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China Strengthens Economic Ties In Asia Amid Trade War With US

April 17, 2025 Brasil De Fato, People's Dispatch. , , , , , ,
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday, April 15 for a highly anticipated state visit. With this move, Xi seeks to promote China as a reliable alternative to an escalating trade war with the United States. Xi embarked this week on a Southeast Asia tour that has already taken him to Vietnam and will also include Cambodia, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to US President Donald Trump’s punitive tariff regime. Xi said he was “looking forward to … further deepening the traditional friendship” between China and Malaysia, CCTV, a Chinese state broadcaster, reported. He said he would “have an in-depth exchange of views” in meetings with Anwar and king Sultan Ibrahim, according to CCTV.

Protesters Denounce ICE ‘Abduction’ Of Mohsen Mahdawi

April 16, 2025 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
On April 14, Palestinian Columbia University student and leading pro-Palestine activist Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by immigration agents as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship in Colchester, Vermont. Mahdawi is the second Palestinian Columbia University student activist to be kidnapped by immigration authorities, after Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest which has earned international attention as demands for his release grow. With Mahdawi’s detention, pro-Palestine groups have renewed calls to end Trump’s attacks on students and free speech.

Return Of The Robber Barons: Trump’s Distorted View Of US Tariff History

April 15, 2025 Michael Hudson, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , ,
Donald Trump’s tariff policy has thrown markets into turmoil among his allies and enemies alike. This anarchy reflects the fact that his major aim was not really tariff policy, but simply to cut income taxes on the wealthy, by replacing them with tariffs as the main source of government revenue. Extracting economic concessions from other countries is part of his justification for this tax shift as offering a nationalistic benefit for the United States. His cover story, and perhaps even his belief, is that tariffs by themselves can revive American industry. But he has no plans to deal with the problems that caused America’s deindustrialization in the first place.

In Trade War With The US, China Holds More Cards Than Trump May Think

April 15, 2025 Linggong Kong, Scheer Post. , , ,
When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China. While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%. The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s “lack of respect for global markets.” But the U.S. president may well have been smarting from Beijing’s apparent willingness to confront U.S. tariffs head on.

Trump Just Escalated His War On Coal Miners

April 15, 2025 Kim Kelly, In These Times. , , , , , , ,
President Donald Trump unveiled a new barrage of executive orders last week aimed at revitalizing the nation’s ​“beautiful clean coal” industry. But in reality, it’s already clear that his empty words will do no such thing. Flanked by burly white men outfitted in coal miners’ garb, the former reality TV star and failed real estate tycoon rhapsodized about his muddled plans to supercharge coal’s use and production, including scrapping environmental regulations that ​“undermine” its production and ensuring federal policy doesn’t ​“discriminate” against the fossil fuel industry. The astonishing impracticality of this plan did not appear in any way to be a factor in Trump’s decision, which was still applauded by people who should know better

Why Trump And Musk Ignore The Largest Money Laundering Scheme In Human History

April 14, 2025 Lee Camp, Scheer Post. , , ,
President Trump and Elon Musk will tell you they’re saving money for the US government and thereby the US taxpayer. The DOGE team have claimed that they have already cut out $65 billion of waste and fraud – equaling savings for the American people. Incredible! (I’m going to invest my cut of that money in an up-and-coming fad called “fidget spinners”.) Oh, I forgot to mention – Everything Musk has said is utterly false. “…some of the biggest errors in savings [announced by DOGE] are, as CBS first reported, a USAID contract for $650 million that was listed three times, as The Intercept first reported, a Social Security contract listed as $232 million, instead of $560,000, and an ICE contract that DOGE listed as $8 billion, when, in reality, it was $8 million.”

Tariffs – Trump Blinks Again

April 14, 2025 Moon Of Alabama. , ,
On Thursday President Trump pulled back on tariffs because a sell-off in treasuries threatened to develop into a serious economic catastrophe. Tariffs were reduced to 10% for most countries but China. (10% is still a lot higher than they were before Trump started his tariff onslaught.) The tariffs on products from China were raised to a total of 145%. The high China tariffs would inevitably lead to a steep raise of U.S. prices for consumer electronics which, at least partially, are nowadays coming from China. For big U.S. companies, foremost Apple, this would have entailed large losses. So Trump blinked again.

Cory Booker, Confused Liberals, Obama And The Dangers Of A Fake Movement

April 13, 2025 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
What kind of protest has Nancy Pelosi as a featured speaker? One that is connected to the Democratic Party and that by definition isn’t protesting anything important, which is why Nancy Pelosi appeared at a Hands Off rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania on April 5. She spoke predictably as a democratic member of congress would, saying that she wanted to protect the safety net , “Hands off our safety net. Hands off our medicaid. Hands off our medicare. Hands off our social security.” But those who have longer memories know that during the Obama administration she declared that social security was “on the table” for budget cut consideration.

Will Trump’s Tariffs Trigger A Second Great Depression?

April 12, 2025 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
That the Trump administration’s trade war will trigger a steep economic downturn in the U.S. is almost a foregone conclusion a week after the president announced sweeping new tariffs on imports. Last week, JP Morgan, the nation’s largest bank, estimated that there is a 60 percent chance of an imminent recession. That was followed by an announcement from Goldman Sachs, America’s second-largest investment bank, that its economists had raised the odds of a recession to 45 percent, representing the second time in a week that it has increased its forecast.

Labor Fights Back Against Trump’s Medical Care And Research Cuts

April 12, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Hundreds of organized workers, representing a variety of unions including the United Auto Workers (UAW), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the National Educational Association (NEA), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), among other groups, took to the streets in demonstrations across the country opposing planning Trump administration cuts to the National Institutes of Health.

Trump Advisor Reveals Tariff Strategy

April 11, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , ,
The top economic advisor to President Donald Trump has revealed that Washington is using tariffs as leverage to try to force countries to pay the United States to help it maintain its global empire. The chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran, delivered a speech on April 7 in which he outlined the Trump administration’s tariff strategy. An official transcript of his remarks was published by the White House. Miran claimed that the United States provides two main “global public goods”: one, a “security umbrella” overseen by the US military; and two, the dollar and Treasury securities, which are used as the main reserve asset in the international financial system.

China Retaliates With 84% Tariff As Trump’s Trade War Escalates

April 10, 2025 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
On Wednesday, April 9, Trump announced that he is raising the tariffs on China to 125%. Earlier that day, China raised its tariff on all American imports to 84% in response to the US raising the total tariffs on Chinese exports to 104% on Monday. The new rates will be effective from Thursday, the Chinese state council said in a brief statement. China also issued a white paper on Wednesday about its trade relations with the US. Published on the same day that Donald Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariffs” regime went into effect, the white paper refutes his claims of a massive trade deficit with China.

PATCO’s Lessons For This Crisis

April 10, 2025 Joseph A. McCartin, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Donald Trump’s March 27 executive order revoking the collective bargaining rights of more than 700,000 federal workers is the largest act of union-busting in U.S. history. The closest historical parallel is Ronald Reagan’s busting and decertification of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. When 12,000 air traffic controllers initiated an illegal strike on August 3, 1981, and stayed out in defiance of Reagan’s ultimatum, the federal government came down on them with all its might. Many PATCO leaders were arrested, the union was bankrupted and decertified, and the strikers were permanently replaced and banned for life from returning to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Tariff Blackmail Cannot Intimidate China

April 9, 2025 Friends of Socialist China. , , , ,
On Saturday 5 April, the Chinese government set out its position opposing the US’s unilateral imposition of tariffs on all its trading partners, including China. The statement correctly noted that these tariffs are in clear breach of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, and threaten to seriously disrupt the global economy. “Using tariffs as a tool of extreme pressure for selfish gain is a textbook example of unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying.” It’s clear that China is the main target of the US’s tariff blackmail, which is being used to undermine China’s growth, to force China to accept the US’s terms of trade, to bully other countries into siding with the US against China, and to punish China for its success in building a modern economy and its refusal to bow down to US hegemony.

Over 4,000 Factory Workers Laid Off As Tariffs Spark Economic Chaos

April 9, 2025 Alexis Sterling, NationofChange. , , , , ,
More than 4,000 American manufacturing workers lost their jobs this week, the latest evidence of mounting economic instability tied to former President Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Congressman Ro Khanna and labor leaders are raising urgent concerns as layoffs sweep across the industrial sector, hitting plants in more than a dozen states and leaving thousands of union workers without employment or clear prospects. Automaker Stellantis announced Thursday that it would temporarily lay off 900 workers in the United States due to production disruptions at its Canadian and Mexican facilities—disruptions directly linked to recently announced tariffs.
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