90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, August 26, 2019

Trump Tariffs Tank Asian Equities, Chinese Yuan. China Ready To Negotiate.

President Donald Trump's latest trade war escalation against China appears to have had an immediate effect on Asian markets and the Chinese Yuan, sending both tumbling early on Monday morning.

"China's yuan currency fell to 7.1487 to the dollar, its weakest level since early 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis," AFP reported. "On equity markets, Hong Kong led losses, slumping more than three percent, with investors also spooked by fresh violent protests in the city that saw police use water cannon for the first time. Shanghai lost 1.3 percent and Tokyo ended the morning more than two percent off."

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He indicated early on Monday that the communist nation was willing to negotiate with the U.S. to prevent the trade war from escalating.

Reuters reported that "Liu, China’s top trade negotiator, was speaking at a tech conference in Chongqing in southwest China" when he made the remarks.

On Friday, the U.S. imposed a new round of sanctions against China after China imposed additional tariffs on the U.S.

In a statement on Friday, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced:

Today, China announced it will impose unjustified tariffs targeting U.S. products. In response to China’s decision, and in order to achieve the objectives of the China Section 301 investigation, President Trump has instructed the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to increase by 5% the tariffs on approximately $550 billion worth of Chinese imports. For the 25% tariffs on approximately $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, USTR will begin the process of increasing the tariff rate to 30%, effective October 1 following a notice and comment period. For the 10% tariffs on approximately $300 billion worth of Chinese imports that the President announced earlier this month, the tariffs will now be 15%, effective on the already scheduled dates for tariff increases on these imports.

Trump instructed U.S. businesses on Friday to start looking for alternatives to dealing with Chinese businesses.

"Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue," Trump tweeted. "I won't let that happen! We don't need China and, frankly, would be far better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to...

U.S Attorney Dan Webb will lead a special investigation of Smollett’s hate hoax.

President Donald Trump commended an Illinois judge’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate improprieties surrounding Jussie Smollett’s court case.

Dan Webb, a prominent Chicago defense attorney with significant experience serving as a special prosecutor, will investigate the justice system’s handling of Smollett’s court case. Smollett was charged with 16 counts of disorderly conduct after Chicago police became convinced he orchestrated an elaborate hate hoax to make himself appear as a victim of a racist attack.

Smollett actually paid two Nigerian brothers(who have since admitted to their involvement in the hoax) $3,500 to play the role of racist Trump supporters in carrying out a fake “attack” on him.

The 16 criminal charges of disorderly conduct were inexplicably dropped by Chicago prosecutors without any real explanation, leaving law enforcement furious that the hoaxster wouldn’t be held accountable for his...

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Immigration Expert: Government Program Incentivizes Employers to Discriminate Against Citizen College Grads

David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and noted scholar on immigration and its influence on domestic policies, said at the National Press Club this week that a government program cooked up during the George W. Bush administration and put into place through a federal regulation encourages U.S. businesses to hire foreign instead of citizen college graduates.

North also said at the panel discussion, hosted by CIS, that millions of dollars a year is diverted from helping Americans to benefiting F-1 student visa holders and the American companies that hire them.

The students, North said, get to work for one year or more at an American business, and the business that hires them gets a discount under the Optional Practical Training (OPT) protocol that allows them not to pay certain payroll taxes for their non-immigrant, non-citizen employees.

“You shouldn’t take money from America’s elderly, give it to fat cat corporations so that they can discriminate against Americans,” North said. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

Colleges and universities are also eager to accept foreign students because of the money their enrollment brings in, both as students and alumni.

At any given time, experts estimate that more than one million students from foreign countries are studying in the United States.

North wrote about OTP for CIS in 2015:

The program that converts foreign college graduates back to foreign students by a wave of a bureaucratic wand had these negative impacts on residents of the United States:

• It denied American workers more than 430,000 jobs during the years 2009-2013; and

• It removed $4 billion from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

In 2017, CIS explained how OPT works in reality:

OPT is an example of the administrative state run amok. Instead of law coming from Congress, we have law coming from bureaucrats working hand-in-hand with lobbyists. OPT also illustrates the slippery-slope problem of regulation. Work on student visas started innocently as an integral part of a course of study to give foreign students an experience not available in their home country, but eventually was transformed into a full-blown guestworker program whose stated purpose is to...