Trump Planning Massive Tax on Chinese Imports – Report
Former US President Donald Trump has told advisers he wants to impose a 60% tariff on all imports from China if he wins this year’s election, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing three unnamed people familiar with the plan.
The measure would trigger major disruptions to the US and to economies around the world, which would far exceed the impact of the trade wars initiated by Trump during his first presidential term, economists for both the Democratic and Republican parties told the newspaper.
During his current presidential campaign, Trump has pledged to revoke China’s status as a “most favored nation” for trade. The designation is applied to almost all nations the US trades with, and the White House can introduce any tariffs on imported goods from countries that do not have it.
According to the GOP front-runner, tariffs on foreign goods raise vital revenue for the US budget, and current import levies are among the world’s lowest.
China is the US’s third largest trading partner after Mexico and Canada. In November, Beijing accounted for 11.7% of total US foreign trade.
According to analysts polled by the newspaper, such plans, if executed, are likely to spark a global trade war.
“The 2018 to 2019 trade war was immensely damaging, and this would go so far beyond that it’s hard to even compare to that,” Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank that opposes the tariffs, told the Washington Post. “This threatens to upend and fragment global trade to an extent we haven’t seen in centuries.”
“If a Trump administration were to put up much higher tariffs on imports from China, American companies would lose most of their market share in both China and many third countries,” Posen said, having called the trade proposals “lunacy.”
Michael Yon joins Alex Jones to issue an emergency warning to those American and Texan patriots who wish to actively help protect the southern border.
Biden ‘Has No Intention to Close Border, And Even If He Did, It’s Too Late’ – Analyst
US President Joe Biden has pledged to close the border if it “becomes overwhelmed” should Congress pass a bipartisan immigration bill. In a recent statement, he said the bill, if enacted, would be “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had.”
“It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” Biden added.
This document “is solely designed to persuade gullible Republicans to support sending more money to Ukraine in return for non–existent ‘reforms’ at the border,” Michael Shannon, a political commentator and Newsmax columnist, told Sputnik.
“Existing US law provides all the enforcement authority necessary for closing the border. Leftists just refuse to use that authority,” Shannon pointed out.
On POTUS’ promise of the “toughest” border security reforms, Shannon insisted that the pledge shows that “Joe Biden remains an unrepentant liar.”
Biden “has no intention of closing the border and even if they did, it’s too late. What is required is closing the border and relentless, mass deportations of illegals regardless of how long they’ve been inside the border breaking the law,” according to the analyst.
He also recalled a series of immigration deals that “disingenuous Republicans” have cut with Democrats in the past. Those GOP members, he continued, were “always betrayed when it came time to implement the deal.”
“The foolish Republicans think that finally this time the leftists will adhere to their end of the deal. The disingenuous Republicans hope the bill will do enough to fool their conservative voting base into thinking they are doing something about the illegals’ invasion without upsetting the open borders, cheap labor donors who keep them in office. Between the Senate and the [Biden] administration there are no believable individuals. The House is the only hope to kill this travesty,” Shannon argued.
Referring to Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s ongoing border standoff with the federal government, the analyst said the furor has “greatly complicated the response of the Biden administration and pushed the legislation, at least temporarily, into the background.”
“If Biden attempts to force Texas to stand down and allow federal employees to essentially re–open the border, then how can Biden claim to be strong on enforcement? If Biden does nothing, he looks weak and angers the anti–America, open borders crowd that makes up much of his base. This confrontation — and the overwhelming support Texas has received from other state governors — is overshadowing the coverage of the ‘reform’ bill and will have to be resolved first,” Shannon concluded.
The remarks come after GOP governors from 25 states rallied behind Governor Abbott after he said his state’s right to self-defense “supersedes any federal law to the contrary” following a Supreme Court ruling allowing federal agents to tear down razor-wire border barriers erected by state authorities.
Michael Yon joins Alex Jones to issue an emergency warning to those American and Texan patriots who wish to actively help protect the southern border.
Record Number of People in US Are Homeless Amid Continuing Surge in Rent Costs – Report
Housing costs have continued to soar in the US following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the wages in the US have not been able to keep up with those costs. As a result, the US is experiencing an unprecedented percentage of homelessness.
Rates of homelessness have increased in the US by 12% from the year 2022 to 2023, and have increased by 48% since 2015, according to a January 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. About 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023. That is the highest single year increase for rates of homelessness in the US.
“In the first years of the pandemic, renter protections, income supports and housing assistance helped stave off a considerable rise in homelessness. However, many of these protections ended in 2022, at a time when rents were rising rapidly and increasing numbers of migrants were prohibited from working. As a result, the number of people experiencing homelessness jumped by nearly 71,000 in just one year,” the report says.
Rising housing costs have contributed to the trend, as states with average housing costs have seen an accelerated growth following the COVID-19 pandemic as people fleeing overcrowded cities with high rent costs sought rural and suburban areas with lower home and rent prices—thus, ballooning the housing market.
The states of Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas have seen an increase in the number of unsheltered people in their state amid skyrocketing inflation that failed to keep up with workers’ wages.
“At last measure in 2022, a record-high 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. This is an increase of 2 million households over three years and entirely offsets the modest improvements in cost-burden rates recorded between 2014 and 2019,” the Harvard report says.
The Joint Center for Housing Studies found that those earning between $45,000 and $74,999 per year were hit the hardest from rising rent and were forced to—on average—spend 41% of their paycheck on rent and utilities.
“Rental markets are rapidly cooling after a period of significant overheating. Rent growth has almost completely stopped, following historically high rent increases in both 2021 and 2022,” the Harvard report adds. “While the slowdown is a welcome change for renters, asking rents still remain well above pre-pandemic levels.”
The median rent in the US was $1,964 in December of 2023, which is a 23% increase from before the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation-adjusted weekly earnings for the median worker rose just 1.7% between 2019 and 2023, according to government data.
In addition, the report found that 3.9 million renter households lived in homes that did not meet “basic standards for suitability and safety” in 2021. The median age of renter-occupied homes also reached the oldest of any other recorded time in 2021 at the age of 44.
According to the Harvard report, the Biden administration has made “additional federal resources available to reduce homelessness” which includes $3.1 billion through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program. But the report adds that more affordable housing and rent subsidies will be needed to prevent further homelessness. Steve Berg, the Chief Policy Officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, doesn’t believe politicians are doing enough to address the issue.
“The work done by Congress just is not coming to terms with this housing problem,” said Berg. “Mayors around the country are talking about this trend but then not really doing anything to make affordable housing easier to get.”
Michael Yon joins Alex Jones to issue an emergency warning to those American and Texan patriots who wish to actively help protect the southern border.
Struggling to Meet Recruiting Goals, US Navy Says High School Diploma No Longer Needed
The Navy was one of three branches of the US armed forces to announce they failed to meet their recruiting target last year.
The Navy is the latest branch of the United States’ armed forces to lower its recruitment standards after struggling to meet its yearly goals.
“We get thousands of people into our recruiting stations every year that want to join the Navy but do not have an education credential,” said the branch’s chief of personnel Vice Admiral Rick Cheeseman. “And we just turn them away.”
Now the Navy will accept some of those potential recruits lacking a high school diploma or GED, assuming they’re able to score 50 or above on a qualification test.
The move comes after the service previously lowered their qualification requirements in 2022, again amidst recruitment challenges. The Navy is the only branch of the US armed forces that admits applicants who score below 30 out of 100 on the qualification test. Officials say some positions, such as in maintenance or food preparation, don’t require a conventional education.
The change in policy likely won’t be enough to fully meet the Navy’s recruiting shortfall. The branch fell 5,866 recruits short of its goal last year, while Cheeseman estimates perhaps 500 of the applicants it turned away would immediately be able to score high enough on the exam. Still, the Navy hopes the revised policy will encourage more people to enlist, and that low-scoring applicants can eventually make the grade with proper training.
The US Air Force also reported failing to meet their recruiting goals last year, while the Army said they fell 15,000 short of their target. Only the Marine Corps and the fledgling Space Force hit their goals.
The recruitment problems come as the Biden administration recently announced talks to end the country’s 20-year military presence in Iraq. Biden presided over a chaotic pullout from Afghanistan in 2021. Polling shows Americans’ confidence in the country’s armed forces has reached a two decade low.
Michael Yon joins Alex Jones to issue an emergency warning to those American and Texan patriots who wish to actively help protect the southern border.
Debt Could Destroy US Economy – JP Morgan Boss
The US economy is heading towards disaster as the vast national debt continues to mount, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in an interview with Fox News earlier this week.
According to the chief executive of the nation’s largest bank, the situation urgently needs to be tackled by the government before it causes a major economic crisis.
“It is a cliff, we see the cliff,” Dimon said. “It’s about 10 years out, we’re going 60 miles an hour [toward it].”
The top executive agreed with the view of former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has called the snowballing debt “the most predictable crisis we’ve ever had.” The warnings were issued by Ryan and Dimon during a panel discussion at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Friday.
US government federal debt topped $34 trillion for the first time in history at the end of December. It now amounts to about $102,000 for an average American family of three. In 2023 alone, it grew by more than $4 trillion.
US total public debt is roughly equivalent to the economies of China, Germany, Japan, India, and the UK combined, as pointed out by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan fiscal policy group in New York.
Earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the absolute level of US public debt looks like “a scary number.”
“So far, that [the public debt] has been quite manageable,” she said, calling for steps “to make sure that our deficits come down and remain at manageable levels.”
The huge amount is comprised of what the federal government owes to creditors, including individuals, such as citizens and foreign investors, as well as states or large funds. Washington continues to borrow money to cover a budget deficit that has been running for more than 20 years.
Michael Yon joins Alex Jones to issue an emergency warning to those American and Texan patriots who wish to actively help protect the southern border.
Former UK PM Boris Johnson Claims He Would Sign Up To ‘Fight For King & Country’
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has issued a call to arms declaring he “would jolly well” join the British Army if Britain went to war with Russia. Bojo was backing calls from the military top […]
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