Trump Win: China to Lower Import Tariffs

/0 Comments/in , /by

China will lower tariffs on products ranging from frozen pork and avocado to some types of semiconductors next year as Beijing looks to boost imports amid a slowing economy and a trade war with the United States.

Next year, China will implement temporary import tariffs, which are lower than the most-favored-nation tariffs, on more than 850 products, the finance ministry said on Monday. That compared with 706 products that were taxed at temporary rates in 2019.

The tariff changes were made to “increase imports of products facing a relative domestic shortage, or foreign specialty goods for everyday consumption,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.

China and the United States cooled their drawn-out trade war earlier this month, announcing a Phase 1 agreement that would reduce some U.S. tariffs in exchange for more Chinese purchases of American farm products and other goods.

The finance ministry said the tariff rate for frozen pork will be cut to 8% from the most-favored-nation duty of 12%, as China copes to plug a huge supply gap after a severe pig disease decimated its hog herd. (Read more from “Trump Win: China to Lower Import Tariffs” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

U.S. Officials Closely Monitoring Possible Nuclear Launch by North Korea After ‘Christmas Gift’ Warning

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Fox News. U.S. officials are on high alert for signs of a possible missile launch from North Korea in the coming days that officials have referred to as a “Christmas gift.”

A significant launch or nuclear test would raise the end of North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on missile launches and tests. It would also be a major blow to one of President Trump’s major foreign policy goals to get North Korea back to the negotiating table to eliminate its nuclear weapons.

Earlier this month, the North conducted what U.S. officials say was an engine test. Experts believe it may have involved an engine for a long-range missile.

“North Korea has been advancing. It has been building new capabilities,” said Anthony Wier, a former State Department official who tracks nuclear disarmament for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “As long as that continues, they gain new capabilities to try new missiles to threaten us and our allies in new ways,”

North Korea warned of a possible “Christmas gift” in early December, saying the Trump administration was running out of time on nuclear negotiations, and it was up to the U.S. to choose what “Christmas gift” it gets from Pyongyang. (Read more from “U.S. Officials Closely Monitoring Possible Nuclear Launch by North Korea After ‘Christmas Gift’ Warning” HERE)

_______________________________________________

U.S. Officials Bracing for Imminent North Korea Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Test

By Slate. . .Pyongyang has promised to deliver a “Christmas gift” if there is no progress on easing up on sanctions. But any movement on that front seems nearly impossible at this stage, considering talks with Washington have stalled and the North Korean regime is once again insulting President Donald Trump regularly. As tensions with North Korea increase, and especially if there is a test around the holidays, it would mark a huge blow to one of Trump’s major foreign policy initiatives. And it would happen right as he gears up for the presidential campaign. Some North Korea experts say Pyongyang may be watching the electoral calendar as well. There is speculation that Kim could be using “Trump’s intense focus on his re-election next November as leverage to pressure him into lifting sanctions and striking a deal that favors Pyongyang,” notes Politico. The impeachment proceedings may also make Pyongyang feel that Trump is particularly vulnerable.

If the test does happen, it seems clear how the administration will react. Even though Trump used to cite suspensions of tests as a sign that his efforts at diplomacy with Kim were working, officials now say a test will show the North Korean leader feels cornered, with few options as to how to proceed.

There is uncertainty about what North Korea may even test, with some speculating that it may be a satellite on a long-range booster rather than a long-range missile, notes CNN. CBS News talks to intelligence officials who say that while a short-range missile test or rocket engine test could happen at any time, a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile test is unlikely before the beginning of the year. (Read more from “U.S. Officials Bracing for Imminent North Korea Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Test” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Numbers Prove How Horribly New Zealand’s Gun Buyback Program Turned Out

/0 Comments/in , /by

Shortly after the terrorist attack that left 51 dead in Christchurch, New Zealand earlier this year, Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern vowed to ban all semi-automatic rifles. The firearms that were used in the attack were legally obtained but illegally modified. . .

The government set aside $110 million to compensate gun owners for their firearms. In total, the government collected 47,000 firearms. An accounting firm the government hired determined that the number of banned guns is estimated between 50,000 and 170,000. The exact number, however, is unknown because the country does not have a registry for what they call “military style assault rifles.” . . .

Police in New Zealand believe that there are roughly 1.2 million legally owned firearms. But that statistic is from 2014, when the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva conducted the Small Arms Survey. For all we know, it is likely higher. Based on that number though that means there are 26 firearms for every 100 people. It really is significantly less than the United States but it is higher than Australia.

But, at last, gun control groups are already taking a victory lap. Their argument is this is only one step in a multi-pronged approach to dealing with firearms. New Zealand also plans to make licensing tougher, registration and stronger enforcement powers.

“On the one hand, taking around 50,000 of these weapons out of the community is a clearly positive step,” Gun Control NZ co-founder Nik Green said. “On the other hand, we don’t know what proportion of all prohibited firearms this represents. If we use the lower-bound estimates, it’s a pretty good result; if we use the higher ones, it’s less so.” (Read more from “Numbers Prove How Horribly New Zealand’s Gun Buyback Program Turned Out” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Pakistan Prime Minister Threatens India with Nuclear War over Citizenship Law

/1 Comment/in , /by

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has once again threatened India with nuclear war over the recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which promises Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees of the neighbouring countries.

Khan, while addressing the first Global Refugee Forum as a co-convener here on Tuesday, said: “I want to tell the whole world that they should be aware of the biggest impending refugee crisis (in South Asia).”

He was apparently referring to the recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which promises Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014.

“We in Pakistan are not just worried that there’ll be a refugee crisis; we are worried that this could lead to a conflict. A conflict between two nuclear-armed countries,” Khan remarked.

Leaving no opportunity to condemn India on the world stage, Khan also put forth his rhetoric on New Delhi’s decision to revoke Article 370 that accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir, saying “It is time for the world to take notice of the situation in Kashmir,” despite India time again stating that such matters are entirely “internal” to the country. (Read more from “Pakistan Prime Minister Threatens India with Nuclear War over Citizenship Law” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Here’s What Vladimir Putin Has to Say About Trump Impeachment

/0 Comments/in , /by

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized House Democrats after they impeached President Donald Trump.

Putin made the comments at a press conference Thursday, and also added that he does not believe Senate Republicans will vote to remove the president from office, according to CNN.

“This is just the continuation of the internal political battle, one party that lost the elections, the Democrats, and are now trying to find new ways by accusing Trump of collusion with Russia,” Putin said. “But then it turns out there was no collusion, this can’t be the basis for the impeachment.”

The House of Representatives impeached Trump Wednesday night, marking just the third time in U.S. history that a president has been impeached, despite no Republicans voting for either of the two articles. It was the first time in U.S. history that a president has been impeached without some support from the minority party. (Read more from “Here’s What Vladimir Putin Has to Say About Trump Impeachment” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

America’s Illegal Alien Population Is Three Times Europe’s

/0 Comments/in , /by

American conservatives are concerned that we are a step or two behind Europe in committing open-borders suicide. But if you actually look at the numbers, in many respects America is blazing the trail to destruction much more swiftly than Europe.

A recent Pew Research report estimated the entire illegal immigrant population of Europe is 3.9-4.8 million. That is for an entire continent of 747 million people. The U.S. is less than half the size, yet the estimates of the illegal alien population range from 11 million to as high as 22 million.

Pew, as well as other left-leaning groups, likes to say there were only 12 million illegal aliens last decade and that the number has actually gone down in recent years. But the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) notes how they rely on census data that has traditionally undercounted illegal aliens by 15-35 percent. Moreover, given the massive influx of Central Americans in recent years, it is laughable how some of these organization can say that the numbers haven’t moved. ICE’s docket of non-detained aliens targeted for removal alone has grown by roughly one million since 2017, while the immigration court backlog has grown nearly tenfold over the decade.

Former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was asked at a hearing last December whether the number of illegal aliens was closer to 11 or 12 million or 22 million, as estimated by a recent Yale/MIT study. Nielsen admitted that there definitely are somewhere between 12 and 22 million, “higher than originally estimated.” That was before one million illegal aliens were apprehended the following year and countless snuck through the border in one of the worst border crises in recent memory.

FAIR therefore estimates that there are 14.3 million illegal aliens at a minimum, not including the 4.8 million children born to them on our soil that are erroneously viewed as citizens by the courts and bureaucrats. Most European countries don’t have such a policy.

That is an enormous number, even if it’s not up to 22 million. The burden is incalculable, which is why it’s so dishonest for politicians to continue demanding that we bring in more refugees. At most, Great Britain has 800,000-1.2 million illegal aliens, Germany has 1-1.2 million, and France has 300,000-400,000, according to Pew.

Sadly, we will never know our number for sure, because the Trump administration genuflected to an insidiously illegal court ruling blocking us from using the census to ask the question that is most pertinent to our reapportionment and representation. Congress just appropriated record funding for the census, $1.5 billion more than what the agency requested, yet we will never even find out exactly how many immigrants and illegal aliens we have, broken down by jurisdiction.

When comparing America’s number of refugees compared to that of other parts of the world, illegal immigration, which is like refugee resettlement in all but name only, must be taken into account. While it’s true that Europe has brought in many people from the Middle East and North Africa through legal immigration, their illegal immigration burden is a fraction of ours. In addition, aside from the illegal immigration, we bring in more immigrants than any other country. In that vein, how can so many GOP governors support bringing in even more refugees?

President Trump gave the grassroots a gift by requiring both the state governor and county officials to sign off on resettlement in order for the private contractors to bring refugees into a given jurisdiction. Yet the Left has been outgunning us because our entire movement is focused on impeachment.

Activists in Appomattox County, Virginia, got their county officials to be the first to reject refugees. But there should be hundreds more. Remember, even though the governorships are split roughly down the middle, Trump carried around 84 percent of the nation’s 3,100 or so counties. That means there are a lot of conservative counties within states that are governed by Democrats, such as in Virginia, where the grassroots can make their voices heard.

Kentucky and North Carolina are important states in which conservatives must engage. Both states now have Democrat governors. They were the #5 and #7 states respectively in terms of refugee intake in fiscal year 2019. In 2016, Trump carried 118 of 120 counties in Kentucky and 76 of 100 counties in North Carolina. There is no reason conservatives cannot pressure their county governments in these states to halt refugee resettlement while we deal with the backlog of illegal immigration and asylum claims.

Although we have welcomed immigrants in the right numbers and with proper assimilation for most of our history, we are a nation of citizens, not a nation of immigrants. We’ve never experienced this degree of illegal and legal immigration for such a protracted period, coinciding with the collapse of patriotic assimilation. It’s time for the citizenry to stand up and be counted, even as our own census refuses to distinguish us from illegal aliens. Where is our sanctuary city? (For more from the author of “America’s Illegal Alien Population Is Three Times Europe’s” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Trade War Breakthrough: U.S. and China Reach Phase-One Deal

/0 Comments/in , /by

China and the US have made a breakthrough in trade negotiations, with a consensus agreement reached for a phase-one deal that will halt further tariff increases and lower some already in place, Vice-Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen announced on Friday.

Speaking in a late-night press conference in Beijing, Wang said the agreement covered a wide range of issues, including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, purchase of agricultural products and expanding trade.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative confirmed the agreement on Friday, saying in a statement: “The United States and China have reached an historic and enforceable agreement on a Phase One trade deal that requires structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime in the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, and currency and foreign exchange.”

Both countries will proceed to detailed translations and legal review of the text and discuss arrangements for signing the agreement. US President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said that process should take “inside of a few weeks”, and that the final signing would be between US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He.

“The deal can help expanding economic and trade cooperation between the two nations and effectively manage the trade disputes,” Wang said. (Read more from “Trade War Breakthrough: U.S. and China Reach Phase-One Deal” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Former NBA Player Fined for Not Looking at Chinese Flag During Anthem in China

/0 Comments/in , /by

Former NBA player Guerschon Yabusele has been fined for bowing his head and not looking at the Chinese flag during the national anthem before a game on Dec. 6.

Yabusele, who plays for the Chinese Basketball Association’s (CBA) Nanjing Monkey Kings, was fined 10,000 yuan ($1,422) by the basketball association, CNN reported.

“I have the same routine, I’ve been doing this my whole career and I wanted to apologize for the people that took it Personnal [sic] because it was not my point,” Yabusele told TMZ Sports. “I will show my respect during the Chinese national anthem and keep my head up for now on, Love you guys.”

The former Boston Celtics was born in France and had a brief career in the NBA from 2016 to 2019. He was waived by the team this year, after which he joined his current team in China.

The fine comes amid controversy of forcing NBA players to have to stand for the Communist flag when they play their games in the country, which the NBA desperately wants. In order for that to happen, players cannot protest the Chinese government in any way. (Read more from “Former NBA Player Fined for Not Looking at Chinese Flag During Anthem in China” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

U.S. Officials Warn of Uncontrollable Escalation With Iran in Iraq

/0 Comments/in , /by

US military officials have escalated their warnings to Iran that a military conflict could be looming between the countries in Iraq due to incessant attacks on US-linked targets blamed on Tehran-backed militias. . .

Washington has expressed mounting concern about the flurry of attacks on US bases and diplomatic missions, several of which it has blamed on Shiite militia groups trained by its foe and rival for influence Tehran.

Tensions between Iran and the US have soared since Washington pulled out of a landmark nuclear agreement with Tehran last year and reimposed crippling sanctions.

Baghdad — which is close to both countries and whose many security forces have been trained by either the US or Iran — is worried about being caught in the middle. . .

A senior official was quoted Wednesday by the Reuters news agency as warning the escalation could become uncontrollable and that “no one will like the outcome.” (Read more from “U.S. Officials Warn of Uncontrollable Escalation With Iran in Iraq” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

The Architect of Mexico’s War on Cartels Was Just Arrested Accused of Drug Trafficking

/0 Comments/in , /by

A former high-ranking Mexican security official who led the country’s crackdown on organized crime in the mid-2000s was arrested in the US on Monday and been charged with conspiracy to import and distribute drugs and making false statements.

Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, was arrested in Dallas by US federal agents, according to the US district attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which said it plans to seek his removal to face charges in New York.

“Garcia Luna stands accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes from ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel while he controlled Mexico’s Federal Police Force and was responsible for ensuring public safety in Mexico,” US Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said in the release.

Garcia Luna faces three counts of conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and a fourth count of making false statements with regard to an immigration naturalization application.

Garcia Luna began his career with Mexico’s Center for National Security and Investigation in the late 1980s before moving to the federal police in the late 1990s. He was then head of Mexico’s federal investigation agency, AFI, between 2001 and 2005 and secretary of public security, then a cabinet-level position in control of the federal police, between 2006 and 2012. (Read more from “The Architect of Mexico’s War on Cartels Was Just Arrested Accused of Drug Trafficking” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE