Tuesday, May 13, 1975. Breakthrough at Long Tieng.

Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops broke through the defense lines of the Hmong army headquartered in Long Tieng, Laos, "the most secret place on earth."   From that location, the Hmong has opposed the Pathet Lao and NVA.

Jerry Daniels of the CIA organized an air evacuation of Vang Pao and about 2,000 Hmong, mostly soldiers and their families to Thailand.

Daniels is an interesting character who stayed on in Thailand after the conclusion of the Indochinese wars.  He was claimed to to have died in 1982 due to asphyxiation from a water heater gas leak, but his casket was sealed with instructions not to open it.  After his funeral in Montana, which was widely attended by Hmong refugees, various members of the Hmong community have claimed to have seen him in Indochina or the US.

Last edition:

Monday, May 12, 1975. The Mayaguez taken.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, boats and ships, Cambodia, Khmer Rouge, The Mayaguez Incident

Sunday, May 13, 1945. "There is still a lot to do".

Churchill delivered a radio address warning that there was still a lot to do.

It was five years ago on Thursday last that His Majesty the King commissioned me to form a National Government of all parties to carry on our affairs. Five years is a long time in human life, especially when there is no remission for good conduct. However, aided-by loyal and capable colleagues and sustained by the entire British nation at home and all our fighting men abroad, and with the unswerving cooperation of the Dominions far across the oceans and of our Empire in every quarter of the globe, it became clear last week that things had worked out pretty well and that the British Commonwealth and Empire stands more united and more effectively powerful than at any time in its long romantic history. Certainly we were in a far better state to cope with the problems and perils of the future than we were five years ago.

For a while our prime enemy, our mighty enemy, Germany, overran almost all Europe. France, who bore such a frightful strain in the last great war was beaten to the ground and took some time to recover. The Low Countries, fighting to the best of their strength, were subjugated. Norway was overrun. Mussolini's Italy stabbed us in the back when we were, as he thought, at our last gasp. But for ourselves, our lot, I mean the British Commonwealth and Empire, we were absolutely alone.

In July, August, and September, 1940, forty or fifty squadrons of British fighter aircraft broke the teeth of the German air fleet at odds of seven or eight to one in the Battle of Britain. Never before in the history of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. The name of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding will ever be linked with this splendid event. But conjoined with the Royal Air Force lay the Royal Navy, ever ready to tear to pieces the barges, gathered from the canals of Holland and Belgium, in which an invading army could alone have been transported. I was never one to believe that the invasion of Britain would be an easy task. With the autumn storms, the immediate danger of invasion in 1940 had passed.

Then began the blitz, when Hitler said he would rub out our cities. This was borne without a word of complaint or the slightest signs of flinching, while a very large number of people-honor to them all-proved that London could take it and so could the other ravaged centers.

But the dawn of 1941 revealed us still in jeopardy. The hostile aircraft could fly across the approaches to our island, where 46,000,000 people had to import half their daily bread and all the materials they need for peace or war, from Brest to Norway in a single flight or back again, observing all the movements of our shipping in and out of the Clyde and Mersey and directing upon our convoys the large and increasing numbers of U-boats with which the enemy bespattered the Atlantic-the survivors or successors of which are now being collected in British harbors.

The sense of envelopment, which might at any moment turn to strangulation, lay heavy upon us. We had only the northwestern approach between Ulster and Scotland through which to bring in the means of life and to send out the forces of war. Owing to the action of Mr. de Valera, so much at variance with the temper and instinct of thousands of southern Irishmen, who hastened to the battlefront to prove their ancient valor, the approaches which the southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by the hostile aircraft and U-boats.

This was indeed a deadly moment in our life, and if it had not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera or perish forever from the earth. However, with a restraint and poise to which, I say, history will find few parallels, we never laid a violent hand upon them, which at times would have been quite easy and quite natural, and left the de Valera Government to frolic with the German and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart's content.

When I think of these days I think also of other episodes and personalities. I do not forget Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde, V.C., D.S.O., Lance-Corporal Keneally, V.C., Captain Fegen, V.C., and other Irish heroes that-I could easily recite, and all bitterness by Britain for the Irish race dies in my heart. I can only pray that in years which I shall not see the shame will be forgotten and the glories will endure, and that the peoples of the British Isles and of the British Commonwealth of Nations will walk together in mutual comprehension and forgiveness.

My friends, we will not forget the devotion of our merchant seamen, the vast, inventive, adaptive, all-embracing and, in the end, all-controlling power of the Royal Navy, with its ever more potent new ally, the air, which have kept the life-line open. We were able to breathe; we were able to live; we were able to strike. Dire deeds we had to do. The destruction or capture of the French fleet which, had it ever passed into German hands would, together with the Italian fleet, have perhaps enabled the German Navy to face us on the high seas. The dispatch to Wavell all round the Cape at our darkest hour, of tanks-practically all we had in the island-enabled us as far back as November, 1940, to defend Egypt against invasion and hurl back with the loss of a quarter of a million captives the Italian armies at whose tail Mussolini had planned a ride into Cairo or Alexandria.

Great anxiety was felt by President Roosevelt, and indeed by thinking men throughout the United States, about what would happen to us in the early part of 1941. This great President felt to the depth of his being that the destruction of Britain would not only be a fearful event in itself, but that it would expose to mortal danger the vast and as yet largely unarmed potentialities and future destiny of the United States.

He feared greatly that we should be invaded in that spring of 1941, and no doubt he had behind him military advice as good as any in the world, and he sent his recent Presidential opponent, Mr. Wendell Willkie, to me with a letter in which he had written in his own hand the famous lines of Longfellow, which I quoted in the House of Commons the other day:

Sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

We were in a fairly tough condition by the early months of 1941 and felt very much better about ourselves than in the months immediately after the collapse of France. Our Dunkirk army and field force troops in Britain, almost a million strong, were nearly all equipped or re-equipped. We had ferried over the Atlantic a million rifles and a thousand cannon from the United States, with all their ammunition, since the previous June.

In our munition works, which were becoming very powerful, men and women had worked at their machines till they dropped senseless with fatigue. Nearly one million of men, growing to two millions at the peak, working all day had been formed into the Home Guard, armed at least with rifles and armed also with the spirit "Conquer or Die."

Later in 1941, when we were still all alone, we sacrificed, to some extent unwillingly, our conquests of the winter in Cyrenaica and Libya in order to stand by Greece, and Greece will never forget how much we gave, albeit unavailingly, of the little we had. We did this for honor. We repressed the German-instigated rising in Iraq. We defended Palestine. With the assistance of General de Gaulle's indomitable Free French we cleared Syria and the Lebanon of Vichyites and of German intrigue. And then in June, 1941, another tremendous world event occurred.

You have no doubt noticed in your reading of British history that we have sometimes had to hold out all alone, or to be the mainspring of coalitions, against a Continental tyrant or dictator for quite a long time-against the Spanish Armada, against the might of Louis XIV, when we led Europe for nearly twenty-five years under William III and Marlborough and 130 years ago, when Pitt, Wellington, and Nelson broke Napoleon, not without the assistance of the heroic Russians of 1812. In all these world wars our island kept the lead of Europe or else held out alone.

And if you hold out alone long enough there always comes a time when the tyrant makes some ghastly mistake which alters the whole balance of the struggle. On June 22, 1941, Hitler, master as he thought himself of all Europe, nay indeed soon to be, he thought, master of the world, treacherously, without warning, without the slightest provocation, hurled himself on Russia and came face to face with Marshal Stalin and the numberless millions of the Russian people. And then at the end of the year Japan struck her felon blow at the United States at Pearl Harbor, and at the same time attacked us in Malaya and at Singapore. Thereupon Hitler and Mussolini declared war on the republic of the United States.

Years have passed since then. Indeed every year seems to me almost a decade. But never since the United States entered the war have I had the slightest doubt but that we should be saved and that we had only to do our duty in order to win. We have played our part in all this process by which the evildoers have been overthrown. I hope I do not speak vain or boastful words. But from Alamein in October, 1942, through the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa, of Sicily and of-Italy, with the capture of Rome, we marched many miles and never knew defeat.

And then last year, after two years' patient preparation and marvelous devices of amphibious warfare-in my view our scientists are not surpassed by any nation, specially when their thought is applied to naval matters-last year on June 6 we seized a carefully selected little toe of German-occupied France and poured millions in from this island and from across the Atlantic until the Seine, the Somme, and the Rhine all fell behind the advancing Anglo-American spearheads. France was liberated. She produced a fine Army of gallant men to aid her own liberation. Germany lay open.

And now from the other side, from the East, the mighty military achievements of the Russian people, always holding many more German troops on their front than we could do, rolled forward to meet us in the heart and center of Germany. At the same time in Italy Field-Marshal Alexander's Army of so many nations, the largest part of which was British or British Empire, struck their final blow and compelled more than 1,000,000 enemy troops to surrender. This Fifteenth Army Group, as we call it, are now deep in Austria joining their right hand with the Russians and their left with the United States Armies under General Eisenhower's command.

It happened that in three days we received the news of the unlamented departures of Mussolini and Hitler, and in three days also surrenders were made to Field-Marshal Alexander and Field-Marshal Montgomery of over 2,500,000 soldiers of this terrible warlike German Army.

I shall make it clear at this moment that we have never failed to recognize the immense superiority of the power used by the United States in the rescue of France and the defeat of Germany.

For our part we have had in action about one-third as many men as the Americans, but we have taken our full share of the fighting, as the scale of our losses shows. Our Navy has borne incomparably the heavier burden in the Atlantic Ocean, in the narrow seas and Arctic convoys to Russia, while the United States Navy has used its massive strength mainly against Japan. It is right and natural that we should extol the virtues and glorious services of our own most famous commanders, Alexander and Montgomery, neither of whom was ever defeated since they began together at Alamein, both of whom had conducted in Africa, in Italy, in Normandy and in Germany battles of the first magnitude and of decisive consequences. At the same time we know how great is our debt to the combining and unifying of the command and high strategic direction of General Eisenhower.

Here is the moment when I must pay my personal tribute to the British Chiefs of the Staff with whom I have worked in the closest intimacy throughout these hard years. There have been very few changes in this powerful and capable body of men who, sinking all Service differences and judging the problems of the war as a whole, have worked together in the closest harmony with each other. In Field-Marshal Brooke, Admiral Pound, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and Marshal of the R.A.F. Portal a power was formed who deserved the highest honor in the direction of the whole British war strategy and its agreement with that of our Allies.

It may well be said that never have the forces of two nations fought side by side and intermingled into line of battle with so much unity, comradeship, and brotherhood as in the great Anglo-American army. Some people say, "Well, what would you expect, if both nations speak the same language and have the same outlook upon life with all its hope and glory." Others may say, "It would be an ill day for all the world and for the pair of them if they did not go on working together and marching together and sailing together and flying together wherever something has to be done for the sake of freedom and fair play all over the world."

There was one final danger from which the collapse of Germany has saved us. In London and the southeastern counties we have suffered for a year from various forms of flying bombs and rockets and our Air Force and our Ack-Ack Batteries have done wonders against them. In particular the Air Force, turned on in good time on what then seemed very slight and doubtful evidence, vastly hampered and vastly delayed all German preparations.

But it was only when our Armies cleaned up the coast and overran all the points of discharge, and when the Americans captured vast stores of rockets of all kinds near Leipzig, and when the preparations being made on the coasts of France and Holland could be examined in detail, that we knew how grave was the peril, not only from rockets and flying bombs but from multiple long-range artillery.

Only just in time did the Allied Armies blast the viper in his nest. Otherwise the autumn of 1944, to say nothing of 1945, might well have seen London as shattered as Berlin. For the same period the Germans had prepared a new U-boat fleet and novel tactics which, though we should have eventually destroyed them, might well have carried anti-U-boat warfare back to the high peak days of 1942. Therefore we must rejoice and give thanks not only for our preservation when we were all alone but for our timely deliverance from new suffering, new perils not easily to be measured.

I wish I could tell you tonight that all our toils and troubles were over. Then indeed I could end my five years' service happily, and if you thought you had had enough of me and that I ought to be put out to grass, I assure you I would take it with the best of grace. But, on the contrary, I must warn you, as I did when I began this five years' task-and no one knew then that it would last so long-that there is still a lot to do and that you must be prepared for further efforts of mind and body and further sacrifices to great causes if you are not to fall back into the rut of inertia, the confusion of aim, and the craven fear of being great. You must not weaken in any way in your alert and vigilant frame of mind, and though holiday rejoicing is necessary to the human spirit, yet it must add to the strength and resilience with which every man and woman turns again to the work they have to do, and also to the outlook and watch they have to keep on public affairs.

On the continent of Europe we have yet to make sure that the simple and honorable purposes for which we entered the war are not brushed aside or overlooked in the months following our success, and that the words freedom, democracy, and liberation are not distorted from their true meaning as we have understood them. There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites for their crimes if law and justice did not rule, and if totalitarian or police governments were to take the place of the German invaders.

We seek nothing for ourselves. But we must make sure that those causes which we fought for find recognition at the peace table in facts as well as words, and above all we must labor that the world organization which the United Nations are creating at San Francisco, does not become an idle name; does not become a shield for the strong and a mockery for the weak. It is the victors who must search their hearts in their glowing hours and be worthy by their nobility of the immense forces that they wield.

We must never forget that beyond all lurks Japan, harassed and failing but still a people of a hundred millions, for whose warriors death has few terrors. I cannot tell you tonight how much time or what exertions will be required to compel them to make amends for their odious treachery and cruelty. We have received-like China so long undaunted-we have received horrible injuries from them ourselves, and we are bound by the ties of honor and fraternal loyalty to the United States to fight this great war at the other end of the world at their side without flagging or failing.

We must remember that Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were and are all directly menaced by this evil Power. They came to our aid in our dark times, and we must not leave unfinished any task which concerns their safety and their future. I told you hard things at the beginning of these last five years; you did not shrink, and I should be unworthy of your confidence and generosity if I did not still cry, "Forward, unflinching, unswerving, indomitable, till the whole task is done and the whole world is safe and clean."

The Battle of Pokoku and the Irrawaddy River operations in Burma ended in a British victory.

Riots took place outside of a Catholic Church in Santiago Chile where a memorial Mass for Mussolini was being offered.

German Army Group E surrendered for the most part, although some of it continued to fight on in Slovenia.

In Czechoslovakia German forces continued to retreat to the west in spite of the war having ended in hopes of surrendering to the Americans rather than the Soviets, but they were not putting up an armed resistance.

Marines took Dakeshi Ridge on Okinawa.

Last edition:

Saturday, May 12, 1945. Shortened futures.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Lend Lease, NKVD, Okinawa, Philippines, Russian Liberation Army, United Nations War Crimes Commission, USSR, World War Two

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 5. The Roller Coaster Edition.

 

April 10, 2025

On April 2, Trump, using bogus emergency powers, imposed an insane tariff regime on nearly every country in the world, save for Russia, based on trade imbalances, showing a juvenile understanding of that topic at best.

This caused markets to crash and the economy to head to what might optimistically have been a recession, and perhaps more realistically a depression.

Yesterday the tariffs were paused for 90 days, save for the ones on China, the latter of which has retaliated with a 104% tariff on US goods.

Earlier tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico, and a 10% tariff imposed on everyone, remain.

This policy is still disastrous, simply less so than the really steep tariffs that Trump had claimed were permanent, and then which turned out to perhaps not be after foreign holders began to dump US bonds.

And so here we are.  

Congress has the power to end this madness as it has delegated these completely bogus emergency powers to the Red Caesar, but it won't as the national GOP is now some sort of strange Peronist/Authoritarian party dedicated to extremism.  The roller coaster ride isn't over, it's just on some lower bends.  The whims and beliefs of one man now hold the global economy in peril.

Highly relevant to Wyoming:

Despite the strong relief rally on Wednesday, following President Trump’s 90-day pause of tariff hikes on most countries except China, the U.S. benchmark oil price is now lower than the breakeven for the shale industry to profitably drill a new well.

 OilPrice.com

Cont:

Speaker of the House Johnson had to pull the budget bill from consideration due to right wing concerns over the deficit, which are rightly placed.  Apparently as of this morning he has enough votes to advance the bill.

Cont:

After massively rallying late yesterday, stocks are once again dropping this morning.

Cont:

The Dow closed 1,000 points down.

Oil fell to $60.23/bbl. after having gone up a little during the day at first.

The decline is starting to set in, which not only makes it a bear market, but which shows that long term prospects for the economy are fading.

April 11, 2025

China raised its tariffs on US goods to 125%.

April 13, 2025

The Trump administration is now excluding certain electronics like smartphones and laptops from reciprocal tariffs.

April 14, 2025

The weekend shows made it clear that the reprieve on electronics tariffs is temporary, and more directed ones will be coming.

Regarding the weekend shows:

A Disturbing Trifecta

On a US industry that may in fact feel quick relief in their sector from the tariffs, a headline from the Tribune:

GULF SHRIMPERS CHEER ON TRUMP’S TARIFFS SEAFOOD INDUSTRY 

Cheap imports cause US industry to lose 50% of market value

April 17, 2025

Wyoming hospital districts face ‘painful’ funding drop with property tax cut: The state’s 15 hospital districts are among hundreds of entities that will see tax revenue declines. It’s a blow to an already fragile sector, health care representatives say.

It’s Not Known If The 6-10 UW Students Who Had Visas Revoked Are Still On Campus

April 19, 2025

Mack Trucks is laying off between 250 and 350 workers at its Lehigh Valley Operations center in Pennsylvania, citing economic uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs.

President Trump’s tariff war isn’t going well, with market ructions and evidence of a slowing economy. So it was probably inevitable that Mr. Trump would demand that the Federal Reserve ride to his rescue by cutting interest rates…The problem for Mr. Trump is that Mr. Powell spoke the truth. Tariffs are a tax, which means higher prices for tariffed goods.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board.

April 22, 2025

Donald Trump started the day be rebuking businessmen who lack faith in his actions on the econmy.

By the end of the day, the economy rebuked him.

Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932 as Investors Send ‘No Confidence’ Signal

Few think administration’s negotiations with trade partners will yield results soon enough to ease the strain

 

Stocks End Sharply Lower. The Dow Is on Pace for Worst April Since 1932.

The Wall Street Journal and Barrons.

Most AmeriCorps staff members were placed on leave.

cont:

Trump has been attacking Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who was appointed by Trump in his first legitimate administration.  It's now being theorized that this is so that Trump will have a scapegoat for crashing the economy, which is occurring. The statute of limitations on blaming Biden has basically expired.

cont: 

The Institute of International Finance (IIF) reported today that Trump’s policies mean the U.S. economy may fall into a Recession and shrink by 0.8% in Q3 and 0.3% in Q4 2025 with inflation rising to 4.6% by the end of the year.

The result would be stagflation.

April 23, 2025

After threatening Jerome Powell for a few days, Trump backed off.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that the ongoing tariffs war against China is unsustainable and he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war.

Trump suggested he was going to cut China's tariffs substantially. China has not reached out to negotiate.

Classic Trump cycle.  Do something stupid. . . something bad happens. . . claims problem is solved and things will be fine. . . reverses decision.

April 24, 2025

Elon Musk is going back to Tesla, which has taken a hammering since Musk became the chief doggy of DOGE, for the most part.  He apparently will still have some association with the kennel, according to his statement, but my guess is that will end pretty quickly.

Whether Tesla will also end, given its economic slide, is another question. With Musk barking at liberals, and Tesla's being sort of a liberal status symbol at one time, it may simply decline into oblivion.

Texas, which has been following Trump in all things Trumplike, just created its own DOGE.

April 29, 2025

Amazon announced that it is adding the price of tariffs to the cost of items.

D'uh.

Interestingly, it's going to post the price of the tariffs on the items it lists.

Carline Levitt, on behalf of the administration, declared "This is a hostile and political act by Amazon", expressing a view which apparently shows that the Administration is either completely dim on how pricing works, or seeking scapegoats for a policy that it nows is going to hit in May and be massively unpopular.  It'd rather you not know, apparently, although people will soon figure that out anyhow.

April 30, 2025

Trump called Bezos and Amazon backed off.

UPS is laying off 20,000 drivers in anticipation of reduced Amazon shipments.

The economy shrank last quarter. Trump blamed President Biden.

May 1, 2025

Here's the current price of oil:

WTI Crude 56.88

Brent Crude 59.75

This is way below the Wyoming price marketability figure.  If this holds, this will result in the crash of Wyoming oil.

Trump's economic propogandists keep pointing to the price of oil going down, which it has been, as proof of his tariffs working. They are working to depress the price of oil, but because the price of oil is an economic indicator.  When it goes down, it means there's an anticipated or actual low demand, usually.  Production gluts are also a cause, but that's not the cause here.

Prices went down on everything, I"d note, during the Great Depression, once it was really rolling.

This is bad news, for Wyoming in particular.

DOGE cuts to AmeriCorps ‘a devastating blow to the state of Wyoming’: “What I struggle with most is that this is somehow an act of efficiency,” one stakeholder told WyoFile, adding that $40 is returned for every federal dollar invested in service in Wyoming.

In the 100 Day Cabinet meeting in which Trump's loyal retainers heaped praise upon him, the Dear Leader noted sacrifice in that maybe children this Christmas shall get only two dolls, instead of 30.

Let them eat cake. 

May 3, 2025

There is no question that trade can be an act of war. It has led to bad things — the attitudes that it has brought out. In the United States, we should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. And we should do what we do best and they should do what they do best. That’s what we did originally. We were good at producing tobacco and cotton 250 years ago and we traded it. We want a prosperous world but eight countries with nuclear weapons, including a few that I would call quite unstable, I do not think it’s a great idea where a few countries say ‘hahaha we won,” and other countries are envious.

Warren Buffet today.

May 5, 2025

And now we're going to hit foreign movies with a 100% tariff, apparently.

May 6, 2025

Governor sees ‘opportunity’ for Wyoming in Trump tariff war. Economist sees ‘disaster.’: State's trona and soda ash industry is particularly vulnerable to losing global buyers, while Gordon sees potential bright spots for mineral commodities, as well as new manufacturing.

May 7, 2025

If the large increase in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they are likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slow down in economic growth and an increase in unemployment.

Jerome Powell.

May 8, 2025

The US and the UK have apparently reached a trade deal, although the details are murky.

May 12, 2025

The US and China have agreed to cut tariffs for 90 days.

This is causing a stock market rally, but the roller coaster nature of this is once again notable.

John Barrasso was on Meet The Press yesterday and cited gas prices as evidence of Trump's economic wisdom, when in fact its ironically the opposite.

May 13, 2025

A 90 day pause in the trade war with China was agreed upon with each side dropping their tariffs by 115%.

The price of oil climbed to $62.48/bbl.

The order associated with this:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2483), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I hereby determine and order:

Section 1.  Background.  In Executive Order 14257 of April 2, 2025 (Regulating Imports With a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits), I declared a national emergency arising from conditions reflected in large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits, and imposed additional ad valorem duties that I deemed necessary and appropriate to deal with that unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security and economy of the United States.  Section 4(b) of Executive Order 14257 provided that “[s]hould any trading partner retaliate against the United States in response to this action through import duties on U.S. exports or other measures, I may further modify the [Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States] to increase or expand in scope the duties imposed under this order to ensure the efficacy of this action.”

In Executive Order 14259 of April 8, 2025 (Amendment to Reciprocal Tariffs and Updated Duties as Applied to Low-Value Imports From the People’s Republic of China), and Executive Order 14266 of April 9, 2025 (Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates To Reflect Trading Partner Retaliation and Alignment), pursuant to section 4(b) of Executive Order 14257, I ordered modifications of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) to raise the applicablead valorem duty rate for imports from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) established in Executive Order 14257, in recognition of the fact that the State Council Tariff Commission of the PRC announced that it would retaliate against the United States in response to Executive Order 14257 and Executive Order 14259.

Section 4(c) of Executive Order 14257 provided that, “[s]hould any trading partner take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align sufficiently with the United States on economic and national security matters, I may further modify the HTSUS to decrease or limit in scope the duties imposed under this order.”  Since I signed Executive Order 14266, the United States has entered into discussions with the PRC to address the lack of trade reciprocity in our economic relationship and our resulting national and economic security concerns.  Conducting these discussions is a significant step by the PRC toward remedying non-reciprocal trade arrangements and addressing the concerns of the United States relating to economic and national security matters.

Pursuant to section 4(c) of Executive Order 14257, I have determined that it is necessary and appropriate to address the national emergency declared in that order by modifying the HTSUS to suspend for a period of 90 days application of the additional ad valorem duties imposed on the PRC listed in Annex I to Executive Order 14257, as amended by Executive Order 14259 and Executive Order 14266, and clarified in the Presidential Memorandum of April 11, 2025 (Clarification of Exceptions Under Executive Order 14257 of April 2, 2025, as Amended), and to instead impose on articles of the PRC an additional ad valorem rate of duty as set forth herein, pursuant to the terms of, and except as otherwise provided in, Executive Order 14257, as modified by this order. 

Sec. 2.  Suspension of Country-Specific Ad Valorem Rate of Duty.  Effective with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 14, 2025, all articles imported into the customs territory of the United States from the PRC, including Hong Kong and Macau, shall be, consistent with law, subject to an additional ad valorem rate of duty of 10 percent subject to all applicable exceptions set forth in Executive Order 14257 and the Presidential Memorandum of April 11, 2025.  This ad valorem rate of duty of 10 percent reflects (i) the modification of the application of the additional ad valorem rate of duty on articles of China (including articles of Hong Kong and Macau) set forth in Executive Order 14257, by suspending 24 percentage points of that rate for an initial period of 90 days, and the retention of the remaining ad valorem rate of 10 percent on those articles pursuant to the terms of said order; and (ii) the removal of the modified additional ad valorem rates of duty on those articles imposed by Executive Order 14259 and Executive Order 14266.

Sec. 3.  Tariff Modifications.  In recognition of the intentions of the PRC to facilitate addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 14257, the HTSUS shall be modified as follows:

Effective with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 14, 2025: 

(a)  heading 9903.01.25 of the HTSUS shall be amended by deleting the article description and by inserting “Articles the product of any country, except for products described in headings 9903.01.26–9903.01.33, and except as provided for in heading 9903.01.34, as provided for in subdivision (v) of U.S. note 2 to this subchapter . . . . . . ” in lieu thereof;

(b)  heading 9903.01.63 of the HTSUS shall be amended by deleting “125%” each place that it appears and by inserting “34%” in lieu thereof;

(c)  subdivision (v)(xiii)(10) of U.S. note 2 to subchapter III of chapter 99 of the HTSUS shall be amended by deleting “125%”, and by inserting “34%” in lieu thereof; and

(d)  heading 9903.01.63 and subdivision (v)(xiii)(10) of U.S. note 2 to subchapter III of chapter 99 of the HTSUS are hereby suspended for a period of 90 days beginning at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 14, 2025.

Sec. 4.  De Minimis Tariff Decrease.  To ensure that the reduction in duties pursuant to section 2 of this order is made fully effective and the purpose of Executive Order 14257, as amended, is not undermined, I also deem it necessary and appropriate to:

(a)  decrease the ad valorem rate of duty set forth in section 2(c)(i) of Executive Order 14256 of April 2, 2025 (Further Amendment to Duties Addressing the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People’s Republic of China as Applied to Low-Value Imports), as modified by Executive Order 14259 and Executive Order 14266, from 120 percent to 54 percent;

(b)  retain in effect the per postal item containing goods duty of 100 dollars in section 2(c)(ii) of Executive Order 14256, as modified by Executive Order 14259 and Executive Order 14266, that has been in effect since 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 2, 2025, unless and until otherwise modified by a subsequent executive action, notwithstanding the increase contemplated effective June 1, 2025, pursuant to Executive Order 14256, as modified by Executive Order 14259 and Executive Order 14266; and

(c)  modify the HTSUS, effective with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 14, 2025, as follows:

(i)   subdivision (w) of U.S. note 2 to subchapter III of chapter 99 of the HTSUS shall be amended by deleting “120 percent”, and by inserting “54 percent” in lieu thereof; and

(ii)  subdivision (w) of U.S. note 2 to subchapter III of chapter 99 of the HTSUS shall be amended by deleting “, and before 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on June 1, 2025.  For merchandise entered for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on June 1, 2025, the applicable specific duty rate is $200 per postal item containing such goods.”

Sec. 5.  Implementation.  The Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the United States Trade Representative, as applicable, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Senior Counselor to the President for Trade and Manufacturing, and the Chair of the United States International Trade Commission, are directed to take all necessary actions to implement and effectuate this order, consistent with applicable law, including through temporary suspension or amendment of regulations or notices in the Federal Register and adopting rules and regulations, and are authorized to take such actions, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA, as may be necessary to implement this order.  Each executive department and agency shall take all appropriate measures within its authority to implement this order.

Sec. 6.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d)  The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of Commerce.

                               DONALD J. TRUMP

Trump issued an odd order attempting to address the price of prescription drugs.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose.  The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population and yet funds around three quarters of global pharmaceutical profits.  This egregious imbalance is orchestrated through a purposeful scheme in which drug manufacturers deeply discount their products to access foreign markets, and subsidize that decrease through enormously high prices in the United States.

The United States has for too long turned its back on Americans, who unwittingly sponsor both drug manufacturers and other countries.  These entities today rely on price markups on American consumers, generous public subsidies for research and development primarily through the National Institutes of Health, and robust public financing of prescription drug consumption through Federal and State healthcare programs.  Drug manufacturers, rather than seeking to equalize evident price discrimination, agree to other countries’ demands for low prices, and simultaneously fight against the ability for public and private payers in the United States to negotiate the best prices for patients.  The inflated prices in the United States fuel global innovation while foreign health systems get a free ride.

This abuse of Americans’ generosity, who deserve low-cost pharmaceuticals on the same terms as other developed nations, must end.  Americans will no longer be forced to pay almost three times more for the exact same medicines, often made in the exact same factories.  As the largest purchaser of pharmaceuticals, Americans should get the best deal.

Sec. 2.  Policy.  Americans should not be forced to subsidize low-cost prescription drugs and biologics in other developed countries, and face overcharges for the same products in the United States.  Americans must therefore have access to the most-favored-nation price for these products. 

My Administration will take immediate steps to end global freeloading and, should drug manufacturers fail to offer American consumers the most-favored-nation lowest price, my Administration will take additional aggressive action.

Sec. 3.  Addressing Foreign Nations Freeloading on American-Financed Innovation.  The Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative shall take all necessary and appropriate action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in any act, policy, or practice that may be unreasonable or discriminatory or that may impair United States national security and that has the effect of forcing American patients to pay for a disproportionate amount of global pharmaceutical research and development, including by suppressing the price of pharmaceutical products below fair market value in foreign countries.

Sec. 4.  Enabling Direct-to-Consumer Sales to American Patients at the Most-Favored-Nation Price.  To the extent consistent with law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) shall facilitate direct-to-consumer purchasing programs for pharmaceutical manufacturers that sell their products to American patients at the most-favored-nation price.

Sec. 5.  Establishing Most-Favored-Nation Pricing.  (a)  Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary shall, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and other relevant executive department and agency (agency) officials, communicate most-favored-nation price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to bring prices for American patients in line with comparably developed nations.

(b)  If, following the action described in subsection (a) of this section, significant progress towards most-favored-nation pricing for American patients is not delivered, to the extent consistent with law:

(i)    the Secretary shall propose a rulemaking plan to impose most-favored-nation pricing; 

(ii)   the Secretary shall consider certification to the Congress that importation under section 804(j) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) will pose no additional risk to the public’s health and safety and result in a significant reduction in the cost of prescription drugs to the American consumer; and if the Secretary so certifies, then the Commissioner of Food and Drugs shall take action under section 804(j)(2)(B) of the FDCA to describe circumstances under which waivers will be consistently granted to import prescription drugs on a case-by-case basis from developed nations with low-cost prescription drugs;  

(iii)  following the report issued under section 13 of Executive Order 14273 of April 15, 2025 (Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First), the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission shall, to the extent consistent with law, undertake enforcement action against any anti-competitive practices identified within such report, including through use of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act and section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, as appropriate;

(iv)   the Secretary of Commerce, and the heads of other relevant agencies as necessary, shall review and consider all necessary action regarding the export of pharmaceutical drugs or precursor material that may be fueling the global price discrimination;

(v)    the Commissioner of Food and Drugs shall review and potentially modify or revoke approvals granted for drugs, for those drugs that maybe be unsafe, ineffective, or improperly marketed; and

(vi)   the heads of agencies shall take all action available, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, to address global freeloading and price discrimination against American patients.

Sec. 6.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii.) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d)  The Department of Health and Human Services shall provide funding for publication of this order in the Federal Register.

                               DONALD J. TRUMP

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Ranch Life in 1925

Monday, May 12, 1975. The Mayaguez taken.

The SS Mayaguez was stopped in international waters by the P-128, a Cambodian gunboat manned by Khmer Rouge forces. The boat was taken, and its crewmembers made captives.

The Khmer Rouge crew of the P-128 had acted without informing their superiors.

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Sunday, May 11, 1975. Celebrating a peace that wasn't.

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Saturday, May 12, 1945. Shortened futures.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission indicted Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Fritz Sauckel on eight counts.  The NKVD didn't wait for trials in all instances, and on this day executed SS commander and war criminal Richard Thomalla.

The US transferred captured Russian turned collaborator Gen. Vlasov over to Soviet custody.

The 7th Army captured the Japanese ambassador to Germany and his staff.

The 8th Army took the Del Monte Airfield on Mindanao.

Hard fighting occurred on Okinawa.

The U-858 became the first U-boat to surrender post war.  It would be escorted to Cap May, New Jersey which it entered flying the black flag of surrender.

Lend Lease shipments to the USSR were suspended.

The Security Committee at the United Nations Conference on International Organization agreed on an eleven-member security council, with non-permanent members chosen by the General Assembly.

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Friday, May 11, 1945. The USS Bunker Hill.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aegean Sea, Australian Army, China, Imperial Japanese Army, Kamikaze, New Guinea, Okinawa, Operation Ten-Go, The Battle of West Hunan (湘西會戰), U.S. Navy, World War Two, Yugoslavia

Tuesday, May 12, 1925. President Hindenburg and Prosecutor Bryan.

Paul von Hindenburg was sworn in for a seven-year term as President of Germany.

William Jennings Bryan agreed to participate in the prosecution of John Scopes.

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Monday, May 11, 1925. The Tables are turned. (The Palm Beach Post, May 11, 1925).

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Cartoons, Ethel Hays

Mother

Today is Mothers Day, as surely everyone in the US is aware.

I'm going to comment on Mother's Day for a couple of odd reasons, even thought I didn't originally intend to.

The first is this comment by Robert Reich for the day:

Robert Reich@RBReich·14h

Your Mother’s Day weekend reminder that the so-called “party of family values” has historically blocked:

-Paid family & medical leave

-Universal childcare

-Universal pre-K

-Expanded Child Tax Credit

-Programs to support reproductive health

Doesn’t sound very pro-family to me.

First I'll note that I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Reich.  Reich is very far left, but his economic commentary, in my view, is generally pretty good.  And like him, I'm greatly distressed over what Donald Trump is doing to the country.

Secondly, I really hate the writing convention of saying "this is your reminder".  Did I ask for a reminder?  If I didn't, that's really annoying.  Reich also likes to state "I don't know who needs to know this" which suggest that nobody needs to know whatever he's going to tell us.  

He should quit using both of those writing conventions.

Anyhow, like a far lefty, he's bought into the seas of blood position of the Democratic Party. "Programs to support reproductive health" is Orwellian speech for infanticide.

Reich is Jewish, which always makes me wonder how he can support a thesis that holds that infants in the womb, earlier than a certain number of weeks, aren't people.  It's the exact same argument that resulted in the Holocaust.  It's the exact same argument that expanded into eugenics based homicide in Nazi Germany, and which has advanced murder in the guise of "assisted suicide" in various Western Nations.

I'll be frank that I've never been a huge fan of Mothers Day or Father's Day which remind me, in some ways of the Alcohol and Old Lace episode of the Andy Griffith Show in which two elderly sisters were distilling moonshine for "holidays", of which there were an insane number of manufactured ones.  But I really shouldn't be that way for Mother's Day.  There are real reasons to honor motherhood and what it entails.  But murdering infants isn't a good way to do it.

And there's no reason to pretend, no matter how much the left would like to, that the "my body, my choice" argument is a good one, or even a valid one.  A fetus in the womb has a body and its choice i not likely to be murdered.  And that body, genetically, is made up of the DNA of two people, not one.  You don't get ot be a mother through a unilateral act of self will. Motherhood in some instances wasn't planned, of course, but then much of life is not and a massive murderous do over isn't every justified.

The other reason I chose to post is that somebody I know had been at a Vigil Mass in which the attending celebrant mentioned mothers, but largely, apparently, in the context how mother's support their men, which was pretty much apparently it.  The celebrant was Indian (from India).  I'm only noting this as its so easy to forgot for Americans, and probably Europeans, how we are actually a minority of the globes' population, and the culture view of other people may be very much not the one we hold.

That oddly enough occured on the same day, yesterday, in which I listed to a Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World episode on 1 Esdras, which is in some (all?) Orthodox Bibles, but not the Catholic Bible, which is itself larger than most Protestant Biles.  In it, there's a debate between three Guards about what is the most powerful thing in the world.  One Guard presents this, which references the prior two arguments that came before his.:

Then the third, who had spoken of women and truth (and this was Zerubbabel), began to speak: “Gentlemen, is not the king great, and are not men many, and is not wine strong? Who is it, then, who rules them or has the mastery over them? Is it not women? Women gave birth to the king and to every people that rules over sea and land. From women they came, and women brought up the very men who plant the vineyards from which comes wine. Women make men’s clothes; they bring men glory; men cannot exist without women. If men gather gold and silver or any other beautiful thing and then see a woman lovely in appearance and beauty, they let all those things go and gape at her and with open mouths stare at her, and all prefer her to gold or silver or any other beautiful thing. A man leaves his own father, who brought him up, and his own region and clings to his wife. With his wife he ends his days, with no thought of his father or his mother or his region. Therefore you must realize that women rule over you!

“Do you not labor and toil and bring everything and give it to women? A man takes his sword and goes out to travel and rob and steal and to sail the sea and rivers; he faces lions, and he walks in darkness, and when he steals and robs and plunders, he brings it back to the woman he loves. A man loves his wife more than his father or his mother. Many men have lost their minds because of women and have become slaves because of them. Many have perished or stumbled or sinned because of women. And now do you not believe me?

“Is not the king great in his authority? Do not all lands fear to touch him? Yet I have seen him with Apame, the king’s concubine, the daughter of the illustrious Bartacus; she would sit at the king’s right hand and take the crown from the king’s head and put it on her own and slap the king with her left hand. At this the king would gaze at her with mouth agape. If she smiles at him, he laughs; if she loses her temper with him, he flatters her, so that she may be reconciled to him. Gentlemen, why are not women strong, since they do such things?”

It is profound, and note how it came in an ear in which women, in most of the world, would have been regarded as second class citizens.  I should note, however, that he went on to then discuss Truth, with that being the most powerful thing in the World.

While it likely shouldn't, that reminded me of Kipling's great poem, The Ballad of the King's Jest, which has this line:

Four things greater than all things are,—

Women and Horses and Power and War.

We spake of them all, but the last the most,

For I sought a word of a Russian post,

Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword

And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.

Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes

In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.

Quoth he: “Of the Russians who can say?

“When the night is gathering all is gray.

“But we look that the gloom of the night shall die

“In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.

“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

“To warn a King of his enemies?

“We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

“But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

“That unsought counsel is cursed of God

“Attesteth the story of Wali Dad. 

It's interesting how Kipling put it, "Four things greater than all things are--Women and Horses and Power and War".

Well, have a Happy Mother's Day.