Why Team Trump is struggling to close
face-saving trade deals
Posted By: Dreadnought, 4/24/2025 6:07:06 PM
Team Trump is looking for a face-saving off-ramp in its global trade war, and they’re ready to announce a deal-in-kind with at least one trading partner, On The Money has learned. How that manifests itself is unclear, but my sources are led to believe that actual deals — i.e. signed agreements even with the most friendly of trading partners caught up in the Trump maelstrom – are probably not happening anytime soon. What is more likely is a series of public announcements coming from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and possibly the president himself, indicating broad outlines of trade pacts that both sides can live with.
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New Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said that Damascus seeks to normalize ties with Israel, US Congressman Cory Mills told Bloomberg on Thursday after a meeting with him last week in Syria.
Mills said he held talks with Sharaa about the conditions for removing US-imposed economic sanctions, as well as the possibility of peace with Israel, according to the report.
Sharaa told Mills during their meeting that Syria is interested “under the right conditions” in joining the Abraham Accords — the series of normalization agreements that US President Donald Trump’s previous administration negotiated between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy." The basic point of this is to undermine what is known as disparate-impact theory. Here's how the executive order describes it.
A bedrock principle of the United States is that all citizens are treated equally under the law. This principle guarantees equality of opportunity, not equal outcomes. It promises that people are treated as individuals, not components of a particular race or group. It encourages meritocracy and a colorblind society, not race- or sex-based favoritism. Adherence to this principle is essential to creating opportunity, encouraging achievement, and sustaining the American Dream.
The circle of top advisers in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orbit has shrunk in recent days to little more than his wife, lawyer, and two lower-level officials — leaving the Pentagon’s lead office without longtime expertise or clear direction.
Hegseth’s decision to fire three senior aides last week and reassign his chief of staff has blown a hole in his leadership team, severing essential lines of communication across the department and leading to fears about dangerous slip-ups such as weapons program delays.
The wholesale turnover just 100 days into Hegseth’s tenure has been remarkable for its speed. And it has left the first-time government official without trusted staff who understand Washington
Hegseth had an unsecured internet line
set up in his office to connect to Signal,
AP sources say 18 replies
set up in his office to connect to Signal,
AP sources say 18 replies
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told The Associated Press.
The existence of the unsecured internet connection is the latest revelation about Hegseth’s use of the unclassified app and raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or surveillance.
Known as a “dirty” internet line by the IT industry, it connects directly to the public internet where the user’s information and the websites
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s controversial chief of staff, who played a central role in a power struggle that gripped the Pentagon, will exit the agency today.
Joe Kasper was originally expected to transition to another role within the Defense Department, but is now planning to go back to government relations and consulting, he said in an interview.
He will continue to support and advise the Pentagon, he said, but as a special government employee. This will limit him to performing temporary jobs for just 130 days a year.
A former longtime chief of staff to indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter, Kasper was a leading figure in the firings
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth went off on the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff amid a search for a leaker at the Pentagon, according to a report published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.
The paper said Hegseth was “rattled” after word got out last month that the Pentagon was set to brief Elon Musk on China, where the Tesla CEO has three factories. President Donald Trump denied the report the next day. However, Axios later reported that Trump had canceled the briefing while asking, “What the * is Elon doing here?”
During his search for the leaker, Hegseth erupted at Admiral Christopher Grady
Team Trump is looking for a face-saving off-ramp in its global trade war, and they’re ready to announce a deal-in-kind with at least one trading partner, On The Money has learned.
How that manifests itself is unclear, but my sources are led to believe that actual deals — i.e. signed agreements even with the most friendly of trading partners caught up in the Trump maelstrom – are probably not happening anytime soon.
What is more likely is a series of public announcements coming from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and possibly the president himself, indicating broad outlines of trade pacts that both sides can live with.
The Biden era’s infamous “disinformation” czar is urging the European Union to resist the Trump administration’s agenda on online censorship and other key issues.Jankowicz testified before the European Parliament earlier this week at a hearing about Russian hybrid threats and painted a gloomy picture of the Trump administration’s opposition to online speech suppression and advocacy for U.S. tech companies.“The United States has now become the largest lobbyist for these multibillion dollar [tech] corporations and is harassing any nation or body that aims to conduct oversight or require transparency of them. Neither Washington nor the social media platforms it has captured are interested in preserving democracy.
CONCORD, N.H. — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s guidance forbidding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in K-12 public schools.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the National Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, which accused the Republican administration of violating teachers’ due process and First Amendment rights.
In February, the U.S. Education Department told schools and colleges they needed to end any practice that differentiates people based on their race or they would risk losing their federal funding. Earlier this month, the department ordered states to gather signatures from local school systems certifying compliance with civil rights laws
Disney+’s acclaimed Andor has stretched the creative boundaries of Star Wars in countless ways, bringing a grown-up sensibility to a galaxy far, far away.
Yet even by Andor standards, a scene from the second season is leaving fans shocked: An Imperial officer tries to violently rape a Rebel fugitive, Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), who is hiding out in a farming settlement while Imperial troops are rounding up “undocumented” citizens (read some sample reactions below). The sequence plays out over the course of the show’s third episode (the first three episodes were released all at once on Tuesday) with the officer’s flirtation with Bix turning growing increasingly persistent and eventually
Democrat Consultants Panic over Lawmakers
Defending Accused MS-13 Member: ‘We
Need to Step Back’ 13 replies
Defending Accused MS-13 Member: ‘We
Need to Step Back’ 13 replies
Democrat consultants are warning Democrats that they are taking a massive political risk by defending an illegal alien deported to El Salvador after being accused of MS-13 gang membership, domestic violence, and human trafficking.
Last month, the Trump administration deported 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia — an illegal alien from El Salvador who had been arrested in 2019 and accused by the Prince George’s County Police Department of being a member of the violent MS-13 gang.
Federal immigration judges likewise believed Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 after a reliable criminal informant confirmed the illegal alien’s rank within the gang.
The FBI, along with state and local law enforcement, on Wednesday raided the homes of anti-Israel activists connected to protests at the University of Michigan.
Authorities began executing search warrants Wednesday morning in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and Canton in southeastern Michigan, the Detroit Metro Times and the Detroit Free Press reported. Several people were detained before they were eventually released.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office is handling the ongoing investigation, but it declined to provide details about the raids. A spokesperson, however, clarified that the police activity was unrelated to illegal immigration
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The O’Keefe Media Group on Wednesday released undercover video of a Defense Department Branch Chief attacking President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Nicolas Turza, a Department of Defense Branch Chief, called President Trump “illegitimate” and vowed to “resist him, everything he does.”
Turza also attacked Hegseth and said the 44-year-old is “insanely young” and unfit to lead.
“The same guy who tried to overthrow an election is just, like, truly setting us down a path of dictatorship.
A woke California PhD student is going viral online after declining a coveted NASA internship she spent “years” seeking — and she’s blaming “the current administration” for her shocking decision.
Daniela Lucas, a 26-year-old bioengineering student at UC San Diego, recently uploaded a TikTok video showing her dramatically selecting “Decline Offer” for an internship in NASA’s Human Health and Performance program.
“No one tells you how hard it is to reject an offer from your dream internship at NASA because of the current administration,” Lucas, 26, wrote over the video.
“I worked years to receive this letter, just to have to decline,” she added, including a crying face and devil emoji.
The circle of top advisers in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orbit has shrunk in recent days to little more than his wife, lawyer, and two lower-level officials — leaving the Pentagon’s lead office without longtime expertise or clear direction.
Hegseth’s decision to fire three senior aides last week and reassign his chief of staff has blown a hole in his leadership team, severing essential lines of communication across the department and leading to fears about dangerous slip-ups such as weapons program delays.
The wholesale turnover just 100 days into Hegseth’s tenure has been remarkable for its speed. And it has left the first-time government official without trusted staff who understand Washington
Hegseth had an unsecured internet line
set up in his office to connect to Signal,
AP sources say 18 replies
set up in his office to connect to Signal,
AP sources say 18 replies
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told The Associated Press.
The existence of the unsecured internet connection is the latest revelation about Hegseth’s use of the unclassified app and raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or surveillance.
Known as a “dirty” internet line by the IT industry, it connects directly to the public internet where the user’s information and the websites
EPA head demands answers from company
putting sulfur dioxide into the air to
address global warming 18 replies
putting sulfur dioxide into the air to
address global warming 18 replies
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is demanding a company that deliberately sends sulfur dioxide into the air to combat global warming provide detailed information on its practices. Critics of the practice, which is called geoengineering, say it puts potentially harmful pollutants into the air and needs more oversight. The company Zeldin is scrutinizing, Make Sunsets, sells “cooling credits.” The credits pay to launch weather balloons made of biodegradable latex containing hydrogen and sulfur dioxide.
The FBI has arrested former New Mexico Magistrate Judge Juan Cano and his wife Nancy Cano for allegedly harboring an illegal alien with suspected ties to Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang known for trafficking, extortion, and violence.
The arrest comes just weeks after Cano resigned from his judicial post following a dramatic federal raid at his Doña Ana County residence, where agents apprehended Cristhian Ortega Lopez, an illegal immigrant now charged with unlawful firearm possession and gang affiliation.
Somehow, in today’s upside-down world, the radicalized left has decided that violent gang members are the new underdogs they need to defend. Instead of standing up for law-abiding American citizens, they’ve gone all-in on protecting the worst of the worst—drug traffickers, sex offenders, murderers, and now, even foreign-backed gangbangers.(snip)According to Fox’s exclusive report, the FBI has uncovered a plot that includes Venezuelan officials helping gang members sneak into the US—and not just to commit random crimes, but to carry out Maduro’s sinister agenda. According to the report, these gangbangers are being used like pawns in a proxy war and were sent here to intimidate and possibly kill critics
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan have teamed up to call for the Trump administration to end the undisclosed detention of illegal immigrants, following the discovery of a couple of hundred cases that this has recently occurred along the northern border.
The ACLU and Tlaib called for a slew of changes to how U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detains people in its custody, including an end to detention more than three days; actions that keep families together; and the creation of a digital system online that reports who is in its custody.
Tlaib and the immigrant rights organizations
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports” that President Donald Trump’s actions against Harvard University are lawless, reckless, and vicious.
Jansing said, “As you know, Harvard University is suing the Trump Administration for freezing billions in funding to the school after it rejected a list of the administration’s demands. Is Harvard doing the right thing?
Schumer said, “Yes. In fact, today, a group of Jewish senators and myself sent a letter to the administration telling them that, look, going against anti-semitism is important, but what they’ve done goes way beyond that.
While plotting upcoming protests, Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., urged demonstrators to target congressmen at church.
“Folks, colleagues of mine should not be able to go to church or to go to the neighborhood gas station — if they pump their own gas, because I work with a lot of billionaires,” Ramirez said. “They should not be able to, without seeing community asking them ‘What the hell are you doing [for] my Social Security? What the hell are you doing to protect my Medicaid? Why the hell are you not standing up to protect public education in this country?’”
Ramirez called for harassment of legislators
Former President Joe Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president, will attend Pope Francis‘s funeral this weekend in Rome.
“President Biden and Dr. Biden will attend Pope Francis’s funeral,” a Biden spokesperson confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Biden did not attend the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2023, which occurred during his presidency. Benedict served as pope from 2005 through 2013, when he took the unusual step of becoming pope emeritus at 85.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush will not attend the funeral.
As we've been covering, David Hogg, a vice chairman of the DNC, has found himself making headlines with how he's helping to plunge Democrats into disarray, given that he's launched a $20 million primary initiative against certain Democratic incumbents. The effort has been news for a week, and Hogg has received criticism from veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, as well as former DNC and RNC chairs. The current DNC leadership now looks to be finally gearing up to take action.