Free Republic

The annual 2019 trade figures for the United States came out last week, heralding some encouraging news. America’s enormous international trade deficit actually declined slightly from 2018. This was the first decrease in six years, with the deficit in goods and services dropping 1.7%, to $616.8 billion. Better yet, America’s bilateral trade deficit with China fell for the first time in four years, dropping a hefty 17.6%, to $345.6 billion. These are promising numbers and they show that tariffs on Chinese products are successfully moving the needle on U.S. trade flows. In fact, America’s 2019 imports from China actually fell...

On Sunday morning, Trump reignited the diplomatic spat with China when during an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday the President-elect said that his support for the "One China" policy which has underpinned U.S. behavior toward Taiwan since the 1970s,  will hinge on cutting a better deal on trade, in other words it will be a "barter chip" to extract future concessions from Beijing.   "I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do...

TO HIS family and friends, Mamdouh Habib was a devoted father and husband. But to others, the calm suburban veneer disguised an angry and often violent man whose actions were fuelled by his religious fanaticism. Seemingly a helpful supporter at his son's soccer matches, Habib also had a nasty streak which landed him with an AVO against former colleagues and a court order to destroy firearms and ammunition in his home. Nine days after the September 11 attack in New York, his home was raided by the nation's chief spy watchdog ASIO. Today, the fate of the man named as...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. trade deficit climbed to $58.3 billion in January, the second-highest level in history, as Americans' appetite for foreign consumer products and automobiles hit record highs. The deficit with China was pushed higher by a surge in textile shipments, reflecting the end of global quotas. The Commerce Department reported Friday that the January trade gap was 4.5 percent higher than December's $55.7 billion deficit and was just below the all-time high monthly deficit of $59.4 billion, recorded in November. For all of last year, the U.S. trade gap surged by 24.3 percent to $617.1 billion, setting...