Free Republic

Starting in May 2010, The Washington Examiner reported, drawing on emails obtained by Citizens United, “Clinton Foundation staff pushed Hillary Clinton’s State Department to approve a meeting between Bill Clinton and a powerful Russian oligarch as her agency lined up investors for a project under his purview.” His name was Viktor Vekselberg of Renova (a Clinton Foundation donor) and the project under his purview was the Skolkovo Innovation Center, which is being built near Moscow. The following month, Bill Clinton would receive $500,000 for a speech in Moscow from a Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the...

Hong Kong will file a complaint on recent US tariffs imposed on the city to the World Trade Organization, claiming the United States has completely ignored the city's status as a separate customs territory, chief secretary Eric Chan said on Tuesday (Feb 11). "This is absolutely inconsistent with the WTO rules. Of course, they have totally disregarded Hong Kong is a separate customs territory," Chan, the China-ruled city's number two official, told reporters. "We will file a complaint to the WTO regarding this unreasonable arrangement," he said without giving specifics. Chan was responding to a US decision to impose 10...

On Tuesday, on Fox News Channel’s “Americas Newsroom,” Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary said President Donald Trump’s plan to implement 10% tariffs on China is not enough to squeeze them. Co-host Dana Perino said, “So Mexico and Canada were obviously motivated to try to get to a deal with President Trump yesterday, and they got a 30-day pause. Do you think President Xi is of a similar mind?” O’Leary said, “No, I don’t. I think China is a completely unique situation, very different than Mexico, very different than Canada. China, since 1999, when they joined the WTO, has never abided...

China’s state-run Global Times on Sunday rounded up ministers and business leaders to condemn President Donald Trump’s ten percent tariff on imports from China, which were scheduled to take effect on Tuesday. “China’s position is firm and consistent. Trade and tariff wars have no winners. The U.S.’ unilateral tariff hikes severely violate WTO rules. This move cannot solve the US’ problems at home and more importantly, does not benefit either side, still less the world,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. The Foreign Ministry insisted China has “one of the strictest and most thorough drug control policies in the world,” so...

Beijing 2 Feb-RIA Novosti. China is dissatisfied with the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on goods from China, Mexico and Canada. Beijing will file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and take appropriate countermeasures, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said...

News stories of a China increasingly belligerent both at home and abroad are widespread. But in an attempt to understand how we have gotten into this position, many have assessed the growth of Beijing without fully examining the policies of previous U.S. presidential administrations. Years of accommodation and so-called mutually beneficial bilateral agreements have all enabled the rise of China. Such is the dangerous legacy of the strikingly identical China policies under the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations that have left us with the short end of the stick and have made the international stage less stable, while presenting novel...

Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance “for the first time in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havoc on economies, food production and lives, according to a landmark new report. Decades of destructive land use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global water cycle, said the report published Wednesday by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a group of international leaders and experts. The water cycle refers to the complex system by which water moves around the Earth. Water evaporates from...

BY THE OREGONIAN/OREGONLIVE (Compiled from news accounts, court records, public notices) Last week's arrest of a long-sought accused eco-saboteur pushed the spotlight back on a tight-knit cell of radical environmentalists responsible for a $48 million run of firebombings and other crimes across the West in the 1990s and early 2000s. Six men and five women prosecuted in Oregon received sentences ranging from three years to 13 years. They were arrested starting in 2005 in what the FBI called "Operation Backfire," a task force that tracked down the suspects with the help of an informant deep within the underground group....

Romania and the United States have signed an agreement that would establish the first U.S. military bases in an Eastern European country from the former Soviet bloc. The United States already has the rights to a base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, and is in the process of vacating one in neighboring Uzbekistan. With the United States already possessing a military presence in much of the world, what does it want with even more foreign bases? Washington, 7 December 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Romanian President Traian Basescu seemed as pleased to be hosting the bases as the Americans are...

YES!

Australia delivered a withering denunciation of China's trade policies Thursday, accusing Beijing of undermining the World Trade Organization and foot-dragging on promised economic reforms. During a usually routine WTO review in Geneva, Canberra's representatives said China had benefited "significantly" from 20 years of WTO membership but was not keeping its end of the bargain. ... ..."China has increasingly tested global trade rules and norms by engaging in practices that are inconsistent with its WTO commitments," the Australian government said in a statement. "By undermining agreed trade rules China also undermines the multilateral trading system on which all WTO members rely."...

… In 2019, China emitted 10.2 billion metric tons of CO2 — nearly twice as much as the United States (5.3 billion metric tons) — representing nearly 28% of global emissions. […] … “If you look at only one number, you’re only getting one side of the story,” says Shyla Raghav, vice president of climate change at Conservation International, an environmental organization headquartered in the United States. To get more insight, it’s worth looking at carbon dioxide emissions per capita. […] In the case of carbon dioxide, it is important to know that from a human perspective, the gas can...

The World Trade Organization chief called on Wednesday (May 5) for international agreement on how to ensure more equal access to COVID-19 vaccines, amid an ongoing standoff over a proposed patent waiver for the jabs. "The way the WTO handles this matter is critical," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told country representatives taking part a meeting of the WTO general council, the organisation's main decision-making body. "We need to have a sense of urgency on how we approach this issue of response to COVID-19 because the world is watching," she said, describing equitable access to the tools to fight the pandemic as the...

The United States Chamber of Commerce is cheering the newly confirmed head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who has the backing of China. Okonjo-Iweala, who was opposed by the Trump administration for the top WTO spot, was supported by the Biden administration and received praise on Monday from China’s Commerce Ministry, which said they have “full confidence” in her appointment. Former U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer previously suggested that the Trump administration did not support Okonjo-Iweala because of her lack of experience with trade issues — the core function of the WTO.

GENEVA - Three months after the Trump administration rejected her, former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is set to receive unanimous backing on Monday to become the first woman and first African director-general of the World Trade Organization. A self-declared “doer” with a track record of taking on seemingly intractable problems, Okonjo-Iweala will have her work cut out for her at the trade body, even with Donald Trump, who had threatened to pull the United States out of the organisation, no longer in the White House. A 25-year veteran of the World Bank, where she oversaw an $81 billion portfolio,...

Lisa Fithian is a radical revolutionary who has been organizing chaos operations and antigovernment demonstrations in the United States for decades. Lisa Fithian was a key organizer of violent demonstrations that caused the shutdown of the 1999 WTO meetings in Seattle, Washington. Fithian is an anti-capitalist revolutionary.

The Clinton, Bush, and Trump families will forever be intertwined in not just American history, but the history of the world. The past several years have certainly seen a major change in what once seemed to be a warm relationship between the Trumps and the Clintons, two elite New York clans inhabiting similar circles that have now become the political equivalent of the Hatfields and McCoys. To a lesser extent, because they never seemed particularly close, the same can be said about the Trump and Bush families as well. We also all remember prior to his being nominated as the...

In its decision, the WTO’s dispute settlement body ruled against the U.S. government’s argument that China has wrongly engaged in practices harmful to U.S. interests on issues including intellectual property theft and technology transfer. The U.S. tariffs target two batches of Chinese products. Duties of 10% were imposed on some $200 billion worth of goods in September 2018, and were jacked up to 25% eight months later. An additional 25% duties were imposed in June 2018 against Chinese goods worth about $34 billion in annual trade. The Trump administration has justified the sanctions under Section 301 of the Trade Act...

Roberto Azevedo stepped down as director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on August 31, becoming the first to do so before the end of his term. Azevedo's surprise announcement was made in May, and the Brazilian was in the third year of his second four-year term. Eight candidates from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America are vying for the post, but world events are rapidly making this competition irrelevant. There is no U.S. candidate, nor does there need to be one, as Washington should shun the WTO as an organization that is not just useless, but illegitimate. The WTO...

Will Biden disavow his decades of support for China’s rise and follow Trump’s lead? Communist China poses a greater threat to America and our interests abroad than any other nation in the world. If it wasn’t clear prior to the spread of the Chinese coronavirus, resulting largely from the Chinese Communist Party’s Chernobyl-like response, the subsequent threats should crystallize this point. It has acted malevolently toward the U.S., our European and Anglosphere allies, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India, and across the South China Sea. Countering the CCP is essential to preserving American life, limb, and liberty. The public deserves to...