Free Republic

The United States is known as the land of the free, but it has become a place where the government decides whom we are allowed to buy from and sell to. For instance, when denied the freedom to trade without paying an expensive import tax, many Americans will find themselves begging our trade overlords for an exemption. This is, I believe, a fair description of the Biden administration's decision to not only maintain ineffective import taxes -- also called tariffs -- but to re-up the listless exemption process. After a monthslong review by her agency, United States Trade Representative Katherine...

Despite overwhelming historical evidence demonstrating the folly of government-imposed price controls, modern politicians just can't seem to quit inflicting them on us. One obvious example involves health care, where price controls on prescription medications always seem to be just around the corner and are now being considered in the rush to eliminate surprise medical bills. Fewer people know about similar efforts regarding the aluminum market, where some politicians are contemplating price controls to compensate victims of the trade war. Back in March 2018, President Donald Trump announced that he would impose a 10% tariff on all imported aluminum (unless an...

The pace of companies moving production out of China is accelerating as more than 50 multinationals from Apple to Nintendo to Dell are rushing to escape the punitive tariffs placed by the U.S., according to the Nikkei Asian review. The trade war between the U.S. and China has dragged on for more than a year with 25% tariffs placed on $200 billion of Chinese goods. President Donald Trump is still threatening to slap duties on another $325 billion of goods. In wake of the intensifying battle, more and more companies announced plans or are considering shifting manufacturing from China. American...

President Trump’s barrage of tariffs could blow up our economy in a way not seen since Congress passed the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. We know how that ended. It took World War II to get us out of the worst depression our nation ever faced.The analogies between then and now are striking. Overwhelmingly, economists opposed the tariffs in 1930. Today, Peter Navarro, who serves in the White House, is the only economist I know of who thinks tariffs are a good idea. And last week he suggested we pull out of the World Trade Organization (WTO), despite the fact the...

No, the 1990s didn’t call to say they want their old trade policy back. When it comes to American trade policy toward China, though, the candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination are about 20 years behind President Trump. Liberals have complained bitterly about the president’s aggressive approach to the ongoing trade dispute with China, particularly his use of targeted counter-tariffs to pressure China into stopping its most pernicious trade abuses. Trump’s opponents accuse him of starting a dangerous “trade war” with China, but in reality, China has been waging economic war against the U.S. for decades. President Trump just...

As his limo carried him to work at the White House Monday, Larry Kudlow could not have been pleased with the headline in The Washington Post: "Kudlow Contradicts Trump on Tariffs." The story began: "National Economic Council Director Lawrence Kudlow acknowledged Sunday that American consumers end up paying for the administration's tariffs on Chinese imports, contradicting President Trump's repeated inaccurate claim that the Chinese foot the bill." A free trade evangelical, Kudlow had conceded on Fox News that consumers pay the tariffs on products made abroad that they purchase here in the U.S. Yet that is by no means the...

Stocks sank on Wednesday as a steep decline in tech shares and worries of rapidly rising rates sent Wall Street on pace for its worst day in six months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded more than 600 points lower as Intel and Microsoft fell more than 2.5 percent each. The Nasdaq Composite plummeted 3 percent. The S&P 500 dropped 2.5 percent, with the tech sector underperforming. The broad index was also headed for a five-day losing streak — which would be its longest since late 2016 — and fell below its 50-day moving average, a widely followed technical level....

Turkey announced this morning its intention to raise tariffs on several products imported from the United States, including cars, alcohol and tobacco. .....

US President Donald Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on $50bn worth of Chinese goods, accusing Beijing of intellectual copyright theft. The US will impose further tariffs if China retaliates, the White House said. The tariffs affect more than 800 types of products and are due to come into effect on 6 July. China has already vowed to retaliate, raising fears of a trade war between the world's two largest economies. Mr Trump said the tariffs were "essential to preventing further unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China, which will protect American jobs."

The chairman of Molson Coors, which owns MillerCoors, is warning the cost of beer may be going up under President Donald Trump's new tariffs on aluminum.

President Trump’s Thursday decision to begin the process of keeping his campaign promise to protect the American industrial base by imposing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum has seemingly gotten everyone in a tizzy, oddly uniting Big Business, top globalists, the IMF, the GOP Establishment and even liberal Democrats, all of whom never agree on anything yet are united that this particular decision will mean nothing short of an economic apocalypse for the United States.Truly, to hear these folks tell it we’re looking at an economic scenario to rival the bleak hellscape of The Walking Dead, minus the zombies...

In Donald Trump's latest Twitter rebuke of an automaker, the president-elect threatened Toyota Motor on Thursday with a large border tax if it builds a new plant outside the U.S. The company's shares on the Nasdaq were slightly lower in afternoon trading following the message. (TWEET-AT-LINK) In response to Trump's tweet, Toyota said in a statement that the new Mexican plant will not cut its U.S. employment, adding that it "looks forward to collaborating with the Trump administration to serve in the best interests of consumers and the automotive industry." The threat about the Japanese automaker's planned new plant in...

China produces more than 820 million tons of steel per year, of which about 100 million tons are exported and sold at a discount overseas. Only about 3 percent of those exports go to the United States, but American steel producers bristle at the competition. So in keeping with the time-honored practice of the US steel industry — "the backbone of American manufacturing," as it proudly calls itself — domestic producers are rising to the challenge.Are they doing so by making their operations more efficient? By improving the quality of the steel they sell? By cutting their prices to maintain market...

When President Reagan imposed a 100 percent tariff on selected Japanese electronics in 1987, he and the press gave the impression that this was an act of desperation. Pictured was a long-forbearing president whose patience was exhausted by the recalcitrant and conniving Japanese. After trying for years to elicit some fairness out of them, went the story, the usually good-natured president had finally had enough. When newspapers and television networks announced the tariffs, the media reminded the public that such restraints were imposed by a staunch free trader. The less-than-subtle message was that if "Free Trader" Ronald Reagan thought the...

“Claims that trade deals increase exports and create jobs are based on flawed trade models, and on distorted and one-sided interpretations of the findings of those models,” Scott explained. “If you’re president, you’re going to have to live with it,” Pelley said to the billionaire businessman during the interview, referencing NAFTA. Trump fired back: “Excuse me, we will either renegotiate it or we will break it. Because, you know, every agreement has an end.” Pelley said Trump can’t just break the law. “Excuse me, every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair,” Trump reiterated. “Every agreement has...

So far the most memorable moments of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign have been his claim that Mexico is sending “rapists” to the US and his description of Senator John McCain, a man permanently crippled after five-and-a-half-years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war, as “not a war hero”. Just imagine if any of Trump’s contenders had said either of these things. Just imagine if they’d managed, during a month-long political career, to alienate one of the most important voting demographics in the US. Or if they’d set up a Veterans coalition in their own honour, only for it to emerge that...

Via Mediaite, which has excerpts from last night’s F-bomb cavalcade. One of our commenters in Headlines watched the clip and observed that Trump is basically a leftist caricature of Republicans brought to life. Precisely — but with the caveat that something like 20 percent of the GOP wants to embrace the caricature. (That number might already be slipping.) He knows he’s too compromised on conservative principles to get traction with the base so he overcompensates with tell-it-like-it-is populist bravado aimed at framing himself as the ultimate regular-guy outsider. Calling the Chinese MFers is the logical extension of that; if he...

Thanks to high oil prices, the Kingdom is experiencing a new boom, one that promises to be even more dramatic for the country’s development than the one in the 1970s and early 1980s. That is because what is happening now is not development from scratch. There is a massive base on which to build — infrastructural, educational and economic. But lessons should be learned from the 1970s and 1980s. There were great strides forward then but there was also waste, corruption, inadequate planning and economic naiveté. Gone, thankfully, are the days of imagining that Saudi Arabia must be self-sufficient in...

ANSWERING A FAIR TAX QUESTION During yesterday's show a caller asked what would happen to her 401K funds if the Fair Tax bill became law. No income taxes had ever been paid on that money residing in her 401K. If, by the time she starts drawing that money out, the income tax is history, will she have to pay some sort of penalty? One month ago I would have rattled off the answer. No. No penalty. No taxes. You take the money and run. Yesterday, however, I was a bit more cautious. I've spent many hours over the past weeks...

MOSCOW, December 15 (RIA Novosti) - According to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Energy, over 210,000 foreign cars will be assembled in Russia in 2005, Nikolai Sorokin, deputy chief of the industry department of the ministry, said at a conference, Foreign Cars in Russia. In his words, long-term forecasts suggest that over 1,200,000 Russian cars will be assembled at Russian plants, over 400-450,000 at joint Russian-foreign enterprises, while new imported cars will account for 400,000. According to Sorokin, car production at joint enterprises is being hampered by the lack of lines producing car components. "In my opinion, there is...