Free Republic

On Cavuto show that the tariffs scheduled to go into effect cancelled.

The political network funded in part by billionaire libertarian Charles Koch is going to try a new strategy against President Donald Trump’s trade war with China after conceding that its previous campaign hasn’t worked. Koch network leaders said Thursday that their digital and TV ad blitz that emphasized how Americans could experience financial pain from the tariff fight wasn’t panning out the way they had hoped. “The argument that, you know, the tariffs are adding a couple thousand dollars to the pickup truck that you’re buying is not persuasive,” a senior Koch official says. he political network funded in part...

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He met with a delegation led by US Senator Steve Daines and Senator David Perdue here on Tuesday. Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said Sino-US relations are related to the stability and prosperity of the world… …Speaking of the great importance of US-China relations, Daines, also co-chair of the US House of Senate US-China Working Group, and Perdue, said they are not willing to see economic and trade conflicts between the two sides, adding that they will continue to play positive roles in deepening mutual...

CNN reports that President Trump’s aides persuaded him to delay the imposition of the latest round of protective tariffs, previously scheduled for September, until December 15, 2019. How? They claimed new tariffs would “ruin Christmas.” Peter Navarro, Trump’s director of trade and manufacturing policy, defended the move saying that this was Trump’s, “Christmas present to the nation.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only would tariffs not perceptibly increase the price of toys, this schizophrenic shift in policy empowers the president’s political adversaries and enriches greedy multinational corporations and China. It is fairly obvious to anyone who has...

The United States is not doing enough to promote free trade and the elimination of trade barriers around the world. In fact, it’s doing just the opposite and imposing barriers on billions of dollars’ worth of imports. As a result, new trade restrictions implemented by World Trade Organization member countries have reached historic highs. Over the last two review periods, new trade restrictions totaled $588.3 billion and $339.5 billion, respectively. For the previous two periods, new trade restrictions totaled roughly $100 billion or less. The latest figures present a worrisome and unpredictable climate that is harming the overall health of...

President Donald Trump likes to keep score. Well, here's a score for him: America, zero; while the rest of the world keeps tallying up free trade points. That's right; while American consumers have been waiting for well over a year to see some resolution to the various trade disputes started by Trump, other countries have agreed to lower their tariffs against each other and signed free trade agreements with one another. Meanwhile, American consumers and exporters are drowning in a sea of high tariffs. Let's recap. For the last year and a half, the president has unilaterally imposed tariffs...

Vietnam and the European Union signed a free trade agreement on Sunday, opening opportunities to further boost trade between the euro bloc and one of Southeast Asia’s biggest manufacturing nations. The agreement, which was signed by European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom and Vietnamese Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, will eliminate almost all tariffs for goods traded between Vietnam and the EU’s 28 member countries. “It is a special day for relations between the EU and Vietnam. The agreement has opened a new horizon for the development of both sides,” Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc...

Between 1348 and 1352 a monstrous plague—the Black Death—ravaged Europe. The disease struck young and old, men and women, saint and sinner alike. Half the population died. Whole cities disappeared. Western Civilization was on the brink of collapse. What caused this plague? Bad smells. Foul odors. The stench of decay. This was considered unequivocal, scientific fact—that is until we invented the microscope and discovered that an entire world of miniature animalcules existed right under our noses. In time we realized that these creatures caused illness: germ theory was born, and with it died the centuries-old miasma theory of disease. Received...

The United States and China have traded since the early days of our republic, but only recently has the scale of that trade become a political issue. More than any other point, Donald TrumpÂ’s rhetoric against outsourcing to China gave him the blue-collar Midwestern votes that made up his margin of victory in 2016. His election was a break with the generation-long bipartisan consensus that more and freer trade is better, whether the trading partner is a liberal democracy that respects the rule of law or a communist dictatorship where unfree people labor in unsafe conditions for government-suppressed wages.Even...

The pro-mass immigration Koch brothers’ network of billionaire, donor-class organizations is readying to financially back Democrats, so long as they promise to support amnesty for illegal aliens and vote to advance free trade at all costs. In a memo to its staff, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP) organization announced that the economic libertarian group is set to back any elected official in Washington, DC, — including Democrats — who support their agenda of amnesty for illegal aliens and endless free trade, and oppose the GOP voter-preferred economic nationalist agenda of less immigration and tariffs to protect American jobs. The...

For more than a generation, James Carville's campaign maxim, "It's the economy, stupid," has been held up as an essential truth of American politics. There's no denying that a strong economy is an incumbent president's best friend. Seventy-three percent of voters currently rate the economy as a very important issue. As a result, if the economy remains strong for another 1 1/2 years, many analysts believe President Donald Trump will be favored to win reelection. On the other hand, if a recession hits next year, we will almost certainly have a new president in 2021. However, recent data about the...

Sen. Mitt Romney warned Friday that President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs against Mexico were the wrong approach and could harm Americans more than they help curtail illegal immigration. “A tariff targeting Mexico that negatively impacts our own interests will only end in a waiting game of increasingly harmful consequence to the American people,” Romney said.

According to statistics, cited by the ministry, when the agreement enters into force it will affect more than 1.2 billion people, with a total domestic product of about $3.4 trillion. It will cut duties on 90 percent of goods on the continent. The deal could boost intra-African trade by 52.3 percent, the UN said. Rwandan President Paul Kagame hailed it as a “new chapter in African unity.” The African Union’s trade commissioner Albert Muchanga told Fortune: “When you look at the African economies right now, their basic problem is fragmentation.”

An invasive insect species native to China, India and Vietnam is posing a problem in at least two states.... 'The Spotted Lanternfly' is harming crops in Winchester, Virginia, WDVM reported. The Pennsylvania-based Churchville Nature Center said the creatures were also spotted for the first time on its property Thursday. "If it is new to you, this invasive plant hopper is threatening the forests of the northeast as well as the lumber and agricultural industries. Please keep an eye out for the insect." The species poses a threat to agriculture and “has the ability to greatly impact the grape, hops and...

As the Trump administration has focused heavily on trade this year, it has been instructive to note the weight that has been placed on intellectual property, in both the negotiations and the results. The new USMCA treaty – the intended replacement for NAFTA – includes a whole chapter on intellectual property (IP). 2018’s wave after wave of punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, too, have been imposed in an effort to stem not only the loss of American jobs to China, but the loss of American how-to as well. Even the new layers of 10% and 25% additional tariffs on raw...

Chinese power is expanding. Chinese claims to the South China Sea are not going to go away in a hurry. At the moment, American power represents a restraint on Chinese expansion. It is not clear how that will hold into the future. In his landmark foreign policy speech in April 2016 candidate Trump said, “……our resources are totally over extended. ……. the U.S. must be prepared to let these (European and Asian) countries defend themselves. We have no choice.” My unique country, Australia, a predominantly European nation on the edge of Asia, does have very deep emotional, cultural and historical...

In 1993, President Bill Clinton promised that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would create “a million [American] jobs in the first five years.” He also said NAFTA’s “side agreements” would “make it harder than it is today for businesses to relocate solely because of very low [Mexican] wages or lax environmental laws.” Bill Clinton lied. More than 800,000 American manufacturing jobs moved to Mexico since 1993, “solely because of very low [Mexican] wages or lax environmental laws.” Not only was Clinton wrong, NAFTA also caused numerous unintended harms: the post-NAFTA unemployment wave is largely to blame for the...

In a trade war, we are told, foreign manufacturers are not affected at all by tariffs imposed by the U.S. government. Only U.S. consumers will pay more. Yet, mysteriously, if a foreign country imposes tariffs on U.S. exports, it is a catastrophe for U.S. manufacturers and “farmers” (giant conglomerates). So we are told that U.S. exporters will suffer from a trade war. However, foreign producers importing to the U.S. will not be affected in the slightest. That is not sound analysis, but propaganda. Saying that tariffs hurt U.S. consumers and U.S. producers, but tariffs have no effect at all on...

The media and other Trump haters can't seem to let themselves admit it, but President Donald Trump scored a big victory for the American economy on trade last week. Trump and the European Union reached a handshake deal that is designed to lower tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic. They agreed to shoot for zero tariffs. Sounds like freer and fairer trade to me. The exact details are still a bit murky, but what we do know is that the EU has pledged to lower its tariffs and other trade barriers on American soybeans, oil and gas, pharmaceutical...

FLOTUS in Nashville:She was visiting a children’s hospital that treats babies born with Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) - a group of conditions caused when a baby withdraws from opioids they were exposed to in the womb – i.e. mom was a drug addict. Of course the haters immediately unloaded on Melania because, you know, her husband is TEARING CHILDREN FROM THEIR PARENTS ARMS! Meantime her husband, VSGDJT, just continues to MAGA, renegotiating trade deals around the world that will put the U.S. back on what the Left likes to call a “level playing field.” All while managing to keep the...