-Trumpers who claim to be on the Right) are trumpeting two new studies, which reveal the shocking truth that the American people are paying President Trump’s punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, not the Chinese. Well… Whoop-tee-doo. That’s a newsflash. About as much of a shock as learning that the sun rises in the east. As with all taxes, the tax is paid by the person who pays it. I know that sounds like circular logic, but it’s the only way to put it. An importer pays import tariffs in import shipments. Of course. Generally,...

Three years ago! And one year from now (God willing!) Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term. But in three short years, these are his accomplishments, just off the top of my head. TPP trade deal - gone Iran Deal - gone Paris Climate Change accords - gone NAFTA - gone (just last week replaced by USMCA) Individual Mandate to purchase health care - gone Corporate Taxes - slashed to 21% Regulations - large bulk eliminated Judges - Confirmed (185 total, 2 Supreme Court, 50 Circuit, 133 District) NATO - paying more of its dues ISIS Caliphate...

Watch cable news, particularly CNN or MSNBC, and hear how the “walls are closing in” on President Trump. Impeachment is underway, a solemn and sober process, celebrated by House Speaker Pelosi handing out autographed pens during the impeachment article signing ceremony. One would think she was signing landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act given the pomp and circumstance. Meanwhile the Senate passed the USMCA trade agreement, now ready for Trump’s signature, another promise made and kept by the accidental president who has no idea what he is doing. The rube of a president also announced a trade deal with...

Way back in 2015, when the rumors began to circulate about Donald Trump running for president, rumors we had heard for decades, I was shocked at how many “smart people” — those snobs I enjoy heckling as “#GOPSmartSet” — underestimated The Donald. Shrugging off the idea Trump would actually run was fair enough. Like I said, he’d been flirting with the idea for decades. Even I would have bet it was a publicity stunt. No, what surprised me was how #GOPSmartSet and the elite media laughed off Trump as a clown, a huckster, a carnival barker, and bankrupt loser. That,...

A year and a half into Donald Trump’s presidency, Henry Kissinger set out a theory. “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences,” he told the Financial Times. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.” A term has been coined to describe this notion: Ryan Evans of War on the Rocks calls them “Trumportunities.” It is the idea that,...

The teeth in the mechanism are a familiar Trump administration tool: the imposition of tariffs in proportion to damage caused by any non-compliance. But according to the text, if the offending party disagrees with such a result, its only recourse is to quit the agreement. There are no provisions for appeal or levying retaliatory tariffs.

President Trump trashed 2020 Democrat Mike Bloomberg, calling the septuagenarian a "terrible speaker" and mocking the billionaire's height at 5 feet, 8 inches. "Mini Mike Bloomberg doesn’t get on the Democrat Debate Stage because he doesn’t want to - he is a terrible debater and speaker," tweeted Trump on Friday. "If he did, he would go down in the polls even more (if that is possible!)." The president further slammed Bloomberg in a follow-up tweet soon after, saying, "Mini Mike Bloomberg ads are purposely wrong - A vanity project for him to get into the game. Nobody in many years...

TAMPA, Florida — Vice President Mike Pence told Breitbart News exclusively on Thursday that the Senate’s passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement is a “huge win” for American workers and farmers. Pence’s exclusive interview with Breitbart News, which came on his bus tour between Tampa and Orlando, for which he was conducting a campaign swing up the all-important I-4 corridor in the Sunshine State, came moments after the U.S. Senate passed the USMCA, 89-10. The overwhelming Senate vote came a month after the House in mid-December similarly passed the deal with overwhelming bipartisan support, as the USMCA sailed through...

The Senate overwhelmingly passed President Trump's proposed replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Thursday, sending the deal to the president’s desk for his approval. Passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) represents a rare moment of bipartisanship in a bitterly divided Congress. The deal cleared the Senate by a vote of 89 to 10 on Thursday, close to a month after passing the House by a vote of 385-41. Republicans were eager to help Trump accomplish a major pillar of his economic agenda despite their preferences for a deal with looser restrictions. Democrats, who broadly shared Trump’s...