Free Republic

If the White House wanted a test of how firing Jerome Powell would go over in the markets, it succeeded on Monday. U.S. stocks and the dollar plunged while yields on long-term Treasurys climbed after President Trump renewed his attacks on the Federal Reserve Chairman. Monday was the first full trading day for markets to absorb National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett’s comments Friday that the White House is studying if Mr. Powell can legally be fired. On Monday Mr. Trump demanded again that Mr. Powell make “pre-emptive” interest rate cuts to avoid a slowdown. Cue the meltdown in stocks,...

President Donald Trump will meet with major retailers on Monday after the National Retail Federation (NRF) announced it does not back the president’s reciprocal tariff policies. A White House official told Reuters that the president will meet Monday afternoon to discuss his tariff policies; the meeting will includes representatives from Walmart, Home Deport, Lowe’s, and Target. Walmart confirmed that its CEO, Doug McMillon, would attend the meeting. More than half of Walmart’s imports are from China, while Home Deport and Lowe’s also import from the country. A March report found that Target relies on China for 30 percent of its...

It looks as though trade progress is being made with Japan, as concessions about automobiles were reported on this weekend, signaling that Trump administration could be heading towards a revised agreement with the key ally nation. Japan may loosen auto safety rules for U.S. imports to address President Trump’s concerns over the low number of American cars sold there, Nikkei reports. With differing safety standards between the two countries, Tokyo is eyeing crash test regulations as a possible trade concession, according to Nikkei. During a White House meeting, Trump criticized Japan’s trade surplus and poor U.S. auto sales. Cabinet-level talks...

China, once a communist backwater, has emerged as the world’s factory floor, producing everything from iPhones to plastic brushes. It’s a pragmatic choice, not a philosophical one. A CEO doesn’t cite Rand when moving a factory to Shenzhen; he cites shareholder value. Tariffs, intended to lure these companies back, instead add insult to injury, failing to address the root causes of their departure.

President Donald Trump said on April 17 that China has contacted his administration to negotiate amid an ongoing tariff war, and signaled that a deal on divesting TikTok from its Beijing-based partner company may wait for now. While speaking with reporters during an executive order signing ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump confirmed that top Chinese officials had reached out “a lot” after he raised tariffs on the nation to 145 percent. “I believe we’re going to have a deal with China, and if we don’t, we’re going to have a deal anyway, because we will set a certain target,...

They needed to get the president alone. On April 9, financial markets were going haywire. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wanted President Trump to put a pause on his aggressive global tariff plan. But there was a big obstacle: Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff-loving trade adviser, who was constantly hovering around the Oval Office. Navarro isn’t one to back down during policy debates and had stridently urged Trump to keep tariffs in place, even as corporate chieftains and other advisers urged him to relent. And Navarro had been regularly around the Oval Office since Trump’s “Liberation Day”...

US President Donald Trump and his administration are studying whether dismissing independent Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell is an option, his top White House economic aide said. "The president and his team will continue to study that matter," National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett told reporters when asked if firing Powell was a possibility, one day after Trump lashed out at the Fed chief.

Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the crew at CNBC this week that President Trump’s goal of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. was a “pipe dream.” It was an odd remark, given how her former boss, Joe Biden, ran for president on the prospect that he could revive manufacturing in the U.S. — the central pillar of his promise to rebuild the economy “from the bottom up and middle out.”

The European Union could be staring down the barrel of a massive economic hit—up to $1.25 trillion—if President Trump follows through on proposed tariffs, according to a new report by Germany’s top economic think tank.The study, released by the German Economic Institute (IW), sounds the alarm over what could happen if the EU refuses to level the playing field. Trump’s America First trade strategy, which includes a 20% blanket tariff on EU goods and a 25% tariff specifically aimed at car imports, is designed to claw back advantages handed to Brussels in past one-sided deals.If the tariffs go into effect...

Folks, I know this is going to be hard, but we must remain steadfast in bearing the burden of new tariffs for our essential items. Hermes has announced they will pass along the cost of President Trump’s tariffs to consumers.Currently, Hermes branded purses ranging from $20,000 to $200,000 are purchased by a whopping 0.001% of Americans, yet 90% of wives for Wall Street hedge fund managers have them.Yes, this is going to be a painful price increase; however, it is our patriotic duty to withstand it. We can survive it.NEW YORK – […] The Paris-based company — which manufactures the...

In the tariff war between China and the United States, a lot of chatter in the Pravda Media is about Xi Jinping's defiance, his outreach to European countries and other less important but collectively significant developing countries, and his retaliatory moves against America. They make it sound like China has a lot of cards to play in the trade war with America. China has put civilian government officials on a "wartime footing” and ordered a diplomatic charm offensive aimed at encouraging other countries to push back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. https://t.co/rZWU2zsARQ— The Japan Times (@japantimes) April 14, 2025Collectively,...

BANGKOK (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping is making the case for free trade as he tours Southeast Asia this week, presenting China as a source of “stability and certainty.” On Monday, he was welcomed to Hanoi with pomp and ceremony by Vietnam’s President Luong Cuong. He arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, later Tuesday, for a three-day visit and will end his tour with a stop in Cambodia. In Hanoi, Xi had a meeting with Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary To Lam, where he said the two countries “have brought the world valuable stability and certainty” in a “turbulent...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is in Washington D.C. Thursday for talks with President Donald Trump and top administration officials at the White House. Her visit comes as her government tries to negotiate a new trade agreement between the two countries, in addition to doing some bidding for the European Union. Italy has a trade surplus, not a deficit, with the U.S. "There will be a trade deal, 100 percent," Trump said Thursday. “Of course there will be a trade deal. They want to make one very much and we are going to make a trade deal, I fully expect...

The European Central Bank has cut interest rates for the seventh time in a year, looking to prop up an already struggling economy that will take a large hit from US tariffs. The bank announced a cut of one-quarter of a percentage point, which brings its benchmark deposit rate down from 2.5% to 2.25%. The move will immediately benefit tracker mortgage customers and put downward pressure on other rates. The ECB has been lowering borrowing costs as post-pandemic price pressures retreat and recent trade-related turmoil on global markets is adding to the case for further policy easing. […] While US...

As China imposes export controls on rare earth elements, the U.S. would be unable to fill a potential shortfall, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies — and this could threaten Washington’s military capabilities. Amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating tariffs on China, Beijing earlier this month imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements and magnets used in defense, energy and automotive technologies. The new restrictions — which encompass the medium and heavy rare earth elements samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium — will require Chinese companies to secure special licenses to export the resources....

Temu has officially turned off ALL Google Shopping campaigns. They went from being a top 5 iOS app to now being ranked 64. What a brutal blow. This is obviously a big thanks to tariffs and the end of the Section 321 loophole. Temu is no more.

The onus is on those whose favored policies have left us imperiled to present a better plan than Trump’s to defend America’s interests.If the status quo in global trade were to persist, would America remain the world’s dominant power, or would we more likely be eclipsed by our worst adversary, Communist China?That is the key question the globalists, financiers, and their corporate media mouthpieces who ginned up hysteria and market panic in the days following President Donald Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs on dozens of trade partners should have to answer.For they have developed and been the primary beneficiaries of...

President Trump held his “Liberation Day” press conference on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. In this presentation, he announced a new additional 10% baseline tariff on top of whatever other tariffs are currently in place (with a few exceptions) for the goods of most countries. For most of our major trading partners, this 10% rate would be replaced by a much higher rate the following week, some as high as 46% (Vietnam) and 49% (Cambodia). Markets tumbled, perhaps forgetting that with President Trump, most big announcements are his way of beginning a negotiation, so these often terrifyingly high percentages are not...

UK’s Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer is tragically set on imposing censorship in social media as a last resource to silence his own citizens and impose their hated Globalist agenda unimpeded.However, if he wants to get a trade deal with the US, Starmer will have to embrace Donald J. Trump’s free speech agenda, and repeal ‘hate speech’ and censorship laws, sources close to chief negotiator VP JD Vance have told British paper The Independent.This report follows statements by Vance hinting that a UK-US agreement ‘may be close’, with the White House ‘working very hard’ on it.Vance to UnHerd:“I think there’s...

WSJ policy on excerpting. But these are quotations made by Trump President Trump is actively considering at least 15 trade proposals with countries, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Last week, the Trump administration announced a 90-day pause on so-called reciprocal tariffs to allow time to negotiate deals with nations. “He has made clear, he wants to personally sign off on all of these deals,” Leavitt said. “There’s a lot of work to do, we do believe we can announce some deals very soon.” She did not say which nations were close to reaching a deal with the...