Bipartisan Senate resolution would repeal Trump's tariffs amid his global trade war: 'Enough is enough' "Tariffs are taxes, and the power to tax belongs to Congress—not the president," Paul said in a statement. "Our Founders were clear: tax policy should never rest in the hands of one person. Abusing emergency powers to impose blanket tariffs not only drives up costs for American families but also tramples on the Constitution. It’s time Congress reasserts its authority and restores the balance of power." ....... "Trump is driving our economy into a recession, killing jobs and wiping out seniors’ retirement funds as we speak," Wyden said. "Enough is enough. No president should have the power to tax everything Americans buy without being accountable to Congress. Unless Republicans join with Democrats and take back Congress’s power over trade policy, the damage could take years to reverse."
‘Totally Silly.’ Trump’s Focus on Trade Deficit Bewilders Economists.Behind Trump’s new tariffs is a goal that is as ambitious as it is unrealistic: eliminating the bilateral trade deficit with every U.S. trading partner. ‘We’re Playing With Fire’: The Risks of Trump’s Tariffs on China Binyamin Appelbaum on the president’s rushed and rash trade war. Trump and Netanyahu Steer Toward an Ugly World, Together There’s Nothing Real About Trump’s ‘Real America’ How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days A Playbook for Standing Up to President Trump the beginnings of a playbook for standing up to his attempts to weaken core tenets of American democracy, including due process, free speech and the constitutional system of checks and balances. ....... law firms have already won court rulings that block Mr. Trump’s executive orders against them. ....... Courts, including the Supreme Court, rejected his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result; prevented him from adding a citizenship question to the census; and blocked his family-separation policy at the southern border. A grass-roots political movement helped defeat his effort to repeal Obamacare even though Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. ........ Anybody who has dealt with a schoolyard bully should recognize this principle: The illusion of invincibility is often his greatest asset. .......... One firm that was subject to an executive order — Paul, Weiss — surrendered and promised concessions, including $40 million in pro bono work for Trump-friendly causes. Three other firms — Milbank; Skadden, Arps; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher — proactively agreed to deals with the White House and made their own concessions. ......... A crucial fact about these agreements is that they include no binding promises from the White House. Mr. Trump can threaten the firms again whenever he chooses and demand further concessions. These firms are in virtual receivership to Mr. Trump. So is Columbia, which yielded to Mr. Trump after he threatened its federal funding. The university did not even win the restoration of that funding when it agreed to his demands; it won merely permission to begin negotiating with the administration........... “Once you make concessions once, it’s hard not to make them again,” Christopher Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University and a legal scholar by training, said when discussing the attacks on higher education. .......... The three law firms that have filed suits to block Mr. Trump’s executive orders — Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale — provide a model. So far, they are winning in court. Importantly, they have won the backing of many conservatives. As our counterparts on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote, Mr. Trump’s campaign against law firms “breaks a cornerstone principle of American justice.” ........... Already, some students at top law schools say they will no longer interview with firms like Skadden. “We’re not looking to sacrifice our moral values,” one student at Georgetown University said. .......... The United States is home to an outsize share of financial and corporate activity partly because investors have confidence that the rule of law prevails here. If political power instead supersedes signed contracts and the rule of law, American business will suffer.
The Trump White House Cited My Research to Justify Tariffs. It Got It All Wrong. My first question, when the White House unveiled its tariff regime, was: How on earth did it calculate such huge rates? Reciprocal tariffs, after all, are supposed to treat other countries the way they treat us, and foreign tariffs on American goods are nowhere near these levels......... Americans spend more on clothing made in Sri Lanka than Sri Lankans spend on American pharmaceuticals and gas turbines. So what? That pattern reflects differences in natural resources, comparative advantage and development levels. The deficit numbers don’t suggest, let alone prove, unfair competition...........
The Nobel laureate Robert Solow explained why when he quipped, “I have a chronic deficit with my barber, who doesn’t buy a darned thing from me.”
.......... A large tariff on Japanese auto parts could cause an increase in demand for imports from Mexico and vice versa. And the tariffs clearly invite retaliation and may over time increase the dollar’s value, both factors that would most likely depress U.S. exports. ........... We found that tariffs of, say, 20 percent caused domestic importers to pay nearly 19 percent more. This represents a pass-through into import prices of about 95 percent, which is the value I would have plugged into the government’s tariff formula. In simple terms, that implies that the price paid for U.S. imports would rise almost as much as the tariff rate.
Immigration Enforcement Under Trump Is Going Rogue Federal law enforcement under President Trump is engaged in dangerous political theater, with high-profile arrests of non-citizen students, workers and parents set up to score political points more than to protect national security........... Right now, the government is burning thousands of federal law enforcement hours on operations that privilege political objectives over public safety, attacking constitutional protections like due process and free speech as they do. If this administration doesn’t correct course, it will lock the country into a future of weaker enforcement, lowered trust in public safety officials and greater risk to Americans’ collective safety. .......... As each successive administration relied more on executive power to manage the system, Congress did not pass structured, long-term immigration reform. ........... The new Trump White House is finding ever more cruel, even brutal, methods to publicly target some of the most vulnerable people in this country. While Americans are distracted by sensational videos of anti-migrant enforcement actions from the Trump administration on social media, the real threats grow. ........ The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, recently announced that federal agents arrested roughly 20,000 undocumented people across the country in February. That doesn’t mean 20,000 national security threats were removed from the United States. On average, the United States can deport only about 7,000 to 9,000 people monthly by plane, and detention centers were at maximum capacity. So what happened to the 13,000 other migrants who were arrested? The only rational law enforcement step would be to process and then release them. That means law enforcement’s time, energy and focus were wasted on a political stunt. .............. Every ICE agent dispatched to detain a noncriminal farmworker, construction laborer or college student — many, if not most, of whom have legal standing to work and study in our communities — is an ICE agent not investigating fentanyl networks, cyberattacks, human trafficking or transnational gangs. Those are the actual bad actors who threaten American safety and sovereignty. .......... ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have greater authority than most Americans realize. They can detain people without a warrant, conduct searches without probable cause and deport people without criminal charges. These powers demand discipline, not spectacle. ........... They do not exist to target migrant grandmothers from Guatemala, unaccompanied children fleeing gang violence, Haitian families seeking asylum from political collapse, Palestinian and Indian students who attended U.S. universities under lawful visas, or Mexican and Salvadoran families working and raising U.S. citizen children while trapped in immigration backlogs. ............ When ICE and C.B.P. are used in this manner, their mission is compromised. Career agents are sidelined. Morale drops. Recruitment suffers. When communities see federal law enforcement used to punish rather than to protect, they stop cooperating. Law enforcement loses tips, and witnesses. Local partners hesitate to share information. That’s how dangerous actors slip through. ............. The real bad actors are getting smarter and faster. Mexican cartels use tunnels and ultralight aircraft to move narcotics. Cybercriminals attack hospitals and rural infrastructure. International smuggling operations launder profits through cryptocurrency.
After I Self-Deported From the U.S., My Life Improved That day, I found out that no one cares if an undocumented immigrant leaves America............ In my experience, America had become a place to flee from, not to. At the time I lived in New York without papers, I couldn’t secure a license to drive, afford to go to college, start a career, get health care, vote, open a bank account or travel freely. My life was a struggle with domestic and sexual violence, financial hardship and suicide attempts. By self-deporting, I ended my American life to save what remained of my actual life. ........ Acquiring a British spouse visa was straightforward, in my experience smoother than America’s processes. My new start in London was suffused with unfamiliar optimism. Freed from being undocumented, and even without a bachelor’s degree, I graduated with two master’s degrees, one from Cambridge University in creative writing. ......... In tears of guilt, I remembered my parents, struggling in the ’90s to be legalized, fleeced by unscrupulous immigration lawyers until time ran out on their tourist visas.
A Big Idea to Solve America’s Immigration Mess The federal government’s ability to regulate immigration, a basic function of any nation, is broken. Over the past four years, some eight million people settled in the United States, and most of them did so unlawfully. Instead of an immigration policy calibrated to the needs of the country, both Americans and immigrants are being let down by a set of outdated laws inconsistently enforced by underfunded agencies. Chaos has been a predictable result........ mass deportations, or reductions in future immigration, are not in the national interest. .........
Immigrants are America’s rocket fuel, powering our nation’s unsurpassed economic and cultural achievements.
The famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty mischaracterizes those who leave their home countries behind. They are not the tired and the poor; they are people possessed of the determination, skill and resources to seek a better life. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 142 immigrants to the United States. Nearly half of the companies in the Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants or their children. Blue jeans, Tesla, basketball, “God Bless America” — all the work of immigrants............... There’s a more basic imperative, too. America needs more people. Americans no longer make enough babies to maintain the country’s population. To sustain economic growth, the United States needs an infusion of a few million immigrants every year. ............. Without immigrants, the population would start to decline immediately, leaving employers short-handed, curtailing the economy’s potential and causing the kinds of strains on public services and society that have plagued Rust Belt cities for decades. ............ In Japan, where the population has been in decline since 2009, there are no longer enough postal workers to deliver mail on Saturdays. Nine million homes have been abandoned, and a recent report estimated that more than 40 percent of Japanese municipalities might disappear. The challenges prompted Fumio Kishida, then the prime minister, to declare in January 2023 that “Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society.” ........... Democrats should embrace the need to control who enters the country. High rates of immigration across Europe and North America have not led to more tolerance of newcomers but instead have led to a resurgence of nativist political movements that have shaken liberal democracy. Climate change is likely to increase the pressure by propelling more migrants to search for safety and opportunity. The United States cannot admit everyone who wishes to come, and the choice of who may come should be intentional, not a result of a government’s lack of the will and the capacity to enforce its own laws.......... But as immigrants spend the money they earn, they create more jobs than they fill. ......... The C.B.O. predicts that by 2034, because of the surge in immigration, the nation’s annual economic output will be 3 percent larger. ......... in a study published in 2017, the economists Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan found that the current generation of immigrants was assimilating culturally and prospering economically at essentially the same pace as previous generations. ........... “The children of immigrants from El Salvador are as likely to be economically successful nowadays as were the children of immigrants from Great Britain 150 years ago,” they wrote in “Streets of Gold,” a 2022 book describing their research. ............. In contrast to Houston, Alabama, in 2011, passed what was then the most restrictive anti-immigration measure in the country. It prohibited hiring, renting property to or transporting undocumented immigrants. It denied financial aid at state universities to undocumented students. Some parts of the law have since been repealed, but the state’s politicians continue to demonize immigrants, even though Alabama has relatively few. .......... The state’s hostility to immigration helps to explain why Birmingham has lost population in every decade since 1960. It is a city of unfilled spaces — vacant lots, parking lots — and of open jobs. Alabama in August had just 55 available workers for every 100 job openings, among the lowest rates in the country ............... In 1965, the Black playwright Douglas Turner Ward premiered a one-act satire that revolved around the premise that all of the Black workers in a Southern town had disappeared. Homes went uncleaned. Babies went unfed. The town’s factories were shuttered. A local businessman complained that “the absence of handymen, porters, sweepers, stock-movers, deliverers and miscellaneous dirty-work doers is disrupting the smooth harmony of marketing!” ............. Immigrants are now the dirty-work doers. Americans rely on people born in other countries to pick crops, pluck chickens, build homes. Visit a wealthy neighborhood in the middle of the day, and you will find the streets alive with immigrants caring for the children, the dogs and the lawns. ............ It is a bitter irony that even as the United States was ending the legal segregation of African Americans, it was effectively creating a new caste system in which many immigrants were enlisted as workers but excluded from becoming citizens. Roughly 11 million people, one-fourth of the foreign-born population, do not have permission to live here. ............. Mr. Trump will not succeed in making immigrants disappear. During his first term, he deported 325,000 people who were living in the U.S. Even if he deports 10 times as many in his second term, a volume many experts regard as beyond the government’s capacity, millions of immigrants would remain in the country, more vulnerable to exploitation because it will be dangerous for them to seek help. ............. Americans face a choice between perpetuating a society maintained by an underclass of unauthorized workers or moving closer to the democratic ideal of a nation of citizens — a nation in which all are equal before the law. As Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in 1958, “citizenship is man’s basic right, for it is nothing less than the right to have rights.” ........ In the mid-2000s, Todd Davis, chief executive of an identity-protection company called LifeLock, published his Social Security number on billboards as a marketing gimmick. A Houston lawyer who works on immigration cases said he found at least 165 instances in which undocumented workers in the Houston area used Mr. Davis’s number. ............ The government’s longstanding focus on policing immigrants rather than employers is akin to arresting drug users rather than dealers, and it has been roughly as successful. ......... He was caught at the border five times before he succeeded in crossing on the sixth attempt. In Houston, he took a job as a dishwasher. Four decades later, he is a Houston icon, the chef and a co-owner of a string of celebrated restaurants. “I put my life at risk to come here, and I would do it in a heartbeat again and again and again,” he said.
Immigration Is Great for Jobs, Actually We’ve been able to achieve large increases in overall employment only because working-age immigrants have been coming to America. If we didn’t have the immigrants, we wouldn’t have the jobs.
Google just made search feel like magic The future was written in fiction decades before Silicon Valley caught up. ....... something fancy called “multimodal search,” powered by Google Lens. Basically, the system doesn’t just look at an object—it understands the full scene. Shapes, colors, materials, even how stuff relates to each other. .......... Behind the scenes, it fires off a bunch of queries (Google calls this “query fan-out”) to bring you smarter answers than your usual link list. ..........
This update comes as Google tries to keep up with the cool kids: ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and other AI-first engines that are eating traditional search alive.
....... This isn’t just a flex this is Google trying to make search feel human again. You won’t just search anymore. You’ll talk to your curiosity. And your photos? They’ll finally talk back. ........ Google’s new AI Overviews—automated answers stitched together from sites like hers. People stop clicking. Sites stop earning. ........ Bloomberg spoke to dozens of creators. Same story: traffic’s vanished. Some saw 70% drops. Others had to shut down. ........
now, AI answers often replace the content, not link to it.
........ Behind closed doors, they’ve admitted the shift is real—but no one’s promising a fix. ....... Smaller publishers say they’re being squeezed out in favor of big names and forums like Reddit or YouTube. ....... Google built its empire on other people’s content. Now it’s serving it back with fewer crumbs for the ones who made it. That’s not innovation. That’s cannibalism with a friendly UI.
The Silence Around the Trade War Is What Worries Me Most
What worries me most about this trade war isn't just the tariffs, the retaliation, or the economic uncertainty—it’s the eerie silence. I see no real debate. I see no open, spirited exchange of ideas. No economists of different stripes locking intellectual horns. And that, to me, is far more troubling than any policy decision itself.
Where are the voices? Where is the discourse?
In moments like this, we should be seeing vigorous debate from across the spectrum—Keynesians, supply-siders, institutional economists, heterodox thinkers—arguing their positions, dissecting the impacts, offering competing visions. Trade wars are not small matters. They shape industries, livelihoods, and geopolitical balances. They deserve more than soundbites and silence.
But instead, there seems to be a kind of quiet resignation. Or worse, a lack of curiosity. Is it because the issue has become too politicized? Too complex? Too “handled” by policymakers behind closed doors?
I don't have all the answers. But I do know that robust public discourse is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy—and a functional economy. We need the economists, the trade experts, the historians, the policy wonks. We need panels, op-eds, podcasts, classroom debates. We need disagreement.
Because only through that friction can we truly understand what's at stake—and what our options really are.
So yes, the trade war itself concerns me. But the silence around it? That’s what bothers me more.
Every few years, the same headline circles around: “High-Speed Rail Project Delayed (Again).”
Meanwhile, in Japan, you can ride the Shinkansen at 200+ mph, sip tea, and arrive exactly on time. In China, high-speed rail connects over 500 cities and has become a backbone of domestic travel.
So here’s the question: Why can’t the richest, most technologically advanced country in the world build a bullet train?
Let’s dive in.
1. Geography and Urban Sprawl
One of the biggest hurdles is how the U.S. is built. Unlike Europe or Japan, where cities are densely packed and close together, American cities are sprawling and separated by hundreds, even thousands, of miles.
High-speed rail thrives when you have high-density, high-demand corridors (think Tokyo–Osaka or Paris–Lyon). In the U.S., the only truly viable route under this logic is the Northeast Corridor (Boston–NYC–Philly–DC)—and even that’s politically tricky.
2. Car Culture and Cheap Flights
America was built on highways and car ownership. The freedom of the open road is baked into American identity. Add in decades of subsidized air travel and cheap domestic flights, and you’ve got a public less inclined to switch to trains—even fast ones.
Why take a train from LA to San Francisco when Southwest gets you there for $59 in under an hour?
3. Political Gridlock and NIMBYism
Building a bullet train isn’t just an engineering challenge—it’s a political marathon. Every new rail line requires land, permits, zoning changes, environmental reviews, and coordination across multiple states and jurisdictions.
And then there’s NIMBYism ("Not In My Backyard")—local opposition from residents who don't want a train line running near their neighborhood, even if it benefits the region. This can slow or completely kill progress.
4. Privately Owned Rail Tracks
Here’s something most Americans don’t realize: in the U.S., most rail infrastructure is owned by private freight companies, not the government.
So unlike countries where high-speed rail was built on publicly controlled tracks, any passenger train in the U.S. has to either:
Build its own tracks (extremely expensive), or
Negotiate with freight companies (slow, limited, and unreliable for high-speed trains).
5. Lack of Long-Term Vision and Funding
High-speed rail is a generational investment. You pour in billions over decades and reap benefits later in economic development, reduced emissions, and regional growth.
The U.S., however, tends to prioritize short-term wins. Congress often funds transportation projects in fragmented, multi-year budget cycles, with changes every time political leadership shifts. Compare that to China, where high-speed rail is part of long-term national strategy and centrally planned execution.
6. Bureaucracy on Bureaucracy
The permitting and approval process in the U.S. is a regulatory maze. Environmental reviews can take 5–10 years, even before a shovel hits the ground. Add to that procurement rules, contractor lawsuits, and layers of oversight, and you get massive delays and budget overruns.
Case in point: California’s high-speed rail, originally budgeted at $33 billion, is now projected to cost over $100 billion—and it’s still incomplete.
So, Is It Impossible?
Not impossible. Just really, really hard under the current system.
Brightline in Florida and Texas Central (planned between Dallas and Houston) are examples of private attempts to break through the gridlock. The Northeast Corridor has Amtrak’s Acela Express (technically "high-speed," but still slow by global standards). And new federal funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law could give high-speed rail a boost.
But unless there’s a national, bipartisan commitment to modern rail, and a rethink of how we fund and govern major infrastructure, bullet trains will remain the American dream that Japan rode 60 years ago.
The Bigger Question
The real issue isn’t just trains. It’s vision.
Other countries build futuristic infrastructure because they believe in public investment, long-term planning, and cohesive action. Until the U.S. learns to do the same, it’ll keep falling behind—not just in rail, but across the board.
What do you think? Will the U.S. ever get its bullet train moment? Or is this just a track that leads nowhere? Drop your thoughts below.
How Does China Do What It Does? Unpacking the Secrets Behind the “World’s Factory”
If you’ve ever wondered how China became the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, you’re not alone. From your smartphone to your sneakers, there’s a good chance they were made—or at least assembled—in China. But how did this happen? What gives China its edge, and can it be replicated in other parts of the world like the U.S., India, or Europe?
Let’s break it down.
1. The Historical Head Start
China’s rise didn’t happen overnight. In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping opened up China’s economy to foreign investment and market reforms. Suddenly, multinational corporations had access to a vast labor force willing to work at low wages. Coupled with aggressive industrial policies and infrastructure development, China became an attractive place to build, well, everything.
2. Massive Labor Force, Low Cost (At First)
China had hundreds of millions of workers—many migrating from rural areas—ready to take factory jobs. Wages were low, and productivity was steadily rising. This made Chinese goods cheap and competitive. Though wages have risen in recent years, the country’s well-established manufacturing ecosystem still offers value.
3. Supply Chain Clustering
Perhaps China’s biggest magic trick is how it built dense, hyper-efficient supply chains. In places like Shenzhen, a factory making smartphone screens might be just down the road from one producing batteries, and next door to a packaging company. This proximity slashes transportation time, increases coordination, and reduces costs. These clusters are tough to beat.
4. Infrastructure, Infrastructure, Infrastructure
China invested trillions into infrastructure: ports, highways, high-speed rail, and power grids. Moving goods across the country—or out to the world—became incredibly efficient. Compare that to countries with underdeveloped logistics networks, and you see why China remains dominant.
5. Government Support and Industrial Policy
The Chinese government actively shapes its industrial landscape. Subsidies, tax breaks, export incentives, and strategic planning (think “Made in China 2025”) give manufacturers a leg up. Bureaucratic hurdles are often minimized for favored sectors.
6. Speed and Scale
China can build a factory in months, hire thousands, and scale production at lightning speed. Local governments often compete to attract projects and cut red tape to make it happen fast. Western democracies, by contrast, often get bogged down in permits, protests, and lengthy negotiations.
Can China’s Model Be Replicated?
Short answer: Parts of it—yes. All of it—very hard.
Let’s look at a few regions:
🇺🇸 The United States
Strengths: Innovation, high-quality R&D, robust capital markets.
Weaknesses: High labor costs, complex regulatory environment, and a cultural shift away from blue-collar manufacturing jobs.
What’s possible? Advanced manufacturing (e.g., semiconductors, aerospace) with heavy automation can thrive. But don’t expect the U.S. to make iPhones start to finish anytime soon. The edge will be in quality and tech, not low-cost mass production.
Weaknesses: Infrastructure bottlenecks, land acquisition issues, inconsistent policies, and bureaucratic red tape.
What’s possible? India has immense potential. With reforms in logistics, labor laws, and industrial policy, it could become a serious manufacturing hub. The government’s “Make in India” push is a step in the right direction. But supply chain maturity and infrastructure still lag far behind China’s.
Weaknesses: High costs, strict labor laws, slower policy movement.
What’s possible? Europe shines in precision engineering, high-end manufacturing, and green tech. But large-scale, low-cost mass manufacturing like China’s isn’t the goal—or even viable—due to economic and political differences.
Final Thoughts: China’s Edge Is Structural—and Cultural
China’s manufacturing dominance isn’t just about cheap labor. It’s about ecosystems, speed, infrastructure, state support, and a national focus on production. These factors are deeply woven into the country's political and economic DNA.
Can others replicate it? Not entirely. But that’s okay. The next global manufacturing hubs—whether it’s India, Vietnam, Mexico, or Africa—don’t need to be China 2.0. They need to build competitive advantages based on their unique strengths.
And maybe, just maybe, the “world’s factory” will start to look more like a network than a single country.
What do you think? Can India rise to the occasion? Can the U.S. revive its manufacturing mojo? Drop your thoughts below!
