Free Republic

Canada has one of the most protectionist economies among developed nations. It particularly targets American farmers, media, and manufacturers. That may be why Donald Trump launched his counterattack on trade offenders with a 25% tariff on many imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on Canadian energy.Unhelpfully, Trump claimed authority to do so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because of an “extraordinary threat” posed by “unchecked drug trafficking.” The White House failed to explain how this applied to Canada. And, while his goals are entirely correct, his April 2 “Liberation Day” global strike, imposing 10% baseline tariffs on...

The National Museum of Denmark has confirmed that two 18th-century shipwrecks in Cahuita National Park, long thought to be pirate ships, are the Danish slave ships Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, which sank in 1710. The identification was announced on Sunday, resolving decades of speculation about the wrecks off Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The ships were identified through underwater excavations in 2023, which analyzed ship timbers, cargo blocks, clay pipes, and other artifacts. In 2015, U.S. archaeologists from East Carolina University discovered yellow bricks, specific to Danish manufacturing in Flensburg, among the wreckage, prompting renewed investigation. The wrecks, located on...

China's foreign minister has hit out at the "extreme selfishness" of tariffs, hinting at the steep levies imposed on Beijing by US President Donald Trump. "Certain countries" resort to "pressure and coercion, and trigger unjustified trade wars ... This extreme selfishness only harms their credibility", top diplomat Wang Yi told his Uzbek counterpart Bakhtiyor Saidov, according to a ministry statement released on Saturday (Apr 26). This will "only undermine their credibility", added Wang, who was speaking on Friday on the sidelines of a foreign ministers' meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The foreign minister also said that Beijing would seek solidarity with...

(AFP) — Developing countries should strike swift trade deals with the United States at the “earliest possible” opportunity, the president of the World Bank told AFP Friday, after a busy week with global financial leaders in Washington. Ajay Banga was interviewed by AFP at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings, which have been held this year under a cloud of uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s stop-start tariff rollout. The Bank has been advising developing countries to get a deal done quickly with the United States, and to then focus attention on cutting trade barriers and boosting regional...

The bottom line is Jerome Powell has screwed up. No, that’s not from President Trump. That comes from legendary investor Louis Navellier.In yesterday’s Special Market Podcast in Growth Investor, Louis weighed in on President Trump’s attacks on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell:The latest criticism is, President Trump wants to get rid of Jerome Powell. Ok, well, unfortunately, I have to agree with him because Powell is fighting a mythical inflation that hasn’t occurred yet.We’re not going to have more tariffs other than the Chinese tariffs because everybody is caving. Everybody is meeting with the administration; everybody is dropping their barriers....

Canada is in the midst of a national election that will determine the future of Canada and of the Canadian-American alliance. At this critical juncture, it’s essential that the United States and President Trump secure the best tariff deal with Canada. This will maximize U.S. leverage in tariff negotiations and will provide Canadians critical information about how to end tariffs on their country. While the election in Canada is next Monday, April 28, well over 7 million Canadians have already voted early, with an estimated 10–11 million Canadians yet to vote. It is essential that Canadian voters be informed which...

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...

Chinese airlines have begun returning Boeing aircraft to the U.S., with one 737 Max recently landing back at a Boeing production hub in Seattle over the weekend, according to Reuters. Saturday’s return occurred shortly after China ordered its airlines not to take further deliveries of Boeing aircraft in response to the U.S. imposing 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, Bloomberg News reported last week. A trio of 737 Max 8 jets that were originally being readied at Boeing’s Zhoushan delivery center for two Chinese airlines were recalled to the U.S. last week, according to aviation news service The Air Current, citing...

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...

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is due in Washington on Thursday to meet with President Donald Trump. She is expected to make a personal appeal for less punitive tariffs on European Union (E.U.) trade with the world’s biggest economy. Meloni is the first trans-Atlantic leader to sit down with Trump since he announced, and then quickly suspended, 20 percent tariffs on European exports. AFP reports Meloni — described by Trump as a “fantastic leader” who also aligns with his conservative views — has worked hard to keep communication channels open as Trump looks to rework trade with the E.U. through...

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...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that his state will file a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's authority to impose sweeping tariffs that have set off a global trade war. The suit will argue that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China or a 10% tariff on all imports is unlawful. The act enables a president to freeze and block transactions in response to foreign threats.

I assume that since mainstream journalists, economics, and all the other Democrats have been attacking Trump and his trade policies for months, they can answer a small sample of questions: If price is the bottom line, and there are no other factors to consider, why not advocate for the outsourcing of all our production? Why don’t we just move all the American truck and car manufacturing to China, India, Mexico, and other low cost countries? Why don’t we move all airplane, tank, and weapons manufacturing to other lower-cost countries? What could go wrong? Should we move all our food processing...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced its intent to withdraw from the 2019 Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico, with termination effective in 90 days. The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports, as Commerce has been flooded with comments from them urging its termination. This action will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace.With the termination of this agreement, Commerce will institute an antidumping duty order on July 14, 2025, resulting in duties of 20.91% on most imports of tomatoes from...

President Trump on Monday suggested he might temporarily exempt the auto industry from tariffs he previously imposed on the sector to give carmakers time to overhaul their complex supply chains. Mr. Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office that automakers "need a little bit of time" to relocate production from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere to the U.S. Car manufacturers' supply chains are tightly interwoven with other nations, making it almost impossible to make vehicles entirely in the United States. Because U.S. automakers source many of their car parts from key trade partners, including Canada, Mexico and China, a fully...

I'm going to gloss over all the criticism of Trump's tariffs from the left because, well, so few of the critiques are made in good faith. There are liberal free traders out there. Establishment economists who have consistent theories of how the economy works and actually believe what they say--yes, such people DO exist, even though they are no longer influential in their party--to whom I would listen and give respect in a one-on-one conversation. But most liberal critics of Trump's trade strategy are critics of Trump and would say exactly the opposite of what they are saying now if...

A Missouri woman is charged with child endangerment and abuse, accused of sending a foster child to live in "unsanitary" conditions at a Texas home in exchange for an exotic animal. Brenda Deutsch, 70, was arrested April 6 in Lincoln County, Missouri, and charged with two counts of abuse or neglect of a child and one count of first-degree child endangerment. She is from the small town of Winfield, Missouri, about 50 miles northwest of St. Louis. Deutsch is in custody at the Lincoln County Jail in lieu of $250,000 cash-only bond. Court records show she has applied for a...

“Tariffs are advertised in the name of helping American workers, but what do you know? They turn out to favor the powerful and politically connected. That’s the main message of President Trump’s decision to exempt smartphones and assorted electronic goods from his most onerous tariffs. “All of this exposes the arbitrary political nature of tariffs. Some industries benefit but others don’t. Too bad if you make shoes, or clothing, or thousands of other consumer products that must pay the tariffs but lack the political or market clout to win exemptions. Too bad, too, if you’re a small manufacturer that relies...