Free Republic

There are two links for this story. I started linking to the short video which I originally watched. It is from Asia Times. Basically it is almost an advertisement for the article. Runs about a minute and a half, although it mentions the major points from the article. Then there is an actual article in the Asia Times. I will also include a link to that article, for those who want to read the full thing.

Democrat Sherrod Brown just won reelection resoundingly in a Trump state running on Trump’s issues — taking a hard line on trade and helping blue-collar workers. Now the Ohio senator is talking increasingly like he’s prepared to take on the president himself.

Sorry I slightly altered the title, shortening the word "companies" to "cos." That change was made in order to actually post the article (FR limited the title in this case) Please see the original article, for the correct spelling. - American companies may be finding an ingenious way to skirt around the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on importing Chinese goods, as a means of avoiding the financial hit caused by the 25% taxes. According to a note from Paul Donovan, the global chief economist for UBS Wealth Management, some US firms are likely funnelling imports from China through...

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries will likely need to cut crude supplies, perhaps as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day, to rebalance the market after proposed U.S. sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's output, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Monday.

Amazon employees at five the United Kingdom's largest warehouses are planning to stage rallies and protests on Black Friday to bring attention to their "inhumane conditions," Buzzfeed News reported. The protests are being staged by GMB Union who help negotiate on behalf of Amazon employees, although they aren't officially recognized. Other unions throughout Europe are coordinating similar protests in collaboration with GMB. Workers in Spain, Italy, Poland and Germany are planning to walk off the job on Friday when the internet giant is scheduled to have Black Friday deals. The main distribution centers who are protesting are in Rugeley, Milton...

President Trump wants Chinese solar panels firms to make more of their products in the U.S. -- and they appear to be getting the message. A week after the Trump administration unveiled tariffs of up to 30% on imports of solar panels, one of China's biggest manufacturers announced that it plans to open a new plant in the U.S. JinkoSolar said in a statement Monday that its board of directors had given the go-ahead to "finalize planning for the construction of an advanced solar manufacturing facility in the U.S." The statement suggested Jinko's decision was tied to the new tariffs,...

Just days after US President Donald Trump called for further isolation of Iran, a Norwegian solar company signed a deal Tuesday to invest €2.5 billion in the country over the next five years. “Norway is fully committed to the JCPOA (nuclear deal), and this is proof that we have taken the opening very seriously, and we will see more investment very soon,” Norwegian ambassador Lars Nordrum told AFP. He was hosting the signing at his Tehran residence between Norway’s Saga Energy and Iran’s Amin Energy Developers, who will work together to install two gigawatts of solar panels in multiple sites...

President Donald Trump campaigned on deals. Making deals — like an Israel-Palestine peace accord. And breaking deals — like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Iran Deal, both of which he labeled disasters. Since entering the Oval Office in 2016, Trump — a self-professed negotiator —has delivered on many of his promises to abandon international pacts that previous administrations had authorized. As the United States plans for an early exit from a key, Cold War-era nuclear agreement with Russia, here is a look at some of the landmark international deals, partnerships, and organizations the Trump White House has spurned. The Trans-Pacific...

In an update to a March report, the US said China had failed to alter its "unreasonable" practices. The US has, along with other countries, long criticised Beijing over its trade policies. The move raises tensions ahead of a high-stakes leaders meeting this month. US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina. Their meeting will be closely watched for any progress on resolving the bitter trade dispute. But the latest comments from the US could make negotiations more difficult. Please read full article at the link....

An interesting thing is happening right now in America's industrial heartland. Manufacturers are adding new workers at a brisk pace. And it's happening right in front of the very pundits and free-trade economists who predicted economic catastrophe over the past year. Simply put, President Donald Trump's tariffs are working. U.S. manufacturing employment has now shown year-on-year growth of more than 250,000 employees for six consecutive months. That's the largest and most sustained manufacturing job growth since 1998. In fact, the U.S. added 32,000 manufacturing jobs in October alone, for a total of 296,000 new factory jobs since October 2017. Overall,...

Bank to Pay Total Penalties of more than $1.3 Billion as part of Resolution with Federal and State Prosecutors and Regulators Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, James D. Robnett, the Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”), and Mark Bialek, Inspector General, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“IG-FRB/CFPB”), announced criminal charges against Société Générale S.A. (“SG” or the “Bank”) consisting of a one-count felony information charging SG with conspiring to violate...

Don’t get me wrong, amigos. The Fake News Media does not term the recent UN vote in the same manner as does this column. Instead they reported (gloated) that: “UN voted overwhelmingly to condemn US embargo of Cuba….In a slap to the United States, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution Thursday condemning the American economic embargo of Cuba and rejected proposed U.S. amendments strongly criticizing the lack of human rights in the island country.”The occasion was the annual and ritual UN vote against the U.S. “embargo” of mass-murdering, mass-torturing, terror-sponsoring and kleptocratic Cuba, which sits prominently on the...

audio interviews Rep Brian Babin Charlie Spiering Boris Ephsteyn Michael Patrick Leahy John Carney Neil Munro

GILGIT, Pakistan—On a July morning, Saqlain Abbas, 26 years old, stood before rows of students, Mandarin textbook in hand, while a Pakistani soldier sat silently at the back of the classroom with a gun at his side. Hanging on the wall was a collection of idyllic Chinese landscapes—the reddish-orange mountains of Gansu, the placid waters of a lake in Xinjiang. Here, at Karakoram International University, in a remote, rugged terrain that is still contested territory between India and Pakistan, the Pakistani military has been sponsoring free Mandarin courses for indigent students. “Previously, students were more inclined toward English,” Muhammad Ilyas,...

The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin has revealed stunning comments issued by Vice President Mike Pence during a conversation between the two aboard Air Force Two as the VP traveled for an official trip to Asia this week, where he landed in Singapore for regional summits highlighting Indo-Pacific security, trade and investment. Pence reportedly said the White House is prepared to undertake take dramatic policy changes regarding China if Beijing does not capitulate to its demands as the trade war continues. In addition to the issue of tariffs, pressing security issues include the US demanding Chinese cessation of what’s reported to...

A special European Union initiative to protect trade with Iran against newly reimposed U.S. sanctions faces possible collapse with no EU country willing to host the operation for fear of provoking U.S. punishment.

While many questions remain unanswered surrounding the reported kidnapping of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, one crucial fact overlooked by the establishment media is not debatable: The Taliban-aligned Haqqani network that held him is closely linked with the Pakistani government’s intelligence agency, which in turn has been a close ally of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, the Islamist terror group has at various points been openly supported by the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since it was founded with U.S. government backing in the mid-1970s — and top American officials know it. Based on news reports, it appears...

California is a place unlike any other on the Globe. It boasts perhaps the greatest natural resources of any state along with shining high-tech industries. However, like many good economic stories, government policies threaten its future. Indeed, its government has made California unsustainable. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. As the 1960s came to a close in California, it had a population of nearly twenty million. In the decade before, its economic strength afforded the construction of a vast State Water Project and higher education system that was the envy of the world. Matched with a majestic and trade...

The Trump administration’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, told Wall Street bankers and hedge-fund manager in a speech Friday to stay out of President Donald Trump’s affairs in regards to pushing for a trade deal with China. Please follow link for full article. https://www.google.com.vn/amp/s/moneyandmarkets.com/navarro-warns-wall-street-china-trade-talks/amp/

Big Oil has always had a reputation for propping up crappy little banana republics and tinpot regimes, and well, Chevron is squarely on the hot seat for that one these days. See, it's literally the only thing left that's keeping Venezuela afloat, through its large investments in that country. If Chevron pulls out, the Maduro regime collapses. Now there's some question as to whether it ought to be following all the other oil majors and pulling out.