By Rick Manning Stock markets go up and down based upon the latest trade rumors. Predictions of price hikes make headlines, yet the inflation rate remains at the levels, 2.0 percent at last count, desired by the Federal Reserve. What is going on?  And is this even really a […]

By Robert Romano “Don’t say we didn’t warn you!” That was a People’s Daily commentary threatening that China will cut the U.S. off from rare earth minerals used to make high tech components for computers, smart phones and military weapons systems. The People’s Daily is an official newspaper […]

By Robert Romano In 2016, when President Donald Trump ran on his America first trade agenda, much of the conventional wisdom was that, if implemented, his tariffs would wreck the U.S. economy. It would have the same impact as the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act, and so the prediction […]

By Robert Romano On May 10, the South China Morning Post published a report, “Will China use its US$1.2 trillion of US debt as firepower to fight the trade war?” speculating that China might have potential leverage against the U.S. after President Donald Trump levied 25 percent tariffs on a total of now $250 billion of Chinese goods. But that’s all it is: […]

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By Robert Romano Just when it appeared that a new trade agreement with China was being finalized last week, Beijing abruptly attempted to change all the terms of the deal and walk back prior concessions that had been made to head off President Donald Trump’s threat to […]

By Robert Romano It is no coincidence that just as U.S. trade talks with China were breaking down last week, North Korea on May 4 conducted its first missile test since Nov. 2017. As a result, separating the trade issue from the national security concerns of North […]

By Robert Romano For those who are hoping, for political purposes, that the U.S. economy will start tanking before the Nov. 2020 presidential election to make it more likely that President Donald Trump will be ousted in his reelection bid, you might want stop reading right now. […]

By Robert Romano Congressional Democrats are threatening to derail the new U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal that is supposed to replace the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), saying that enforcement of Mexican labor provisions in the deal are inadequate. Under the new deal, Mexico would recognize […]

By Robert Romano The U.S. economy grew at an inflation-adjusted 3.2 percent annualized in the first quarter of 2019, putting it on track to get to 3 percent for the year for the first time since 2005, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The startling data […]