Free Republic

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that receive CHIPS Act funding to build factories in the country, two sources said. Expanding on a plan to receive an equity stake in Intel, a White House official and a person familiar with the situation said Lutnick is exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung. Much of the funding has not yet been dispersed.

President Trump blasted India with 50 percent tariffs. The full force of these tariffs will come into effect on August 27, 2025. President Trump’s instincts are spot on: India is on the verge of becoming China 2.0. Unfortunately, the tariffs will do little to stop this. Why? Because India isn’t coming for our manufacturing. They’re coming for our technology sector—and they’ve been remarkably successful both at scooping up jobs, and flying under the radar. Consider that America lost roughly 5 million jobs to China since 2001. During the same period, America lost up to 4 million technology jobs to India....

China’s leadership, including Xi Jinping, is now openly admitting to a crisis of industrial “overcapacity,” a problem they have termed “involution.” This counterproductive and “disorderly competition” is causing destructive price wars, particularly in the massive auto industry. While Beijing is attempting to use dictatorial measures, such as price controls, to address the issue, experts argue that this approach will fail.

When President Trump announced the terms of the pending US-EU trade deal, the world was shocked. Not only is it the biggest trade deal in history—it unequivocally puts America first. In fact, when asked what concessions America gave, EU President Ursula Von Der Leyen could not come up with a single item. Europeans went ballistic. They described this as the death-knell for the EU. Europe has been described as a collection of American vassal states (which is fundamentally accurate). Even America’s liberals went nuts—the deal was too good for America. They argued that it would undermine America’s political relationship with...

<p>A Qatar native held on charges of lying to the FBI in an investigation into the September 11 attacks was designated yesterday as an "enemy combatant" and could be tried before a military tribunal for helping al Qaeda operatives relocate in the United States. Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, 37, in Justice Department custody since late 2001, was given the new designation by President Bush and handed over to the Defense Department.</p>

America is the biggest consumer market in the world. In 2024, Americans spent >$19 trillion on consumer goods. Over $4 trillion of this was on imports. This means, in nominal terms, that Americans bought more than just about any other country on earth produced. America is the world’s forum, the bazaar, the emporium, the supermarket—the shopping mall. And just like how the biggest store in town can pressure suppliers to cut costs, America’s buying power gives us leverage over prices—leverage that can be translated into profits via tariffs. Essentially, if foreign producers want to sell their goods to American consumers—which...

The far left’s disgraceful response to September 11—it has temporized about terror, embraced moral equivalence between the Islamist fanatics who killed thousands of innocent Americans and the military actions of the democratically elected U.S. government, and even blamed the U.S. for the atrocity—shows that its hatred of democratic capitalism and, more broadly, Western civilization itself remains fierce more than a decade after the collapse of socialism. The intensity of this hatred will come as no surprise, however, to anyone who has paid attention to the praise that the academic left and its sympathizers in the liberal media have been showering ...

On Tuesday, President Trump told reporters he plans to raise tariffs on copper to 50 percent. Copper futures surged by 17 percent shortly afterwards—the largest intraday gain since at least 1988. Many will make—or lose—a small fortune on Wall Steet in the coming days and weeks. No doubt, the winners will gas-up the Presidency for protecting America’s economy: tariffs are good! Meanwhile, the losers will accuse him of economic illiteracy: tariffs are bad! Which is it? Are tariffs good or bad? The answer: both. Tariffs are good when they promote economic growth or economic self-sufficiency. If not, then tariffs are...

The Trump Administration has extended the global trade negotiation deadline to August 1, 2025. So far, less than a handful of countries have been able to work out interim deals, including the United Kingdom, Vietnam, and (ironically) China. A few others, like India, have offered zero-for-zero tariffs with the United States—free trade, at least on paper. President Trump’s team has so far avoided making any “free trade” deals. They are right to be skeptical. Why? Real global free trade—much like real communism—has never been tried! And this is not for lack of trying. It’s because it is impossible. In reality,...

Unfortunately, this lesson is also lost on America’s leaders. America is selling hundreds of billions worth of assets—everything from shares in New York’s largest companies to Iowa’s best farmland—every year to pay for our trade deficit. For example, foreign investors now own some 40% of all U.S. equities. This has skyrocketed up from just 12% in 2007. Likewise, Americans are selling enormous amounts of real estate to pay for foreign production. In 2019 alone, foreigners purchased $183 billion in American real estate. America is selling its heritage and its economic lifeblood for cheap Chinese trinkets. We are selling our soul...

Amid a major layoff being announced by US companies, a post has gone viral which shows that Microsoft, one of the 10 companies employing foreign labor, sought 14,181 H-1Bs. The post shared the H-1B requirements of other companies, including Amazon, NVIDIA, Cisco, Goldman Sachs, Oracle, Apple etc.

Economists say freer trade benefits everyone—even trade with China. America gets cheap goods and China gets money. Win-win. Even if we assume America benefits—which is a false assumption as proven in my book Reshore—China has clearly benefited more. For example, China’s economy has grown by an average of 8.12% since joining the World Trade Organization since 2001—about four times greater than America’s. China and America benefited asymmetrically from trade. Asymmetry may not be a problem economically, but it is a problem politically. Why? Power is zero-sum. The strong China grows, the weaker America becomes relative to China. As such, trade...

Two men believed to be Haitian Americans — one of them purportedly a former bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Port au Prince — have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haiti's president, a senior Haitian official said Thursday. Prime Minister Claude Joseph assumed leadership of Haiti with the backing of police and the military and on Thursday asked people to reopen businesses and go back to work as he ordered the reopening of the international airport. On Wednesday, Joseph decreed a two-week state of siege following Moïse's killing, which stunned a nation grappling with some of the...

President Donald Trump plans to sign a trio of resolutions Thursday to revoke California’s nation-leading vehicle emissions standards. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), author of a resolution to nix the state’s electric vehicle sales mandate via the Congressional Review Act, and Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) confirmed that the White House has scheduled the signings at 11 a.m. on Thursday. Trump’s signature will finalize his administration’s monthslong effort to thwart California’s authority to set stricter electrification rules for passenger vehicles and commercial trucks, along with higher standards for heavy-duty diesel engines. Trump’s EPA revoked an earlier version of California’s vehicle emissions...

Across the country, gay bars — often a fixture of queer nightlife — have been shuttered at an alarming pace. More than 45% closed between 2002 and 2023. But the closing of gay bars is prompting some to reimagine queer nightlife, argues Amin Ghaziani, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. Sabri Ben-Achour: So let’s start with this idea of the disappearing gay bar. This comes down to economics that I think are very relatable to a lot of businesses. It’s not that they’re not viable as a business, it’s that they’re getting priced out.

Reshaping the economy in Imperial China.For 4,000 years, from 2070 BC to 1911 AD, one imperial family after another ruled China. The longest period in which a single family exercised power was 790 years, while the average tenure was 228 years. Most Westerners are familiar with the Tudors, Stuarts, and Windsors of England, or the Romanovs of Russia, but few are aware of the names of Chinese dynasties such as the Zhou, Han, or Ming, let alone the notable figures associated with them.In this essay, I acquaint the reader with a man named Wang Anshi 王安石. He lived from 1021...

In light of the new wave of liberal lawfare being waged against President Trump’s tariffs, it’s worth considering: do the liberals have a point? Rand Paul certainly thought so—recall that a few weeks ago he brought the Senate to a tiebreaking vote to halt the tariffs. This is because Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations”. Strictly speaking, Congress has these powers—not the Executive. However, Congress also has the authority to delegate powers to the Executive for...

There is no other way to say it: liberal judges are waging unrestricted lawfare against President Trump. First, they protected illegal immigrants from deportation—literally sheltering criminals from justice. Now, they’re protecting foreign governments and multinational corporations from President Trump’s tariffs. Case in point: yesterday, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled the tariffs were illegal. Today, a second court followed suit. This is not surprising. Wall Street is engaging in total warfare against President Trump. Why? Because Wall Street profits tremendously from the trade deficit—to the tune of over $1.2 trillion per year. If President Trump is successful, this gravy...

“ There are no solutions, there are only tradeoffs,” says the venerable Thomas Sowell, but “you try to get the best tradeoffs you can get, and that’s all you can hope for.” Reasonably understood, Trump’s tariff agenda has always represented a tradeoff for Americans. Despite an awful lot of misunderstanding of how tariffs function in both theory and practice that has proliferated in recent months, tariffs are not a solution that will magically increase wages for American workers or reshore American manufacturing without considerable costs, and most certainly, the tariffs were never going to be paid by the nations who...

President Jacob Zumahas called on parliament to change South Africa’s constitution to allow the expropriation of white owned land without compensation. Mr Zuma, 74, who made the remarks in a speech yesterday/FRI morning, said he wanted to establish a “pre-colonial land audit of land use and occupation patterns” before changing the law. “We need to accept the reality that those who are in parliament where laws are made, particularly the black parties, should unite because we need a two-thirds majority to effect changes in the constitution,” he said. Mr Zuma, who has lurched from one scandal to another since being...