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Three wise monkeys are perfectly aware of what a pigeon posing as eagle is really up to.

The Toddler Temper Tantrum-style Trump Tariff Tizzy (TTT), now accelerated to 145% – and counting – is yet another thunderous trademark pigeon smashing the chessboard gambit.

It won’t work. Trump claimed that China would call him to “make a deal”. That’s reality show territory. Reality is more like the statement by the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council: “Given that U.S. exports to China already have no market acceptability under the current tariff rates, if the U.S. further imposes additional tariffs on Chinese goods, China will simply ignore them.”

Translation: keep vociferating/tariffing. We don’t care. And we will stop buying from you. Anything.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry: A “tariff-wielding barbarian can never expect a call from China.”

Basic numbers. China’s GDP for 2025 is projected at 5%. U.S. imports account for at best 4% of Chinese GDP. China’s share of total exports to the U.S. dropped to 13.4 per cent in 2024.

Goldman Sachs – not exactly a CCP “mouthpiece” – has just projected that TTT will cost China only 0.5% of GDP in 2025, while costing no less than 2% of U.S. GDP. Talk about blowback.

Still, from now on, what matters most for Beijing is to keep diversifying the supply chain.

Asia-wide, the extra wheels are in motion. President Xi Jinping will soon start an ASEAN mini-tour (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia). The Shanghai Cooperation Organization – increasingly focused on geoeconomics – is about to meet. The EU, for all the mendacity of its “elites”, is absolutely itching to strike trade deals with China.

Zhao Minghao, deputy director at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University, in Shanghai, refers to the current incandescence as “a game of strategic resolve.”

Previously, the eminent Wang Yiwei, international relations star professor at Renmin University in Beijing and an expert on the New Silk Roads, noted that the current tariff rate already made China’s exports to the U.S. “almost impossible”.

This analysis noted how China started to deal with TTT with a “courtesy before force” approach, then turned to “we don’t care”, while cultivating “the art of timing” in its asymmetric attack on U.S. stocks.

A fascinating window on the real wheels of Chinese trade is offered by a timely visit to the vast Yiwu International Trade City,

the largest concentration of small traders on the planet.

Less than 10% of Yiwu’s phenomenal amount of business involves the U.S. Among the 75,000 business operators in Yiwu Small Commodity City, only a little over 3,000 do business with the U.S.

Two Sinophobes meet one mirage

TTT is largely the product of two crude Team Trump arrogant/ignorant Sinophobes, economic advisor Peter Navarro and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who know less than zero about all things China.

In fact it was Bessent who right at the start gave the game away:

“This was driven by the president’s strategy… You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors, and we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.”

A crude trap. With the sole focus on China. That had nothing to do with the initial tawdry plot line: tariffs, Mafia-style, on most of the planet, penguins included. If you don’t retaliate, fine. If you do, we hit harder.

of the so-called “Miran mirage” – after Trump’s alleged economic brain Stephen Miran. What is actually happening, fast, bypassing the stupid notion that tariffs will be paid for by current depreciation elsewhere (see Miran’s white paper here), is the uncontrolled demolition of the U.S. as a world trade center.

Asked why he paused the tariffs, Trump answered: “I thought people were jumping a bit out of line. They were getting a little bit yipee. They were getting afraid.”

Nonsense. Trump cannot possibly admit on the record that the U.S. oligarchy, Jamie Dimon and co., freaked out big time; and that, plus the debacle in the bond market, forced him to backtrack.

Nobody in neoliberal heaven and earth can mess with the Goddess of the Market.

As for the long-term strategy of several nations of the Global Majority caught in TTT’s crossfire hurricane, not to mention big players like China and the EU, they will all avidly reduce their dependence on U.S. markets.

Once again, the elaborate “deal” offered by Trump and his illiterate advisors boiled down to a Mafioso “offer you can’t refuse”: blow up, or significantly diminish, your trade with China – the largest trading partner of nearly all of these nations – and trade with Exceptionalistan, plus 10% tariffs. To hell with your economic sovereignty and strategic flexibility. Once again: it’s our way or the – tariff – highway.

Reality instead will dictate that the U.S. will increasingly import Chinese products from third countries – while China will continue to get paid for it. China will export even more to ASEAN and other Global Majority actors.

As it stands, Trump’s “plan” – if there is any – remains to “stabilize” his allies while concentrating all the firepower on China, in theory to drive China’s complex supply chains to chaos and force companies to move production lines to, for example, Vietnam or India.

Shakedown leading to breakdown

China containment will be on overdrive. Expect a tsunami of technological restrictions, investment red lines and, of course, extra sanctions. Sinophobe Bessent does not rule out delisting Chinese stocks from U.S. exchanges: “I think everything’s on the table (…) That will be President Trump’s decision.”

Beijing, for its part, can easily go nuclear, deciding for a sell-off of its U.S. Treasuries en masse, with catastrophic cascading consequences. As of January, Beijing held $760 billion in U.S. debt. With a delightful diplomatic touch, Yang Panpan and Xu Qiuyan, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, note that what happens next with U.S. Treasury bonds remains “highly uncertain”.

Bridgewater billionaire investor Ray Dalio, for his part, while incisive, was also heavy on diplomacy: “We are seeing a classic breakdown of the major monetary, political and geopolitical orders.”

There’s no more “cooperative world order” led by the U.S. (in fact that was anything but cooperative”); Dalio at least recognizes the unilateralism manifest in “the U.S.-led trade-war, geopolitical war, technology war, and, in some cases, military wars.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian de facto synthesized Beijing’s position. No more Mr. Nice Guy, which was the default Chinese position until recently: if the U.S. insists on fighting a tariff war and a trade war, China will fight to the end.

So here we are. And once again, it’s the Empire of Chaos against BRICS.

The Empire of Chaos embarks on a hot geoeconomics war against its peer competitor China; contemplates a hot military war against sovereign Iran; and at the same time tries to appease nuclear/hypersonic power Russia into a sort of hazy deal to somewhat freeze the Forever War by proxy in Ukraine.

The new Primakov triangle, RIC (Russia-Iran-China) is perfectly aware of these moves. Putin had metaphorically characterized the Russian position in the U.S.-China trade war when he mentioned that the Chinese have a good proverb: when tigers fight in the valley, the smart monkey sits and watches how it ends.

Now is more the case of three wise monkeys perfectly aware of what a pigeon posing as eagle is really up to.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The post Why China Won’t Call a ‘Tariff-Wielding Barbarian’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trump gives in to the military/security complex, renews weapons to Ukraine and extends sanctions on Russia for a year.

On April 10 Trump declared a continuation of the national emergency with Russia and renewed President Biden’s April 2021 executive order declaring Russia to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the United States.”

By renewing Biden’s executive order, Trump even buys into the Russiagate charges against himself:

Among the “harmful” activities ascribed to Russia in the document are “efforts to undermine the conduct of free and fair democratic elections and democratic institutions in the United States and its allies and partners.”

Russia is also blamed for a Washington specialty:  “undermining security of countries and and violating principles of international law.”

Trump has already cluttered the peace negotiations with his demand for Ukrainian rare earth minerals.  Now he has introduced another extraneous issue–his demand for control of the pipeline through which Russian natural gas is delivered to Europe.  Yes, Putin is still supplying Russia’s active enemies with energy.  What sense does it make to help your enemies make war against you?

The Kremlin remains unable to read the writing on the wall.  Kremlin spokesman Peskov said that “our dialogue with the American side is ongoing,” and that Moscow remains open to resolving the Ukraine conflict diplomatically.  The Kremlin thinks it is building relations with Washington by being the only party to keep the ceasefire on energy infrastructure. It is not succeeding.  Trump has already threatened Russia with more sanctions unless Russia agrees to a total ceasefire.  What incentive does Russia have to do that when Zelensky? US? NATO? won’t even keep a partial ceasefire?

It leaves one to wonder if Putin has convinced Washington that he is so averse to war that he will eventually surrender.

It is now completely clear that Putin made a strategic mistake not to quickly win the conflict. Instead, the Kremlin valued reaching an agreement with the West higher than it valued Russian national defense. See this.

The post Trump Backs Away From Improving Relations With Russia appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump says he want to “go back, probably, to a 2020 standard” as regards federal mandatory miles-per-gallon edicts – the latter being the right word because it’s the honest word.

A “standard” is an objective value of some kind, used to evaluate whether a given thing rises to that standard. Federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) “standards,” on the other hand, are nothing more than the federal government decreeing that all new vehicles must average an arbitrarily laid down minimum miles-per-gallon. Those that do not average say 35 miles per gallon – the standard in force in 2020 – are considered “noncompliant” and their manufacturer is punished for this via fines that are imposed for offering such “noncompliant” cars for sale.

Note the offering part.

It often – it almost always – passes without comment that no one is forced to buy a vehicle that does not average 35 MPG. People are free not to. But they aren’t free to buy a vehicle that averages less than 35 MPG in that it’s not “free” when you’re made to pay more for something. Sure, you can buy a new car with a six cylinder engine. But you probably can’t afford to – because CAFE fines have made six-cylinder-powered cars luxury-priced cars and most of them no longer come standard with sixes anymore, either.

The fundamental discussion about whether the federal government has any legitimate business decreeing how many miles-per-gallon new vehicles must deliver is the one that needs to happen.

Trump’s comment to John Elkann, the new chairman of Stellantis, about “going back, probably, to a 2020 standard” is of a piece with the promises of Republicans to “mend” – but not end – Social Security and to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. With – of course – a Republic version of Obamacare. Statism always advances. Its “retreats” – when they occur – are merely slower advances.

Trump was correct when he told Elkann that the federal fuel economy fatwas – which have been framed as being as much about “emissions” (of the dread gas carbon dioxide) as about gas mileage – don’t “mean a damn bit of difference for the environment” but wrong when he added that they “make it impossible for people build cars.”

Not so.

CAFE just makes it hard to sell vehicles that are not devices – i.e., electric or partially electric vehicles – and engines that are larger than small fours. They make it extremely expensive to offer for sale large vehicles with large engines. There are plenty of medium-small look-alike crossovers with one-point-something (maybe two-point-o) liter engines available. These are the ones that are “compliant” with the 2020 standards – and these are the ones we’ll continue to get if Trump “goes back” to the 2020 standards.

Trump himself understands this. “We’re going to be bringing it back to a standard that is a very good environmental standard, but it makes it possible to build a car,” he said.

So there you go.

And note the part about the “very good environmental standard.” It suggests Trump agrees that there ought to be “standards” – just more reasonable ones (according to his standard).

We are supposed to be grateful that Trump is opposed to the near-doubling of the 2020 standard – to about 50 miles-per-gallon – that was decreed by the Scranton Sniffer. This “standard” would have effectively forced the manufacturers to make almost nothing other than electric and partially electric cars – because those are the only kinds of vehicles that can be made to average 50 MPG. It would still be legal to sell vehicles with engines – even V8s – but they would become so expensive (as a result of CAFE fines) as to be available only to the small handful of people in a position to be able to afford them.

Read the Whole Article

The post Less Is Still Too Much appeared first on LewRockwell.

There can be no justification at all for the view expressed widely in the twentieth century and into our own, that the very existence of truth is contingent on somehow being able to define the term in human languages for a group of people! This astounding exercise in hubris tries to make us believe that “your truth” or “my truth” is always relative and is dependant upon the finite workings of the mortal organ known as the human brain!

Immortal and absolute truth that lies beyond the ability of our finite minds to fully grasp is actually a much more rational conclusion. Such a conclusion also acknowledges the fact that inherent within all of  us is the moral code and ethic that is written in the stars and in our hearts and which in some parts of the world is referred to as “conscience”.

As the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote, “two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”

The latter has a lively existence in cultures as diverse as the geographies from which they hail. Nor is it resident only after a period of learning has embedded it in our minds. Rather, as an entity that has its independent existence in the consciousness of all those that belong to the fraternity of nations, it has surprised many readers of comparative history and literature with its essential unity.

For, separated as they are by oceans and mountains and land and sea, these people of varying hue and shape have aspired broadly to a set of rules which are remarkable in their consistency from time to time and place to place.  These rules may or may not be called “truth” and may or may not all be expressed in similar terms by those who recorded their history, but where in the histories of all these peoples have valour and selflessness and honour and gentleness and kindness not been held up as beacon lights for the aspiring soul?

And we can all sense, if we will, that the workings of science and the unraveling of beauty in poetry and dance and song are truth. The images of the stars that we can now gaze at if only from a distance is also truth.

There cannot be a rigid confinement of truth to a particular time and place. To impose such a rigidity would be to impose a limitation upon truth and truth thus fettered would not belong to eternity, but rather to a confined time, a restricted space. It was not made to be limited in this way. Rather it administers its transcendent judgements from the portals of the forever and may thus encompass all times and all places within its realm. It straddles the heavens, but is able to descend to the deep recesses of our infinitesimal lives. It ministers to the heavenly bodies and keeps them in tow, and yet can minister equally well, perhaps better, to our souls. It is at once mightily clad with splendor and clothed in beggar’s garb.

As witnessed by the turbulent, unsettled lives of the existential philosophers for example, the pursuit of truth can be a frightening thing both for the pursuer and for those who are around him or her at the time. Such a pursuit is not like pursuing a wild beast, not even a dangerous wild beast, not even one which may turn round and attack the pursuer; all these are tame perils compared to the benevolent peril of being pursued at every turn by the very thing you seek to pursue. Truth can be a relentless pursuer of those who seek it out – and it can stretch like a mighty and encompassing shadow over the pursuer as he speeds across the wilderness in search of the thing that in fact lurks always at his shoulder. The English poet Francis Thompson’s magnificent, tender, poem, “The Hound of Heaven” describes God as the Truth, as the pursuer, the hound: (excerpts):

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me’.

Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateway of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;
With thy young skiey blossom heap me over
From this tremendous Lover—
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat—
‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’

Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noisèd Feet
A voice comes yet more fleet—
‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me.’

Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou has hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.

‘Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),
‘And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited—
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’

Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’

The Gospels describe the trial of Christ at the palace of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Pilate questions Jesus and in the traditions of Greece and its progeny, Rome, he had likely thought long and hard, with the poets and the philosophers, about truth and its meaning. When he asked Jesus Christ “what is truth?”, perhaps he was hoping to get a final answer to his own doubts and fears about the meaning of truth.

In this detail of the painting by the celebrated Hungarian painter Mihály Munkácsy, Pilate is pensive, reflective, fearful, perplexed, transfixed:

The eternal and the temporal became one in the person of Jesus Christ. This is the majestic significance of the words – “the Word became flesh – and lived among us.”  The nature of truth as we can know it and the nature of the person of Christ have so many things in common that only the deliberate denier can miss asking the question – is Jesus the Truth? Do all the quests of the centuries find their final fulfilment in Jesus?

When Pilate questioned Christ, he received no answer. Instead Pilate was invited silently, to witness the life that he was now trying – how it had lived out its time on earth, and to make up his own mind as to whether that Life was Truth itself.  Perhaps Pilate realized that it was. Hence the scripture records – “and Pilate marvelled at his silence.”

In what the great French artist Gustave Doré, called “the work of his life”, (the painting “Christ Leaving The Praetorium,”) the trial of Christ is over and He is leaving the Roman governor’s palace (praetorium). He is about to bear His own Cross to the hill called Calvary – there to be crucified for you, for me. Even in the painting, a poor imitation though it must be of the most momentous, the most consequential trial in human history, it is resplendently obvious that Jesus is indeed the Truth. As Jesus leaves the praetorium, it must have been obvious to Pilate too:

This originally appeared on Francis Christian’s Essays.

The post What Is Truth? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

Brought to you by Rockefeller/Carnegie in 1934 to create a NWO by dumbing down our children through the.school system from Grade 1.

See here.

The post Brainwashing Our Children appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

Here’s a clue: When was Pope Francis “elected”?

See here.

The post Who is the largest NGO recipient of USAID from 2013-2022? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Gail Appel:

She is a college freshman at the University of Connecticut , majoring in “Public Policy”.

Given her exceptional qualifications, I imagine sitting on a bus bench holding a tin cup is considered “ Public Policy”. Or collecting a welfare check and food stamps.

See here.

The post Graduated HS With Honors-Can’t Read Or Write appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

NBC News

The post 130 Jewish Georgetown members slam Trump for ‘weaponizing’ faith in Badar Khan Suri arrest appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

FOX Business

The post Here’s how China could retaliate against US tariffs appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Ben Bartee

The post Public Health™ Criminals Convene For Wildly Delusional Circle-Jerk appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

The Daily Beast

The post Trump Backs Conservative Author Who Confronted Joe Rogan to His Face appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm. 

The Daily Signal

The post FEC Investigating Rep. Jasmine Crockett on ActBlue Donations appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm

LeoHohmann.com

The post DNI head Tulsi Gabbard drops bombshell: U.S. elections open to being tampered with due to compromised electronic voting machines appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

Bill Maher Reveals How His Perception of President Trump Changed After Eating Dinner With Him: 

Bill Maher says his “mind was blown” to come to the realization that Trump is much more self-aware and personable than he ever imagined.

“Everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent,” Maher said.

“He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public. Look, I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking as a positive that this person exists, because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent.

“At least on this night with this guy, Bob, Kid Rock told me the night before, he said, ‘If you want to get a word in edgewise, you’re going to have to cut him off. He’ll just go on.’ Not at all. I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected.

“People who don’t look you in the eye, people who don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing. People whose response to things you say just doesn’t track. Like what? None of that with him. And he mostly steered the conversation to, ‘What do you think about this?’

“I know your mind is blown. So is mine.”

Mr. Maher Goes to Washington | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

The post Bill Maher Reveals How His Perception of President Trump Changed After Eating Dinner With Him: “My Mind Was Blown” appeared first on LewRockwell.

David Martin wrote:

Will the Trump administration try to deport Alice Irby for undermining “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United Stares”?

Pressed for evidence against Mahmoud Khalil, government cites its power to deport people for beliefs 

A Country They Own 

The post “A Country They Own” Hits 100k appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm. 

Gateway Pundit

The post British Author Tries to Shame Joe Rogan Into Deplatforming Anti-War Voices appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Mises.org

The post The Overpopulation Fallacy: Why More People Means More Knowledge and Prosperity appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click here:

John Leake

The post Congress of Dissidents in Cambridge appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Ben Bartee

The post USAID’s Epic Failed Venture in Vietnam appeared first on LewRockwell.

The late Charlotte Iserbyt was the consummate whistleblower! Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America’s classrooms.

Charlotte T. Iserbyt, 91 of Dresden, passed away at her home on the afternoon of February 8, 2022.  Born in New York on October 26, 1930, she was the daughter of Clifton and Charlotte (Thomson), and the wife of the late Jan Iserbyt.

Iserbyt’s father and grandfather were Yale University graduates and members of the Skull and Bones secret society.

Iserbyt was a former school board director in Camden, Maine and was co-founder and research analyst of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM) from 1978 to 2000. She has also served in the American Red Cross on Guam and Japan during the Korean War, and in the United States Foreign Service in Belgium and in the Republic of South Africa.

Iserbyt was a speaker and writer, best known for her 1985 booklet Back to Basics Reform or OBE: Skinnerian International Curriculum and her 1989 pamphlet Soviets in the Classroom: America’s Latest Education Fad which covered the details of the U.S.-Soviet and Carnegie-Soviet Education Agreements which remain in effect to this day.

A prolific writer, Ms. Iserbyt authored two books, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America…A Chronological Paper Trail in 1999, which alleges that changes gradually brought into the American public education system work to eliminate the influences of a child’s parents and mold the child into a member of the proletariat in preparation for a socialist-collectivist world of the future. She also wrote three editions of Back to Basics Reform or…OBE*Skinnerian International Curriculum between 1985 and 2003 and Back to Basics Reform, which documents her experiences working in the U.S. Department of Education, where she was privy to past and future plans to restructure American education.

Ms. Iserbyt contributed numerous articles to professional journals and newspapers. She was a freelance writer and had articles published in Human Events, The Washington Times, The Bangor Daily News, and included in the record of Congressional hearings.

The post The Secret History of Western Education – The Scientific Destruction of Minds – Charlotte Iserbyt appeared first on LewRockwell.