Free Republic

Chinese cars are increasingly driving a wedge between the US, Mexico and Canada ahead of a July 1 deadline to renew North America’s faltering free-trade pact, deepening a rift already torn open by Donald Trump’s tariffs. The US is the only major market Chinese cars have yet to conquer — but it remains firmly off-limits. Washington has in effect banned them to combat suspected surveillance technology amid fears the vehicles, heavily subsidised by Beijing, would kill off America’s domestic auto industry. By contrast, Mexico’s love affair with cheap Chinese cars has made it Beijing’s top car export destination and Canada...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government can continue collecting the 10% worldwide tariff it imposed in February while legal challenges to the levies continue to work their way through the courts, a federal court ruled Thursday. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington decision handed a procedural win to the Trump administration, concluding that its case was “likely to succeed on the merits.’’ At issue are temporary 10% worldwide tariffs President Donald Trump imposed after the Supreme Court in February struck down even broader double-digit tariffs the president had imposed last year on almost every country on Earth....

... nations failed to establish or effectively enforce comprehensive legal prohibitions against importing goods produced wholly or partly through forced labour.While a subset of countries — including Canada, Mexico, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the European Union — will see 10% tariffs imposed due to specific enforcement failures, Australia has been grouped with jurisdictions like China and India under the higher 12.5% tariff bracket...

Australian beef exports to China could be hit with a 55 per cent tariff within days. Earlier this year, Beijing announced a quota on Australian beef of 205,000 tonnes a year...

France taking a leading role in applying Ukraine War pressure on Russia with another seizure of an oil tanker. The tanker "Tagor" taken in the Atlantic Ocean last Sunday more than 700 kilometers (435 miles) off the coast of Brittany. France and other European countries have seized 'shadow fleet' merchant vessels... In what could be called 'economic warfare' French authorities fining Chinese low-cost clothing maker Shein 22 million euros (25.342 million dollars). The fine linked to difficulty for buyers to return clothing and questions over materials used by Shein to make clothing... France's national counterterrorism prosecutor's office (PNAT) probing Israeli...

European negotiators agreed late on Tuesday to implement the controversial trade agreement concluded last summer with the US. However, the deal — signed in the Scottish city of Turnberry — remains fragile as long as US President Donald Trump continues to use tariffs as a tool of political pressure. Diplomats and MEPs reached an agreement late on Tuesday to implement the contentious EU-US agreement, which eliminates duties on most US industrial goods imported into Europe. The negotiations concluded two weeks after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on EU cars if Europeans did not implement the agreement...

The Trump administration and GOP lawmakers are seeking to win over U.S. farmers, a core constituency for the president during his 2016 and 2024 White House wins that has been aggravated by rising prices caused by his trade policies and the Iran war. Ahead of a midterm election season where the GOP is working to win every vote it can, the White House and its allies in Congress are reaching out to farmers in red and blue states alike. On the way back from Beijing after his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump assured farmers that they would...

A U.S. Court of Appeals has paused a ruling from the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) that had struck down President Trump’s second round of tariffs. They have issued a short-term administrative stay on the CIT's ruling, although they are considering a longer one. The new set of tariffs was immediately enacted following the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating the original Liberation Day tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and put a baseline 10 percent tariff on all U.S. trading partners. The new tariffs were originally blocked last Friday.

Trump heads to Beijing hoping personal ties with Xi can ease tensions but Iran, tariffs, Taiwan and China’s expanding global influence have complicated prospects for meaningful breakthroughs at the summit… Beijing’s deep economic relationship with Tehran, especially its dependence on Iranian oil — has placed China in a delicate position as Washington seeks broader regional support… Trump’s first presidency was dominated by tariff battles with China, many of which reshaped global trade flows even after some measures were later struck down in US courts… While a temporary trade truce last year reduced some pressure, the underlying disputes remain unresolved... The...

A U.S. trade court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s 10 percent global tariffs. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled 2-1 that a 1970s law doesn’t allow the president to enact sweeping tariffs worldwide. The State of Oregon, a spice company called Burlap and Barrel, and a toy company named “Basic Fun Inc.” challenged the tariffs. Article 1, Section eight of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to levy duties, collect taxes, and more. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 gives some of that power to the president. It allows the president to impose temporary surcharges...

The U.S. Court of International Trade dealt a blow to the 10 percent global import tax that President Donald Trump imposed after losing on tariffs at the Supreme Court. A specialized federal court in New York delivered a new blow to President Donald Trump’s effort to impose widespread tariffs, ruling against the levies the president imposed after the Supreme Court decision in February that eliminated most of his emergency import taxes. Subscribe for unlimited access to The Post You can cancel anytime. Subscribe Thursday’s 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade held that the...

Beijing's empire isn't built on factories, AI labs, or rare earths. It's built on a single nation the West spent two decades dismissing — Iran. And the day Tehran's regime falls, the entire architecture China assembled over thirty years folds inward like wet cardboard. In this deep dive, we expose the hidden financial, energy, and geographic dependencies binding Beijing to Tehran — from the secret yuan-settled oil deals and the petroyuan experiment, to the Belt and Road's only viable land corridor, to the $9–12 billion annual "shadow fleet" subsidy quietly underwriting Chinese export manufacturing. We examine why China cannot quietly...

OTTAWA — The video playing was clearly Pete Hoekstra, the frequently combative U.S. ambassador to Canada. But something was off. He kept referring to Canada as a partner? “For all of the critical things that we need, Canada would be an ideal partner,” Hoekstra said in a prerecorded conversation at a conservative think tank in March. Hoekstra ticked off the ways the two countries could work together: deepened military cooperation in the Arctic, including through Trump’s “Golden Dome”; beefed-up energy cooperation on oil and gas, critical minerals and uranium; coordinating on artificial intelligence. At one point, he even cited the...

At the Centenaire market in Dakar, Chinese wholesalers line the street on both sides, renting warehouses for $1,000 a month, selling everything in bulk from plastic toys to space-age looking DVD players. One buyer, Fatou Gueye, says Senegalese are poor and they love these new shops, because, she says finally she can afford something. Here she says, she can buy for children and adults, for her whole family, almost everything they need. One man who has just turned himself from chronically unemployed to retailer is also very pleased. He is buying bras, cameras, shoes, belt buckles, pots, pans, colorful pens...

TRUMP BOOM: Asian buyers are abandoning Middle Eastern oil & lining up 28 supertankers to carry US crude in May alone. Normal bookings at this point: 5. US Gulf Coast exports hit a record 4.90 million barrels a day in April. Trump's energy dominance is not a talking point. It is a shipping manifest. h/t @KobeissiLetter

European countries, after the Second World War, came to a painful but profound conclusion: if they wanted to stop centuries of bloodletting among themselves, they had to make war materially irrational. The answer they found was not idealism alone, but interdependence. Trade. Shared markets. Shared interests. Over time, that logic helped give birth to what became the European Union. As the EU notes in its official history of postwar integration, the European Coal and Steel Community was created so that no single country could build the weapons of war against the others as in the past. Established by the Treaty...

A federal judge Thursday ordered the detention of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed 85 people, the judge's office said. A special prosecutor sought the order, alleging that the worst terrorist attack on Argentine soil was orchestrated by leaders of the Iranian government and entrusted to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Iran's leading diplomatic envoy in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Baharvand, told The Associated Press that his government would oppose any efforts to detain Rafsanjani or other Iranian nationals. Baharvand, Iran's charge d'affaires, said the case...

Asian nations - most recently the Philippines - have been particularly keen to reach agreements as their economies are heavily reliant on energy from the Gulf. In recent weeks - several Asian countries including Pakistan, India and the Philippines - have made agreements with Tehran to let some ships pass through the strait safely. China has also acknowledged that their vessels have also used the channel. Questions remain over the scope of these assurances and just how lasting these agreements with Iran will be. The Philippines imports 98% of its oil from the Middle East and was the first country...

I just saw a list of the commodities that are undergoing restriction of distribution in the Strait of Hormuz. When seeing a stark view of them, together as a group, I hadn't realized how extensive it is: 1) oil (gasoline and deisel), 2) liquid natural gas (LNG), 3) urea (fertilizer for food), 4) sulfuric acid (phosphate fertilizers for farming), 5) helium (microchips). (Source: Larry Johnson, today 04/06/2026 at 9 AM E.S.T.). I would like to hear from someone who has a good, fundamental understanding of economics, about the following question, (not someone who is an academic egghead, not anyone who...

I’m reluctant to post a video as the average Freeper will respond with an angry, “I don’t watch videos!!!” Sometimes with an excess amount of exclamation points. More than three indicates you’re on the verge of smashing your head into the keyboard until it bleeds. This video is the most in-depth explanation of the world economic system, dollar hegemony and why we can’t reduce the deficit and why that won’t hurt the value of the dollar. It discusses the impact of American debt on the hollowing of industrial capacity and the impact on wages and lifestyle. We really can’t discuss...