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President Trump is wielding tariffs to try to close the massive U.S. trade deficit in goods, which he sees as a sign of economic weakness. It is only part of the trade story. While the U.S. buys more goods from abroad than it sells, the opposite is true for services, which include everything from streaming subscriptions to financial advice. Trump left these service exports out of his tariff math, but they are being pulled into his trade wars. On Wednesday, Trump ratcheted up the U.S. trade war with China, but put broader tariffs above 10% on most other countries on...

Stanford University Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson recommends everyone “take a deep breath” when it comes to all the talk about tariffs. Appearing this week as a guest on Sirius XM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the author and podcast host made several important points for Americans to consider as many in the media and Wall Street pundits predict calamity for the economy due to President Donald Trump’s trade policies. “There is a lot of misinformation,” Hanson said, first pointing out that many who are critical of Trump are only criticizing him because he is “Trump.” “Donald Trump did everything...

Some thoughts on a climbdown for the ages. The reaction was widespread relief in America and the world. Americans want their country to be the world’s growth engine but not, as a former Reagan administration official put it, through policies “that risk the collapse of the global financial system.” Donald Trump scared people he hadn’t scared before. He didn’t use to scare his policy allies—small-business people, workers, retirees. He did this week. Fear dampens reflexive support. Politicians need reflexive support from the bottom of their base as a platform from which to move. The president weakened his position. It is...

Within the Executive Order modifying the April 2nd global reciprocal tariffs [SEE HERE] section #4, we note a massive increase in the duty fees for mailed products from China formerly shipped under ‘de minimis’ rules.REMINDER: The de minimis loophole comes from back in the 1930s. The idea back then was, say you went on a vacation to Paris, you shouldn’t have to file customs paperwork or pay taxes if you decided to ship some little Eiffel Tower statues to your friends back home.Congress in 2015 then raised the de minimis threshold from $200 to $800. However, the e-commerce world exploded,...

The rapid change in Ursula von der Leyen now starts to make sense. According to a press release [SEE HERE] from European Big Pharma, they recently had a meeting with the EU Komisar and threatened to leave Europe if the trade system is not renegotiated quickly.President Trump is on the cusp of announcing a big change in tariffs against foreign pharmaceutical companies in an effort to get the manufacturing of medicines brought back to the USA. Details are soon to surface.In a proactive move, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), went to the European Commission (EC) yesterday...

The rapid change in Ursula von der Leyen now starts to make sense. According to a press release [SEE HERE] from European Big Pharma, they recently had a meeting with the EU Komisar and threatened to leave Europe if the trade system is not renegotiated quickly. Trump is on the cusp of announcing a big change in tariffs against foreign pharmaceutical companies in an effort to get the manufacturing of medicines brought back to the USA. Details are soon to surface. In a proactive move, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), went to the European Commission (EC)...

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during Thursday’s Cabinet meeting that countries are approaching the United States with offers they never previously would have because of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Lutnick was the second cabinet member to speak after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just a day after Trump put a pause on his reciprocal tariffs on countries that did not retaliate against them. According to the White House, some 75 countries are looking to negotiate, while escalations with Beijing have led to the administration ramping up reciprocal tariffs to 125 percent on China. “They have come with offers that...

Thrifty Big Apple shoppers were rushing to stock up on the basics Wednesday after President Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs briefly went into effect — before he then announced a 90-day pause. “Pray to God that we all survive,” said Angelia Gonzalez, a 48-year-old mother who was filling her cart at the East Harlem Costco. “I feel some kind of way. I mean, I have a family.” Gonzalez travelled across town from her longtime home in West Harlem to stock up at the wholesaler over fears that prices will soon skyrocket from Trump’s massive “reciprocal” tariffs, which went into effect at...

China’s increasingly shrill and desperate efforts to prove itself tough and fearless against President Donald Trump’s tariffs hit a new low on Thursday, when Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning decided to post old footage of Mao Zedong, the founder of the Chinese Communist Party – and the worst mass murderer in history. Mao Ning’s tone-deaf decision to post 72-year-old footage of Mao declaring his determination to “fight” until we “completely triumph” against President Eisenhower illustrates how badly the Communist elite has sunk into the revisionist history pushed by the ruling Party. No sane person on Earth, outside of the...

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said on Thursday China was now isolated and other U.S. trading partners were lining up to make deals following President Donald Trump's stunning reversal of his tariff decision.Trump said on Wednesday he would temporarily lower the hefty duties he had just imposed on dozens of countries while further ramping up pressure on China."Time is not China's friend as every U.S. corporation with a supply chain based in China is seeking to move it to countries that are likely to make favorable tariff deals with the United States," Ackman said in a post on X.

Komisar von der Leyen informs the union members that she has decided to pause the retaliation tariffs against the USA, based on the 90-day pause announced by President Trump. However, in actuality there’s not much difference even within the pause as the German/EU autos are still tariffed (25%) and the steel and Aluminum tariffs’ (25%) still apply. The only gain from yesterday’s modification in the global tariff regime for the EU was a switch from 20% EU tariff to a baseline 10% tariff during the pause. The total EU relief is 10% for 90-days; but that was enough for Komrade...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused China of manipulating its currency to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs."You got to hand it to them. They're manipulating their currency today as an offset against the tariffs," Trump said at an event at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

File this one under "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished." The liberal media has been leading the charge against the Trump tariffs. So what happens when Trump heeds the warning signs and pulls back? Does the MSM applaud his statesmanship, his courage in changing course given changed circumstances? C'mon—of course not. This is the liberal media, after all. Get the rest of the story and view the video here. Thus, on today's Morning Joe, Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei, purporting to explain Trump's change of direction, declared: "Make no mistake: he panicked."

VIDEOI just knew when President Trump paused the tariffs and China ended up ISOLATED due to most of the world wanting to negotiate with him that the Morning Joe crew the next morning would go into desperate spin control. And, as you can see, I was not wrong. The pathetic Spin Control began with Willie Geist and continued with other Morning Joe guests. They can never concede that Trump did something BRILLIANT as was the case with the tariffs.

Australia has rejected China’s plea to “join hands” against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, declaring Thursday it is happy to keep negotiating with its long-term ally rather than join Beijing’s chorus of aggrieved opposition to Washington. The White House recently imposed an import tax of 10 percent on Australian goods, but for China – Australia’s biggest trading partner – it raised tariffs to 125 percent. China’s ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian argued joint resistance is “the only way” to stop the “hegemonic and bullying behaviour of the U.S.”, appealing for Canberra’s cooperation in an opinion piece on Thursday, the BBC...

The European Union will pause its first countermeasures against U.S. tariffs after President Donald Trump temporarily lowered the hefty duties he had just imposed on dozens of countries, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday. The bloc was due to launch counter-tariffs on about 21 billion euros ($23.25 billion) of U.S. imports from next Tuesday in response to Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium. It is still assessing how to respond to U.S. car tariffs and the broader 10% levies still in place. “We want to give negotiations a chance,” von der Leyen said on X....

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Laura Coates Live,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) reacted to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) partially praising tariffs by saying that most Democrats support some tariffs, but “the challenge is, in this context, there are so many folks on my side, myself included, who strongly oppose President Trump and what he’s doing, and, every single day, find ourselves disturbed by the things he’s doing,” and “a lot of folks on our side, and not just on our side, some Independents and Republicans as well, want to see us fighting and making sure that we are fighting...

In 1993, Democrats voted against NAFTA by 156-102 and against it in the Senate by a narrower 28-27. Now, Democrats are mourning the death of what they claim is the last vestige of NAFTA. President Trump’s tariffs, they claim, are killing the ‘free trade’ that the Dems once opposed, before they supported it, and before they opposed it. NAFTA cost Republicans the White House, but Bill Clinton’s embrace of it cost Democrats the South. Clinton had manipulated and misled working class Democrats into believing that he would either reject or fundamentally transform NAFTA and lost the white working class vote....

President Trump finally blinked. It took a week for the plunge in the stock and bond markets—along with a sustained campaign by executives, lawmakers, lobbyists and foreign leaders—to prompt Trump to roll back for 90 days a major element of his sweeping tariff plan. The president said that the reaction to the tariffs was getting a bit “yippy”—like a nervous athlete unable to perform—and he relied on his instincts to change course as he watched the bond market tank and listened to business leaders including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon express fears of a recession. The episode was classic Trump:...

Donald Trump finally decided to take the proverbial “win” on trade and the stock market rallied nearly 3,000 points. You can thank the bond market, with an assist from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for making it happen. We have been hyper-focused on how the stock market dropped ever since Trump declared trade war on the entire world, how he kept upping the ante, demanding ever higher degrees of compensation from our trade partners, even those who appeared to be acting in good faith and wanting to negotiate peace. He was also goaded by two of the most hawkish and protectionist...