China again weaponizes control over rare earths to advance interests, as U.S. looks to break free - Kevin Killough

 

by Kevin Killough

China regularly leverages its control over the rare earth market to shut down competition or advance its interests in disputes with the U.S. Each action increases the interest in developing domestic sources of the vital minerals.

 

China has implemented an export ban on several rare-earth minerals, the latest volley in the country's ongoing trade war with the U.S. The Communist Party-led country produces the vast bulk of the world’s rare-earth minerals, which are used in a range of electronics, electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and, perhaps most importantly, defense applications. 

According to the Brookings Institution, China controls 60% of the global production of the 17 minerals classified as rare earths, and it holds 85% of the world’s processing power. The country's ban Friday is not the first time China has used its dominance of these vital minerals as leverage over the U.S. Last December, China banned the export of gallium, germanium and antimony in response to the Biden administration’s crackdown on China’s semiconductor industry. 

Joshua Ballard, CEO of USA Rare Earth, told Just the News that to stifle competition from companies looking to develop rare earth resources independent of China, the country will flood the market or produce a mineral so cheap it’s no longer economical for their competitors. Other experts have made the same claim. 

“We have to make a strategic decision about how we're going to support the economic viability of mines here in the U.S.,” Ballard said. 

Securing sources

China’s latest export ban applies to samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium, Reuters reported, and the ban includes magnets and other finished products. It comes after President Donald Trump imposed a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, though he later exempted phones, computers and chips. 

Since taking office, Trump has had a strong interest in developing rare earth sources outside of China. He tried to secure a rare earths deal last month with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and he’s taken a keen interest in Greenland, which has potential sources of critical minerals. 

Trump also signed an executive order last month that aims to secure domestic production of these minerals. The order invokes the Defense Production Act, which grants the president a wide range of authorities to influence the domestic industrial base in the interest of national security. Among other things, the order also expedites federal permitting for mineral production projects, and it empowers agencies to use un-allocated funds to facilitate domestic mineral production. 

Challenging economics

Getting there, however, would take more than an executive order. Ballard explains that developing a mine begins with a lot of engineering to develop a flow sheet that outlines how the ore will be mined and processed. Then there’s a pre-feasibility study, which is done by an outside group to objectively determine the economics of the mine. Next is a demonstration plant, which proves the flow sheet before the project is scaled up to full production. A more detailed feasibility study is then engineered, and finally the mine gets built. 

Ballard said he’s confident USA Rare Earth can get through the flow sheet and pre-feasibility study. The challenge, which he said applies to all mines in the U.S., is that it’s very hard to mine economically in America, especially when China can influence the global market price. 

The processing technology is also a challenge. Each deposit, Ballard explained, has a different composition of minerals, requiring different technologies to access the rare earths or whatever mineral the company is trying to mine. There’s currently one rare earth mining operation in the U.S., the Mountain Pass Mine in California, about 50 miles southwest of Las Vegas. It includes a processing facility. With such a small industry in America, Ballard said, the U.S. lacks a wide pool of technical expertise in rare earth processing from which to draw. 

USA Rare Earth is developing a processing demonstration about 85 miles southeast of El Paso, Texas. The company has been working on it for three years, and Ballard said they expect to have a demonstration plant in the next couple of years. 

“We're moving pretty quick now, but it took us a couple of years of walking around in the dark. Then we hit pay dirt, and things are starting to move a little faster,” Ballard said. 

Federal support

However, establishing a new industry is a high-risk venture, Ballard said. Typically, companies want a 20% return on a mine, but with the economics of mining in the U.S., Ballard said they might get 5% or 10%. Ultimately, to bring this new industry to fruition, he said, it will take federal support. 

“The government can help shore it up. We can look at ways that we can either create stable pricing or somehow leverage so we bring down operating costs. It's going to take us a few years to get all this worked out. How do we create that scenario where you don't walk away from a deposit like ours, which basically solves the export control problem, at least here in the U.S.?” Ballard asked.

David Hammond, a mineral economist with decades of experience as a mining consultant, told Just the News that it’s unlikely many of these minerals will ever be mined economically in the U.S. He proposed the federal government fund a guaranteed buying price. That would ensure that, regardless of anything China does, mining companies in the U.S. would have a market for their product. This would make attracting investors much easier. 

Such a program wouldn’t require a lot of funding due to the small quantities needed to satisfy domestic demand. For example, in 2022, Hammond said, the U.S. consumed 25,000 tons of antimony, representing 25% of global usage. That would fit on a single Panamax bulk carrier shipping freighter. 

There are also permitting and legal challenges, on top of the engineering challenges, that make the timelines for developing new mines 10 to 20 years. But if the economics worked out, experts say, the U.S. could break free from Chinese control of the market.

“We should all be thinking about: How do we stand up this industry? This stuff is really important for all of us, and for our defense. We need to figure it out,” Ballard said. 

 
Kevin Killough

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/china-again-weaponizes-control-over-rare-earths-advance-interests-us-looks

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Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Mahmoud Khalil Has Got to Go! - Robert Spencer

 

by Robert Spencer

May there be many more deportations like his.

 

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The Trump administration and all patriotic Americans won a big victory recently when a judge ruled that pro-Hamas agitator Mahmoud Khalil, who has become the latest hater of America to become a darling of the left, can lawfully be deported.

It was a classic case of the leftist media giving the public a false impression, and of a judge, along with that same media, once again underestimating the Trump administration. The establishment media has been hysterically insisting for weeks now that Khalil was in danger in being deported solely because he expressed views that Trump and his administration disliked. Leftist propagandists — that is, the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, and the rest — have been claiming that Khalil is the victim of a dictator-in-the-making who wants to destroy the freedom of speech.

And so, Judge Jamee E. Comans, a Louisiana immigration judge, peremptorily gave the federal government exactly 24 hours to provide her with its evidence against Khalil. If she deemed this evidence to be insufficient, she said, “then I am going to terminate the case on Friday.” Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s large army of attorneys, claimed that “the government has not produced a single shred of evidence to date to support any of its allegations or charges in this case including its outrageous position that Mahmoud’s mere presence and activities in this country have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

After seeing the evidence that the government provided, however, on Friday, Comans did not terminate the case against Khalil. Instead, she ruled that Khalil could indeed be deported. The Associated Press reported that Comans “said at the conclusion of a hearing in Jena that the government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed ‘potentially serious foreign policy consequences’ was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation. Comans said the government had ‘established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable.’”

As you no doubt expect, this isn’t the end of the matter: “Lawyers for Khalil are expected to appeal. And a federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil’s removal from the country.” Nonetheless, the fact that Comans ruled in the administration’s favor is a massive triumph for Trump in his efforts to restore sanity to immigration policy and remove from the country all those who take advantage of America’s hospitality and generosity to work against its interests.

Khalil, according to AP, “isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The government, however, has said that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for expressing views that the administration considers to be antisemitic and ‘pro-Hamas,’ referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.”

This is actually quite clear in American law regarding green card holders such as Mahmoud Khalil. U.S. Code § 1182states that “any alien” who is “a representative” of “a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity” is “inadmissible.” U.S. Code § 1227 adds that such an alien “is deportable.” The Associated Press described Khalil on March 10 as one of the “student leaders of Columbia University Apartheid Divest” (CUAD). The Washington Post reported on March 18 that “No one disputes that Khalil was the face of Columbia University Apartheid Divest.”

In Aug. 2024, CUAD posted this on Instagram, then removed it once it started getting noticed among the sane: “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.” Also, during the anti-Israel protests at Columbia, the demonstrators screamed“Death to America.”

Khalil’s case thus should have been a simple, open-and-shut affair, were it not for the fact that it became useful to the left in its efforts to hamstring Trump’s efforts to halt and reverse their open-borders, bring-the-whole-world-here policies. Because Khalil was a campus agitator at Columbia University, his case offered the left the added benefit of being plausibly, albeit not quite accurately, described as based solely on the opinions he expressed. As such, it became a key weapon in efforts to portray Trump as a would-be dictator who was trampling upon the Constitution and destroying the freedom of speech.

There are, however, actual differences in how American law applies to citizens and to non-citizens. In a memo submitted to the court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows for the deportation of foreigners whose presence in this country “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” The law allows for the deportation of people who, by being on American soil, would “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” Rubio explains that Khalil’s continued agitation at Columbia would “undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.

When the administration began its efforts to deport Khalil, President Trump wrote: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”

The deportation of Mahmoud Khalil is a good beginning. May there be many more like it.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 28 books, including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad, The History of Jihad, and The Critical Qur’an. His latest book is Muhammad: A Critical Biography. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/hey-hey-ho-ho-mahmoud-khalil-has-got-to-go/

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Federal agency refers New York AG Letitia James to DOJ for prosecution for alleged mortgage fraud - John Solomon

 

by John Solomon

Referral comes from U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, complete with supporting evidence.

 

The federal government's main housing loan agency has referred New York Attorney General Letitia James, a longtime nemesis of President Donald Trump, to the U.S. Justice Department for possible prosecution over alleged mortgage fraud, according to a letter obtained by Just the News.

William J. Pulte, the director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), made the referral Monday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche, and attached evidence he said corroborated earlier media reports alleging irregularities in a series of loans James obtained, including for a property in Virginia.

"In the course of exercising U.S. Federal Housing’s authority under the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, U.S. Federal Housing has identified matters that are appropriate for referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for consideration of criminal prosecution," Pulte wrote.

"Based on media reports, Ms. Letitia James has, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire government-backed assistance and loans and more favorable loan terms," the letter added. "This has potentially included 1) falsifying residence status for a Norfolk, Virginia-based home in order to secure a lower mortgage rate and 2) misrepresenting property descriptions to meet stringent requirements for government backed loans and government assistance."

You can read the letter here. Just The News has not included the attached exhibits because they appear to contain personal financial data.

FHFALetitiaJamesReferralLetter.pdf

The referral cites two transactions believed to be potentially fraudulent.

In the first, James purchased a property in Norfolk, Va., two years ago and indicated it was her primary residence even though she was serving full-time in New York as the attorney general, Pulte alleged.

“On August 30 and 31, 2023, through her attorney, Ms. James purchased this property in Norfolk, VA. In a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Form 3047 and in mortgage documents, she reaffirmed this would be her primary residence, despite being a statewide public office holder in the state of New York at that same time and primarily residing in the state of New York,” the letter stated.

In the second instance, James was accused of understating the number of housing units in a property she owned in Brooklyn in an apparent attempt to get it treated with a better mortgage interest rate, the letter alleged.

“It appears that Ms. James may have listed the Brooklyn, NY property as four units instead of five units in order to meet the conforming loan requirements, and thus receive better interest rates,” Pulte wrote. “Ms. James also appears to have used this same falsification in order to receive mortgage assistance through” a program known as Home Assistance Modification Program (HAMP).

“Ms. James, for both properties listed above, appears to have falsified records in order to meet certain lending requirements and receive favorable loan terms,” he added.

James isn’t the first prominent Democrat to face accusations of mortgage fraud. A federal jury in 2024 convicted former Baltimore City State Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby on a charge she falsified a mortgage application for a Florida property purchase while serving as a Maryland prosecutor.

But James is by far the most prominent Trump nemesis to face potential federal investigation. She has sued him several times to oppose his policies as president and sued him as a private citizen for a $464 million civil fraud judgment involving his company.

In a social post earlier this week, Trump renewed his calls for James to resign as New York's top law enforcement officials.

"Letitia James, a totally corrupt politician, should resign from her position as New York State Attorney General, IMMEDIATELY," he wrote on Truth Social. "Everyone is trying to MAKE NEW YORK GREAT AGAIN, and it can never be done with this wacky crook in office."

 
John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/federal-agency-refers-new-york-ag-letitia-james-doj-prosecution

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Student visas emerge as Washington’s leverage against foreign adversaries - Ben Whedon

 

by Ben Whedon

Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. has already begun revoking visas for pro-Palestinian organizers and international students who joined with them, but the administration now appears to be mulling similar actions against students from other nations.

 

As the U.S. struggles to attract concessions from adversarial nations, Washington appears ready to use those nations’ people within its borders on a visa as an apparent source of leverage.

Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. has already begun revoking visas for pro-Palestinian organizers and international students who joined with them, but the administration now appears to be mulling similar actions against other nations.

The case of former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, whom authorities moved to deport after his leadership of an anti-Israel demonstration, appears to have emboldened the administration in its efforts. Despite public backlash, an immigration judge last week ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had the authority to make a determination on his deportation.

Rubio has argued that Khalil could face deportation because his “beliefs, statements or associations undermine U.S. policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”

Khalil’s deportation came as part of a nationwide crackdown on antisemitism amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which has seen the administration threaten to pull federal funding from universities that fail to comply with Washington’s demands. But the visa revocations appear poised to go beyond the Israel-Palestine issue and are evidently on the table for Ukraine, China, and other nations with which the U.S. is engaged in diplomatic spats. With China fighting hard against U.S. tariffs and Ukraine resistant to ceasefire negotiations, both nations could conceivably see their citizens ejected from the U.S.

Ukrainians potential targets for deportation

The United States is currently home to an estimated 300,000 Ukrainian refugees who arrived after the start of the Ukraine War. That figure includes roughly 190,000 who entered under the United for Ukraine program while the remainder arrived through other methods. This figure does not include Ukrainians who secured visas before the war.

The official Instagram of the United States embassy in Kyiv on Monday posted clips to its story stating to viewers that it had revoked their visas and they were required to leave. The cryptic post was attributed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and featured messages such as “your visa is expired”, “your visa is revoked”, “you have to leave”, and “visiting America is a privilege, not a right.” Just the News has sought comment from the State Department on the matter.

The post comes as Trump has expressed frustration with the Ukrainian government and President Volodymyr Zelensky as he works to broker a peace to the Russo-Ukrainian War. Trump initially promised to end the war in the first 24 hours but has thus far been unsuccessful.

“President Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past. Now we have to get it to STOP, AND FAST. SO SAD!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.

Momentum against Chinese student visas

The ongoing trade war, moreover, has close advisors to the president mulling the withdrawal of Chinese student visas, of which the United States grants more than 300,000 annually. Donald Trump Jr. last week appeared to lend support to what he called a “great idea” when responding to a post suggesting Trump revoke the Chinese visas.

Under the first Trump administration, the State Department revoked roughly 1,000 Chinese visas over espionage and security concerns. A broader revocation amid the tariff standoff, moreover, has gained momentum in Congress as well, with Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.V., introducing legislation to stop the government from issuing student visas to Chinese nationals. Moore himself did not directly link his move to the tariff row, but reiterated ongoing security concerns from the increasingly tense relationship between Washington and Beijing.

“Every year we allow nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals to come to the U.S. on student visas. We’ve literally invited the CCP to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security,” he said. “Just last year, the FBI charged five Chinese nationals here on student visas after they were caught photographing joint US-Taiwan live-fire military exercises. This cannot continue. Congress needs to end China’s exploitation of our student visa program. It’s time we turn off the spigot and immediately ban all student visas going to Chinese nationals.”

So far, the China trade standoff shows no sign of ending in the near future, with Beijing holding firm despite the administration’s imposition of 125% tariffs. "At the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for U.S. goods exported to China. If the U.S. continues to play the tariff numbers game, China will ignore it,” The Chinese Finance Ministry said in a statement this week. “However, if the U.S insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China's interests, China will resolutely counterattack and fight to the end."

Immigration judge says Palestinian support a legal basis for deportation 

As of late March, the State Department had revoked at least 300 student visas for those who participated in pro-Palestine protests. The Trump administration has taken a decidedly more pro-Israel stance than the Biden administration, under which pro-Palestinian demonstrations thrived across Ivy League campuses. Many of those protesters openly support Hamas, and last year the Department of the Treasury told NBC News that a pro-Hamas organization that helped organize protests on American college campuses is a “sham charity” that fundraises for a terrorist group. 

The current White House, however, has begun to view the demonstrations as manifestations of support for terrorism and used federal immigration authority as a means of cracking down directly. "We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree — not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses," Rubio said at the time. "If we've given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we're gonna take it away."

The Khalil case proved a deciding moment for this initiative after the judge determined that the Department could deport him on that basis. Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans specifically found that evidence of Khalil’s beliefs was sufficient for the State Department to seek his removal, CNN reported. The finding could conceivably embolden the administration to move forward with additional deportations on the basis of combating antisemitism.

 
Ben Whedon

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/wedstudent-visas-emerge-washingtons-leverage-against-foreign-adversaries

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Despite massive cutbacks, US remains committed to foreign aid, State Dept says - Mike Wagenheim

 

by Mike Wagenheim

“Foreign aid is not a carrot or a stick in negotiations. If it’s needed, it’s needed. If it isn’t, it isn’t,” department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told JNS.

 

Tammy Bruce, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman, holds a daily press briefing on March 6, 2025. Credit: Freddie Everett/U.S. State Department.

The U.S. State Department’s “commitment to foreign aid has not changed,” Tammy Bruce, the department’s spokeswoman, insisted in response to JNS questions at the daily press briefing on Tuesday.

JNS asked Bruce about a reported letter from Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking for the State Department to certify that Ramllah has ended its pay-for-slay program.

If the Trump administration doesn’t intend to restore foreign aid anyway, given the State Department’s massive cuts in that area, was it worth following up on the reported letter, JNS wanted to know.

Bruce balked at the implication that the Trump administration isn’t enthusiastic about doling out foreign aid.

“I do take issue immediately that we’re not—we don’t have any glee or excitement over handing out foreign aid,” she told JNS. “Our commitment to foreign aid hasn’t changed.”

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Bruce said that aid must align with U.S. interests. “It is in our nature as Americans,” she said. “It’s what we do.”

The first Trump administration cut aid to the Palestinian Authority amid tensions between Washington and Ramallah. Trump signed the Taylor Force Act, which bans U.S. funding for the authority until Ramallah ditches its “pay-for-slay” program, into law in March 2018.

“Pay-for-slay” rewards terrorists for killing and maiming Israelis, paying out higher sums for the most violent and deadly crimes.

The law was named for Taylor Force, a U.S. Army veteran, whom a Palestinian terrorist killed in 2016 while the American was visiting Tel Aviv.

“Foreign aid is not a carrot or a stick in negotiations. If it’s needed, it’s needed. If it isn’t, it isn’t. We don’t use it in that fashion,” Bruce told JNS. “We are a country with incredible resources. We know that. And we have incredible responsibilities, and we do not shy away from them. It’s part of why we do what we do.”

“We want to be a part of the world,” she said. “We know we can help and we do.”

Dorothy Shea, the interim U.S. envoy to the United Nations, appeared to credit Abbas last month for ending the authority’s pay-for-slay policy, despite Abbas having said publicly that he would never cancel it “even if we have only one cent left.”

“We welcome the announcement by the Palestinian Authority that it will end the practice of offering cash payments to the families of those who carry out terrorist attacks, which for far too long has incentivized violence against Israeli civilians and set back the prospects of peace,” Shea said during a U.N. Security Council meeting.

JNS sought comment at the time from the U.S. mission to the United Nations about Shea’s remark and whether it believes that the pay-for-slay policy is actually canceled.

“This abhorrent practice needs to end now. We want to see actions, not words,” a spokesman for the U.S. mission told JNS. “We will closely monitor that the law is fully implemented and will consult with the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government on developments.”

Bruce demurred on Tuesday in response to a question about the general relationship between Washington and Ramallah, focusing instead on Hamas-run Gaza.

“There is a constant, regular commitment to Gaza, to the Gazan people, certainly to one of our strongest—if not most stalwart—ally, Israel,” Bruce said, noting the recent Senate confirmation of Mike Huckabee as U.S. ambassador to Israel.

“So we’re very excited about the future. We are working constantly to have a ceasefire and to change the trajectory on the ground,” she said. “That has not stopped.”

Visits to Israel by Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East special envoy, have not corresponded with meetings in Ramallah or Bethlehem with Palestinian Authority leaders, as has generally been the case in prior administrations.

Hans Wechsel, a career diplomat who headed the U.S. office of Palestinian affairs within the Jerusalem embassy since August 2024, reportedly resigned at the end of March, as unhappiness grew over the direction of policy.

Mike Wagenheim

Source: https://www.jns.org/despite-massive-cutbacks-us-remains-committed-to-foreign-aid-state-dept-says/

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Arson attack suspect cited what Jewish gov ‘wants to do to Palestinian people’ - JNS

 

by JNS

Cody Balmer told police that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro must know that he "will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people," per a warrant.

 

Cody A. Balmer is suspected of setting fire to the governor's mansion in Harrisburg, Pa., on April 13, 2025. Credit: Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office.

 

Cody A. Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, Pa., who called authorities on Sunday at 2:50 a.m. and admitted to firebombing the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion less than an hour prior, told 911 operators that he wanted Gov. Josh Shapiro to know that he “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” per a search warrant obtained by Penn Live.

The suspect also told 911 operators that he had to “stop having my friends killed” and “our people have been put through too much by that monster,” per the warrant. Penn Live noted that the document suggests that “Balmer’s intonation and cadence sounded like he was possibly reading from a script.”

“You all know where to find me. I’m not hiding, and I will confess to everything that I had done,” the suspect said, per the warrant.

“Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo, who is prosecuting the case, said he has not decided yet whether he will charge Balmer with ‘ethnic intimidation’—Pennsylvania’s hate crime statute—but said he will argue Balmer’s motives should make his sentencing more severe if he is convicted,” Penn Live reported.

 

JNS

Source: https://www.jns.org/arson-attack-suspect-cited-what-jewish-gov-wants-to-do-to-palestinian-people/ 

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The AG anomaly, a legal analysis - A. Amos Fried

 

by A. Amos Fried

In a series of pivotal decisions from 1993 onwards, Israel's Supreme Court essentially ruled that the entire executive branch of government is in fact subservient to the attorney general.

 

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara at a ceremony held for outgoing Supreme Court Justice George Karra, at the court in Jerusalem on May 29, 2022. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

Imagine you’re the CEO of a large private company. You employ and manage legions of workers in a variety of departments. Business has steadily grown and you believe it’s come time for your operation to go public. Months on end you confer with your financial team, preparing the all-important IPO (initial public offering), eagerly awaiting a stock launch that will advance your company by light years, benefit your employees and introduce your enterprise to investors across the globe.

To be sure, throughout the process you’ve involved your chief legal adviser, but he has increasingly become more of an obstacle as opposed to a facilitator. Interfering in your decisions, raising seemingly irrelevant issues of concern, even questioning your motives—you wonder who this corporate counsel thinks he is. Resolved to get the IPO completed, you have a frank discussion with this attorney. Yes, there are some corners we’re gently rounding out, encroaching on grey areas where the law isn’t entirely clear cut. But isn’t that the job of a legal adviser? To enable our efforts and bring them to fruition?

Before too long, you’re appalled to receive a summons to appear before a stock exchange regulatory official. But your shock turns to horror when you discover that the officer interrogating you is none other than your own company’s legal adviser! The same individual in whom you openly confided about some of your questionable business practices in preparing the IPO.

Sounds absurd? Not in Israel, where the attorney general serves as the purported “legal adviser to the government” while simultaneously heading Israel’s criminal prosecution system. Unwilling to comply with the adviser’s “advice?” Don’t be surprised to find yourself charged with heinous criminal offenses such as “fraud,” “breach of the public trust,” “government corruption” and so on. 

“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse,” Don Corleone famously quipped, but even the Godfather could only dream of wielding a fraction of the power Israel’s attorney general possesses. Indeed, more than once it’s been argued that this is the most formidable position in the country. In addition to serving as both chief legal counsel to the government and head of the general prosecution, Israel’s AG has been granted sole authority to represent the state in all legal proceedings, as well as being the executive branch’s final arbiter of the public interest in any legal matter.

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How did we get here? No honest analysis can ignore the Bar-On–Hebron affair of 1997, during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister. In what has since proved to be a recurring theme throughout his tenure, Netanyahu displayed the poorest judgment in his appointments to the highest positions of government. Even worse however was his abject inability to stand by his decision, no matter what public outcry it may have stirred. For those too young to remember, Netanyahu wished to appoint the private lawyer Roni Bar-On as attorney general, in a convoluted effort to enlist Aryeh Deri’s Shas Party to support the proposed Hebron concession deal with the Palestinian leadership. 

The episode provoked such a scandal that the government was forced to set up a formal commission headed by former Chief Justice Meir Shamgar, tasked with establishing the proper procedure for appointing the attorney general, clarifying his/her official functions and laying down specific criteria for removal from office. No longer would the government be allowed to choose its own legal adviser, but rather a nomination committee, led naturally by a retired Supreme Court justice, would henceforth be endowed with the authority. 

Over time, the office of attorney general has only grown in power, stature and appetite. Already in 1986, while serving in this position, the very same Meir Shamgar became the first attorney general openly to refuse to represent the government in a petition before the Supreme Court. Eventually this burgeoning autonomy evolved to such a degree that all government agencies up to and including the prime minister himself are in effect prevented from presenting their own contrasting stance to that of the attorney general. 

Thus, in a series of pivotal decisions from 1993 onwards, Israel’s Supreme Court essentially ruled that the entire executive branch of government is in fact subservient to the attorney general, who maintains a monopoly on determining the state’s official position in any legal dispute. 

In one such case, then Chief Justice Aharon Barak laid down the law:   

“True, the attorney general’s position was different from the prime minister’s. They sought to convince each other, but they were unable to do so. In this state of affairs, the attorney general must represent the Prime Minister before us according to the attorney general’s legal perception….”

And even more to the point (in cases related to aforementioned Aryeh Deri and a fellow Shas Party minister):

“The prime minister sought to disagree with the attorney general’s opinion regarding the very essence of the applicable legal norm on the subject of removing a minister from his position. This approach contradicts the constitutional principle, already accepted in our system, by virtue of which the attorney general is held to be the authorized interpreter of the law with respect to the executive branch… and the prime minister, with all due respect, could not have been heard on these grounds at all.”

The import of these rulings could not be more startling. With incessant resolve and fortitude, Israel’s Supreme Court has declared time and again that freedom of expression, access to legal proceedings and a wildly expansive approach to “standing” are all fundamental rights enshrined in Israel’s “constitution” (i.e. Basic Laws). Yet none other than Israel’s chief executive shall be deprived of such privileges, if his own attorney general decides so. 

No individual personifies this gross perversion of democratic principles better than the current attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara. After blithely allowing such egregious acts by the previous government as the unconscionable unilateral forfeiture of nearly 1,000 square kilometers of Israel’s territorial waters to the Hezbollah-infested Lebanese government (less than three weeks prior to general Knesset elections), Baharav-Miara has since made it her singular aim to thwart even the most rudimentary decisions, acts and appointments by Netanyahu and his coalition. 

In a petition filed by the cynically mistitled “Movement for Quality Government in Israel,” the Supreme Court was called upon to annul the temporary appointment (for all of three months!) of a senior law school lecturer to chair Israel’s Second Authority commercial broadcasting regulatory body. Not only did Baharav-Miara side with the petitioners against the government, she went so far as to prohibit the communications minister in charge of the appointment from being represented before the court by his own independent counsel.

With diplomatic restraint, the court’s majority opinion rejected the attorney general’s basic contention that the appointment was unlawful. Such a position was without merit, the communication minister’s decision was sanctioned under statute and even if there remained questions as to the particular procedure, they certainly did not warrant the court’s intervention.   

More scathing though was the rebuke the court handed Baharav-Miara for her refusal to allow the communication minister’s request to be heard via independent representation:

“I turned it over and over, and yet could not find a solid legal basis for establishing such a standard [as argued by the attorney general]… I was not convinced that these references contain a basis, or even a mention, to this standard. Where we are dealing with such a sensitive issue, I believe that it is better to tread on as solid ground as possible. And as for the rest—go and learn.”

But even this openly aired opprobrium has not served to inhibit Baharav-Miara from her mission to impede the government from acting on behalf of the country’s citizenry, let alone caused her to show even a modicum of discretion and self-reflection. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” wrote Shakespeare. Indeed, this hyper-activist attorney general has only herself to blame for the government’s growing efforts to be rid of her.

A. Amos Fried, a native of Chicago, is a licensed member of the Israel and New York State Bar Associations and has practiced law in Jerusalem for over 32 years. He specializes in civil litigation, criminal representation and commercial law. He can be reached at aafried@aafriedlaw.com.

Source: https://www.jns.org/the-ag-anomaly-a-legal-analysis/

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Harvard’s ‘resistance’ to Trump isn’t about science or academic freedom - Jonathan S. Tobin

 

by Jonathan S. Tobin

The school would rather lose $9 billion in federal funding than offend the left and give up woke indoctrination policies that enable and encourage antisemitism.

 

Harvard University sweatshirts are displayed for sale in a school store window on its campus in Cambridge, Mass., on April 15, 2025. Photo by Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images.

It’s nice to know that the school that is widely considered to be the most prestigious institution of higher education in the United States is willing to stand up for its principles. Unfortunately, the main principle for which Harvard University is standing up—and earning deafening applause from liberal elites in politics and the media—is the right to go on enabling and encouraging the hatred of Jews.

Of course, that’s not the way the political left is spinning the announcement that Harvard would defy the demands of the Trump administration to cease its tacit support of the surge of antisemitism since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

For Trump’s “progressive” opponents who have acquired near-total control of higher education in the United States, the demands are unacceptable. They would rather lose federal funding, which is crucial to their survival, than end discrimination in admissions and hiring rooted in the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that creates viewpoint uniformity that excludes conservatives and supporters of Israel. They also refuse to adopt disciplinary policies against those who advocate for Jewish genocide and harass Jewish students, or prevent pro-Hamas mobs on their campuses from wearing masks while they commit their acts of intimidation and violence.

For the far left, their refusal to treat antisemites the way they would bigots who threatened African-Americans or Hispanics is a heroic act of “resistance.”

In a letter sent to the government by the school’s attorneys in response to the ultimatum sent by President Donald Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, Harvard’s president, Alan M. Garber, said: “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”

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Cheers from Obama and Israel-bashers

The task force has targeted Harvard and several other elite institutions, such as Columbia University, Brown University, Cornell University, Northwestern University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, for scrutiny and threatened to end all federal funding to these schools if they don’t enact fundamental reforms. So far, Harvard, which is the richest of American universities with an endowment of $53.2 billion, and which gets $9 billion a year in aid from Washington, is the only one to say it will not comply.

According to former President Barack Obama, “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions—rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom.” He was echoed by NeverTrump former jurist J. Michael Luttig, who told The New York Times: “This is of momentous, momentous significance. This should be the turning point in the president’s rampage against American institutions.”

Times opinion columnist M. Gessen endorsed Harvard’s stand, saying, “No other response should have been possible by the logic of the law—or the logic of academic freedom or the logic of democracy.” Gessen, who has falsely compared Israel’s efforts to defend itself against Hamas terrorism to the Nazi tactics in the Holocaust, was just sorry because Harvard’s act of “self-respect” was so rare in a country where so many were prepared to treat Trump’s victory as giving him the right to govern and roll back the left’s excesses.

Obama and Luttig may be correct on one point: The hosannas for Harvard being sung by liberal pundits and academics across the nation are likely influencing some of the other institutions targeted by Trump’s task force. Columbia University, which had initially agreed to the administration’s demands, is already backtracking.

Its president, Katrina Armstrong, told a Zoom call with faculty that the school planned on reneging on its pledges, but then resigned. Her replacement, Claire Shipman, has doubled down on this. Less than a day after Harvard’s announcement, Shipman declared that the academic institution would not allow the federal government to “require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy.” She went on to say that she would “reject heavy-handed orchestration from the government that could potentially damage our institution and undermine useful reforms” and that any agreement in which federal officials dictated “what we teach, research or who we hire” would be unacceptable.

Decades of federal ‘interference’

The notion that Trump’s demands represent an unpardonable interference in academia may sound reasonable. Or at least they might have prior to the passage of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance. And lest there be any confusion on this point, the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations all agreed that Jews were covered by the Title VI protections of the Civil Rights Act.

From that point forward, the federal government was given free rein to interfere in the life of schools like Harvard. That interference took the form of rules that, among other things, made any discrimination against minorities like blacks and Hispanics illegal, and the adoption of “affirmative action” diktats that had an enormous impact on their hiring and admissions policies. Those schools that didn’t like it were informed that they could forget about receiving federal money. And that is what some conservative institutions like Hillsdale College or a number of fundamentalist Christian schools did to protect their independence.

Nor is it about defending science, as so many of those who have rationalized opposition to Trump have asserted.

It’s true that the bulk of Harvard’s funding goes to its medical institutions. That raises the possibility that the fallout from this conflict might hurt important research and health care. It has persuaded some to say that Trump is going too far in threatening funding to these universities, all of whom depend on Washington to maintain their scientific establishments.

Yet would anyone currently decrying Trump’s moves defend the funding of any medical school, hospital or research facility if it involved giving a seal of federal approval to an institution that discriminated against racial minorities protected by the Civil Rights Act? To the contrary, the same voices raised in defense of the “resistance” to Trump would demand the defunding of any entity—no matter how vital its scientific or medical research—that targeted blacks or allowed a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan to operate with impunity on their grounds or in their school buildings. Yet that is exactly what Harvard, Columbia and many other schools did by allowing pro-Hamas groups that support Jewish genocide to operate freely.

Moreover, as author Heather Mac Donald has pointed out, the impact of the DEI policies being defended by Harvard has led to discrimination and the lowering of standards throughout the sciences and math. That poses a far greater threat to American medicine and scientific research than Trump’s request that these schools give up their woke policies and stop antisemitism.

So, let’s be clear about what’s actually at stake in this controversy. It’s not science or academic freedom. It’s about elite schools wishing to remain in thrall to progressive orthodoxies on race and Western civilization that have fueled the surge in Jew-hatred.

Part of this can also be explained by politics.

The success of the left’s long march through American educational institutions over the past decades has created a situation in which conservatives and Zionists are rarities on college and university faculties. A career in academia for anyone who dissents from DEI and woke orthodoxy, as well as the notion that Israel and Jews are “white” oppressors who must be suppressed, can only do so by keeping their opinions to themselves. To openly dissent against the left’s toxic myths about critical race theory, intersectionality or settler-colonialism theory is to effectively guarantee that you won’t be hired for any post in the humanities and social sciences and to never obtain tenure even if you do get that far. Republicans or anyone who openly supports Trump are virtually an extinct species among those who work in higher education.

That’s why faculties like the ones at Harvard and Columbia have been so vocal in their support for the pro-Hamas mobs that target Jews and in defense of Middle East Studies programs, often funded by Islamist sources like the Emirate of Qatar that have become hotbeds of antisemitism.

However, it also creates a dynamic on campus that makes any accommodation with a Trump administration that left-wing Democrats view as beyond the pale, even on anything as clearly legitimate as a response to the rampant antisemitism that has been on display since Oct. 7, as a betrayal. Indeed, so strong is the pull of partisanship that many leading liberal Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and even Hillel have put themselves on record as having reservations about Trump’s all-out effort to fight antisemitism or even to oppose it. In a country where politics now assumes the role that religion used to play in most people’s lives, opposing Trump is clearly a higher priority for many of those who identify as liberals or Democrats than combating Jew-hatred.

What Harvard is really fighting for

This debate isn’t about Trump’s alleged authoritarian tendencies. It is being triggered by the stubborn refusal of the most prestigious and venerable of American institutions, such as Harvard and Columbia, to ensure the safety of Jews and to give up practices in admissions, discipline and hiring that ensure their continued adherence to leftist ideologies that are at war with the Western canon and Jewish survival.

The cheers for Harvard’s stand are a reflection of the emotional needs of a portion of the American electorate that is overrepresented in the credentialed elites that venerate schools like Harvard. Their anger at the 2024 election results, hatred for Trump and affinity for woke racialism are so deep that they are willing to figuratively die on a hill that involves their support for or acquiescence to the legitimacy of a genocidal war waged against the only Jewish state on the planet. That is a telling indication of, as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) put it, how “Harvard University has rightfully earned its place as the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education.”

Trump’s response to such defiance must be resolute. If Harvard won’t give up its toleration and support for antisemitism, then it must lose every penny of federal funding. And the same should go for any other school that follows its example. The pious platitudes about democracy, science or academic freedom that we are hearing from Trump’s opponents notwithstanding, the only thing they are really fighting for is the right to empower those who seek to harm Jews.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Source: https://www.jns.org/harvards-resistance-to-trump-isnt-about-science-or-academic-freedom/

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Judge Rules ‘XX’ Chromosomes Are Anti-Trans Hate Crime - Daniel Greenfield

 

by Daniel Greenfield

"The XX symbol... can reasonably be understood as directly assaulting those who identify as transgender women”

 

It is awkward when your entire identity is tied up in stealing someone else’s identity and then chanting loudly that they don’t exist. So you can see why ‘Palestinians’ hate the Bible and why men who claim to be women hate the biological evidence that they’re not and never will be.

The former ‘party of science’ has to go along with this and taking it to the next level actually insist that mentioning the existence of XX chromosomes is the next thing to a hate crime.

The Bow School District was acting within its authority to kick two soccer dads out of a girls game for wearing pink “XX” wristbands as a silent protest against biological males playing on girls’ teams, a federal judge ruled Monday.

“The message generally ascribed to the XX symbol, in a context such as that presented here, can reasonably be understood as directly assaulting those who identify as transgender women,” Judge McAuliffe wrote. “Because gender identities are characteristics of personal identity that are ‘unalterable or otherwise deeply rooted,’ the demeaning of which ‘strikes a person at the core of his being,’ and because Bow school authorities reasonably interpreted the symbols used by plaintiffs, in context, as conveying a demeaning and harassing message, they properly interceded to protect students from injuries likely to be suffered.”

The “injury” being human biology.

Any mention of XX chromosomes in front of delusional men becomes a hate crime. And the judge and the school ought to act promptly to outlaw biology to protect students from elementary science.

How far the “reality-based” former “party of science” has fallen.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/judge-rules-xx-chromosomes-are-anti-trans-hate-crime/

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Trump Confronts Economic and Geopolitical Reality - Edward Ring

 

by Edward Ring

Trump’s tariff push signals a reckoning with soaring debt, trade imbalances, and China’s rise—disruption now, he argues, is the price of avoiding collapse later.

 

By the time this is published, everything may have changed, and that is to be expected. Throughout his career, well before and since becoming a politician, Trump has explicitly stated that he does not think it is always a good strategy to be predictable. And while markets love predictability, sometimes markets, and the systems propping them up, need disruption. This is such a moment.

Nobody should deny that the anxiety is genuine. An older friend of mine, well into his 70s, still working but ready to retire, is wondering how he and his wife will survive if their savings are wiped out. That’s true for all of us, but it begs the question: What if the painful restructuring we may be about to endure, and which may last for many years, is necessary to avoid an even worse fate?

Trump’s abrupt escalation of import tariffs goes well beyond violating the principles of comparative advantage, but we can start there. “Comparative advantage” is not all it’s cracked up to be. Repeated in business schools as if it were gospel since the 1980s, it goes something like this: “Wool is cheaper in Scotland, and wine is cheaper in France, so France should sell their wine to Scotland, and Scotland should sell their wool to France.” Everybody wins. Period. That’s the extent of it. That is the essence of free trade theory.

In the real world, though, policies that rely on “comparative advantage” doctrine as their moral justification have gotten pretty ugly. While overall economic growth may be maximized when every nation exports products that it produces most cost-effectively, the local impacts are not always benign. Nations that produce coffee at competitive global prices, for example, end up with valuable cropland converted from food production to coffee plantations. These coffee plantations are typically owned by multinational corporations that repatriate profits to low-tax nations elsewhere while buying off a small local elite that streamlines the regulatory environment. Meanwhile, the nation becomes dependent on imports for everything except coffee, and even the coffee ends up priced out of reach for the average citizen. Replace “coffee” with any specialty product, and all too often, the “gains of trade” translate on the ground into nations with seething, destitute populations dependent on accumulating debt and foreign aid.

These examples aren’t restricted to foreign nations, nor are they restricted to commodities. While American multinationals moved manufacturing overseas, in the process destroying millions of jobs and thousands of communities in America, it wasn’t just cheap wool, cheap wine, and dirt-cheap flat-screen TVs that were pouring into the country in exchange. We offshored our production of steel, our chip manufacturers, our pharmaceutical industry, and much more.

And even that devastation was tolerated for decades because its effects were mostly felt in what we now call rust belt states. Our service economy and tech sectors boomed, along with what was left of manufacturing, satiating a majority of the population that loved buying cheaper foreign imports. But this whole scheme could never go on forever. America’s trade deficit in 2024 was up to $918 billion, a new record. America’s cumulative trade deficit, nearly all of it incurred since 2000, is now estimated in excess of $17 trillion.

To balance the trade deficit, there is what economists call the “current account.” If dollars flow overseas for us to purchase foreign imports in excess of foreign nations spending dollars to purchase our exports, the surplus dollars are repatriated in the form of foreigners bidding up the prices for assets they purchase in America. A slight oversimplification would be that trade deficits equate to cheap flat screens and unaffordable homes. But there is another reason America has huge trade deficits. It floods the world with dollar-denominated transactions, and by permitting foreigners to buy American assets, we effectively collateralize our currency. And so long as America is for sale in this manner, that helps sustain the dollar as a hard currency.

That comes in handy. For 46 out of the last 50 years, Americans have logged federal budget deficits. So far, the dollar’s status as the dominant transaction and reserve currency of the world gives America’s federal government the ability to borrow money by selling Treasury Notes.

This is all well known and rehashed beyond the need to elaborate further. So, why are people acting like this was sustainable? How long can the global economic model rest on American trade deficits funding the military and industrial development of nations that, in some cases, aren’t even allies, with all of it balanced through foreign purchases of American assets? And how long will international demand for dollars finance federal budget deficits?

To understand why this had to come to a head, consider federal budget trends in recent years. In 2019, the last year of Trump’s first term, the federal budget was $4.4 trillion, with interest payments of $400 billion. For 2025, the first year of Trump’s current term, the projected federal budget is $7.0 trillion, with interest of just under $1.0 trillion.

What changed? While the COVID pandemic was used to justify massive infusions of stimulative federal cash into the economy, much of it probably necessary, why hasn’t spending been reduced since the pandemic’s impact has been over for at least two years? Are we supposed to just expect massive federal budget deficits year after year? Is it sustainable to log a federal budget deficit that has grown from an alarming $900 billion in 2019 to $1.9 trillion in 2025, more than twice as much?

A roughly accurate summary of the economic reality we confront is federal budget deficits of $2 trillion per year and trade deficits of $1 trillion per year. Trade deficits translate into growing foreign ownership of American assets. Federal budget deficits add up in the form of accumulating, interest-bearing national debt. In 2019, the interest payments on what at the time was $22 trillion in national debt had already reached $575 billion, at an average interest rate of 2.5 percent. By 2024, the national debt had skyrocketed to $35 trillion, an increase of $13 trillion in just six years. Interest payments in 2024 were $1.1 trillion, and the average interest rate had risen to 3.3 percent.

“Average” interest rate requires explanation. Ten-year treasury notes currently pay 4.4 percent. Interest rates have risen over the past few years. Imagine if that continues, and $35 trillion (or more) in treasury notes mature and are reinvested at 4.4 percent. That would raise the annual federal interest payment on the national debt to $1.5 trillion.

At what point does this become a crisis? And if we wait until there is another financial crisis, will we be able to borrow our way out of it again? No wonder Trump’s team is cutting bureaucracy and hoping to eliminate massive entitlements fraud. By every metric that matters, the size and obligations of the federal government have exploded in the last six years, and it can’t go on.

Which brings us to the geopolitical reality we must confront: the rise of China. No other nation has done more to finance the rapid industrialization of China than the United States. But now, the United States depends on China for critical minerals, electronic equipment, machinery, iron, steel, medical apparatus, organic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and much more. Every year, the biggest percentage of our trade deficit is with China, over $300 billion in 2024. The Chinese invest this surplus in Treasury Notes but also use it to purchase strategic assets in the United States. And how has China treated us as we finance the meteoric rise of its economy?

Here is a transcript of comments made by noted investor and businessman Kevin O’Leary on CNN last week.

“I do business with China; they don’t play by the rules. They’ve been in the WTO for decades, and they have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in. They cheat, they steal, they steal IP, I can’t litigate in their courts, they take product, technology, they steal it, they manufacture it and sell it back here. This is not about tariffs anymore. Nobody has taken on China yet, not the Europeans, no administration, for decades. As someone who actually does business there, I’ve had enough. I speak for millions of Americans who have IP that has been stolen by the Chinese. I have nothing against the Chinese people, but the government cheats and steals and finally an administration that puts up and says, ‘enough.’”

O’Leary thinks Trump should impose 400 percent tariffs on China. Maybe that will get their attention. He also suggested that America, with what is still the biggest economy and biggest domestic market on earth, may not have this much economic leverage in the future. He’s right. Now is the time to exert economic pressure on China because a decade from now, it will be too late.

The Trump administration recognizes three realities that softer heads and wishful thinkers try to either deny or bury in nuance. (1) We are in a cold war with China, and if we don’t step up, we will lose. (2) We have hollowed out our manufacturing prowess, and that must change. Fast. (3) Federal spending is out of control; the trends are unprecedented and must be reversed.

This is the rest of the story. Tariffs are just the beginning salvos in a fight we can’t avoid any longer.

Back in 1986, Herbert Stein, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, in reference to US federal debt, famously said, “If something can’t go on forever, it will stop.” That was 40 years ago, when America’s epic debt binge was still in its first decade. Since then, it has gone on and on, and as the numbers indicate, it has intensified in the last few years.

It will stop. The only question is when and how. One must forgive the anxiety that is triggered in so many because of our current administration’s attempts to confront the unsustainable. But for those calling themselves economists who now, with unwarranted certainty, decry Trump’s bold gamble as unnecessary or foolish, less charitable sentiments might be appropriate.

Photo: WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 10: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump convened a Cabinet meeting a day after announcing a 90-day pause on ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, with the exception of China. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Edward Ring is a senior fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is also the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. Ring is the author of Fixing California: Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism (2021) and The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California (2022).

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/16/trump-confronts-economic-and-geopolitical-reality/

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