Authored by Darren Taylor via The Epoch Times,

Mcebisi Jonas doesn’t usually suffer from nerves. If he did, he wouldn’t have survived a brutal guerrilla campaign against South Africa’s apartheid foot-soldiers in the 1970s and 1980s.

“As a cadre for the ANC [then-banned African National Congress], I was fighting for freedom from racism, for black people’s right to vote, for human rights,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Now, I am about to fight another, very different battle. I am a bit nervous, but I am ready to talk with any and all representatives of the U.S. president, and I trust we will treat one another with respect,” said Pretoria’s eloquent former minister of finance and now successful businessman.

Jonas is part of a recently created exclusive club of special envoys appointed by most of Africa’s 54 countries to negotiate better export terms they hope will allow them to sell their goods for “reasonable profit” in the world’s most lucrative market.

This followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s April 2 announcement of tariffs on goods exported to the United States by its economic partners. Trump has said the duties would correct trade imbalances he said are unfair to America.

A week later, Trump paused his reciprocal tariffs for 90 days—except for those on China—indicating that many countries had reached out and that the United States was open to negotiations.

If nothing were to change after the 90-day pause, some of the highest tariffs—between 30 and 50 percent—would be for products imported from Africa.

Africa’s envoys are now rushing to meet the deadline in July when the raised duties are scheduled to come into effect.

A man melts pure gold fragments coming from different mines in the region, at a gold market in Geita, Tanzania, on May 28, 2022. Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images

“Most African countries export much more to the United States than they import from the United States, so the Trump administration calculated that trade between the regions is unfairly weighted towards Africa and that the United States is losing out,” explained Morné Malan, deputy head of policy at South Africa’s Free Market Foundation.

Besides trade deficits, Trump also looked for other signs of trade barriers as criteria for imposing tariffs.

Kenya, with which the United States enjoyed a trade surplus, is an example.

According to the United States Trade Representative, East Africa’s largest economy exported goods—mainly textiles, coffee, tea, and fruit—to the value of $737.3 million to the United States in 2024.

That year, Kenya imported goods worth $782.5 million from the United States, primarily petroleum products, aircraft and related parts, machinery, and pharmaceuticals, giving the United States a trade surplus of $45.2 million.

Despite this, President William Ruto’s government had anticipated that Trump would hit Kenya with a higher tariff, as Nairobi charges a 10 percent tax on American imports.

So, said Trade and Industry cabinet secretary, Lee Kinyanjui, the country went into “damage control mode,” dispatching a team of negotiators to the White House a day before Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement.

Although the Kenyan government’s main objective of securing duty-free or “very favourable duty access” for its goods into the U.S. market is still the subject of talks, Trump levied a reciprocal tariff of only 10 percent on Nairobi.

“We believe it helped us a lot to speak to Trump’s people ahead of his announcement, and directly afterwards,” Kinyanjui told The Epoch Times.

“We are considering a free trade agreement with the United States, and that will mean the scrapping of the tariff on American goods entering Kenya, and we will hopefully still export duty-free to the United States. That is reciprocity.”

Steven Gruzd of the South African Institute of International Affairs described Kenya as a “bit of an anomaly.”

“I am no fan of the African governments that steal their countries’ resources and keep their people poor, but I must also agree that it’s a bit of a stretch to expect nations with low GDPs and tiny budgets and huge debts and low manufacturing bases to import at large scale expensive goods, products and services from the wealthiest economy in the world,” he told The Epoch Times.

It is in this context that the African envoys will visit the White House.

“He’s about to enter a lion’s den,” Malan said of Jonas, the South African diplomat.

Artisanal miners collect gravel from the Lukushi river searching for cassiterite in Manono, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 17, 2022 Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty Images

The United States’ 31 percent tariffs on South Africa—which was included in a list of 60 nations Trump said had traded with his country unfairly during his announcement on April 2—is just the president’s latest salvo against the continent’s largest, most industrialized economy.

The country featured prominently in the series of executive orders Trump has signed since re-entering the White House on Jan. 20.

In one of his first executive orders, the U.S. leader accused Pretoria of implementing racist laws aimed at discriminating and encouraging violence against white Afrikaners.

Trump subsequently withdrew $440 million in annual funding to South Africa, resulting in a slowdown of the country’s HIV treatment and prevention program.

He said South Africa is a threat to U.S. national security as its ANC government has military and economic alliances with some of Washington’s primary geopolitical foes, including China, Iran, and Russia.

Trump also criticized Pretoria for launching a case of genocide in the Gaza war against Israel at the International Court of Justice. The war was triggered by terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Then, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expelled South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, the ANC’s Ebrahim Rasool, after the diplomat described Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and his administration as “supremacist.”

Jonas grimaced and said, “Yes, recent history between South Africa and the United States is not good.

“But I am convinced we can cooperate going forward and we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement that will foster the flow of American goods into our country, and vice versa.”

Steven Gruzd of the South African Institute of International Affairs said that, in communications within the Trump administration, “it has become clear that they consider Pretoria to be the enemy, giving the [President Cyril] Ramaphosa government the same status as Beijing and Moscow and Tehran.”

Like many in Africa, said Gruzd, Pretoria has “good cards to deal” to convince the U.S. president. Its cards are beaming the allure of the continent’s vast resources, which include precious metals like gold and platinum, and critical minerals essential to energy security and defense, as they’re major components of weapons and military equipment.

In a paper analyzing Africa’s potential responses to the U.S. tariffs, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington said 24 of Africa’s 54 countries are dependent on mining and minerals for income.

Africa holds a third of the world’s critical minerals, according to a study by U.S. think-tank The Atlantic Council.

South Africa already supplies almost all of America’s chromium and provides a quarter of its manganese requirements.

Manganese is a diverse mineral, used to produce steel and rechargeable batteries.

Chromium features prominently in weapons manufacturing, including missile systems and fighter jets.

Other minerals produced at a large scale by African countries include lithium, used in electric car batteries, and coltan, used in communications equipment like cell phones and computers.

Although Trump has exempted critical minerals from tariffs, Gruzd said South Africa’s mineral wealth still has a role in possibly lowering the U.S. levies on South Africa, considering the Trump administration’s wish to reduce U.S. dependency on Chinese supplies.

“China dominates Africa’s minerals sector, and it has mines all over the place, from DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] to Zambia to Guinea,” Gruzd said.

“Beijing’s harvesting of the continent’s minerals and metals and processing them has placed the United States at an immense disadvantage in terms of making sure it has a reliable supply of these critical items well into the future.

Gruzd said if the United States and South Africa can strike a deal on critical minerals, “that would be a big win, politically and economically, for the Trump administration.”

“If Trump is offered mining rights in certain African countries, this would go a long way in persuading him to lower tariffs and perhaps even drop them because it would give the United States a big foothold in global supply chains,” he said.

The CSIS said that Trump should revoke tariffs on African countries and that the African Union and African leaders “should seek to demonstrate that preferential trade with the continent, in fact, overall serves U.S. national interests.”

“Just like Canada and Mexico were exempt from the reciprocal tariffs due to the United States’ national interest, a similar case can be made for Africa in terms of market access and critical minerals supply chain security,” wrote economic development experts Hannah Ryder, Trevor Lwere, and Ovigwe Eguegu.

“As tariffs are set to hit U.S. firms in the automotive, aerospace, and chemical sectors, which are heavily dependent on critical minerals, the bulk of which Africa has, it is not in the U.S. interest to impose tariffs on African goods.”

Ryder, Lwere, and Eguegu highlighted that one of the Trump administration’s aims is to gain greater market access for American firms and products abroad.

“This requires the existence of purchasing power amongst foreign consumers. By imposing tariffs on African exports to the United States, however, the United States makes it difficult for Africa to obtain the purchasing power necessary to demand U.S. products,” they said.

The experts said the United States should support preferential access for African goods to the American market as a market-building strategy.

This is critical, they wrote, especially considering that Africa has the youngest population and will be home to over 25 percent of the global population in the next few decades.

Bamidele Ayemibo, lead trade policy consultant at Nigeria’s 3T Impex Consulting Limited, said African governments’ response to Trump’s tariffs should be to sign preferential trade agreements with the United States—and with other partners.

“The last thing they should do is retaliate with higher tariffs on U.S. products; they do not have the economic power to do so and they will only hurt themselves,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Now, more than ever, it is time for talk and for bargaining.”

Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times,

I don’t fit neatly into a political box, especially when it comes to immigration. I’m a wife to a man who came here illegally at 16. I’ve taken legal guardianship of an unaccompanied minor and folded him into my family. I work in both hospitality and agriculture—industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor. My views on the border don’t align with any party line, and I’m aware that people on both sides of the aisle might find something in this article to disagree with. But that doesn’t make the conversation less necessary. It makes it more urgent.

America needs labor. That’s not up for debate. We’ve raised a few generations of kids who are not equipped for hard, uncomfortable work—especially those who came of age during the pandemic. I’ve had over 350 employees at any one time in my businesses, and I’ve watched the workforce shift dramatically in just 10 years.

At the same time, I believe a border wall is not racist.

A wall, like a fence or a locked front door, doesn’t carry moral weight. Strong borders make good neighbors. But let’s be honest: the southern border is already secured—just not by us. It’s secured by the Mexican cartels. 

Every person crossing is paying $10,000 to $13,000 to make that journey—not including the pre-planned robbery that happens to nearly every person along the way, and sometimes additional financial extortion afterward. 

We’re not just turning a blind eye to this—we’re funding it. 

Our labor shortage—our need for labor—is creating a massive revenue source for the cartels.

Many commentators scream, “Come legally!”—but the reality is, there are almost no viable legal pathways for Mexicans to do so.

Unlike people from other countries, Mexicans cannot easily claim asylum. Citizens of many Central and South American nations can claim asylum and stay in the United States while they await trial—a process that often takes five to 10 years. Even if their claim is denied, most never leave. Mexicans do not have this option. We are effectively prioritizing other nations over our immediate neighbor, and it makes no sense. We should be prioritizing Mexico first, and then Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

The humanitarian crisis is not what the media portrays. The real crisis is what happens before these people arrive – the women and children abused, trafficked, and disappeared in cartel territory.

It’s the man who hasn’t seen his mother in 20 years, or the woman who has children on both sides of the border and cannot return to see her children or grandchildren. She may never see her children here again. These are real stories. I live with them in my family and in my community. My husband didn’t see his mother for 12 years prior to marrying me and becoming an American citizen.

Yes, America is a melting pot. Yes, we welcome the tired and the poor. But no, we cannot take everyone. It’s not sustainable. And pretending otherwise only perpetuates suffering.

Let’s create a 10-year low-skill work visa. It would cost $10,000 – money that currently goes to cartels. Workers would be permitted to come and go, visit family, and live with dignity. Employment would be mandatory; workers could not remain unemployed longer than three months. Applicants must have no criminal history. This visa would never lead to citizenship, even through marriage. The best case would be a green card, but not a vote. Workers would pay taxes and contribute $10 per paycheck to Social Security, which they would never draw from. After 10 years, the visa could be renewed once—or the worker could return home.

We would prioritize Mexico, and then Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—because a strong neighbor is national security. If your neighbor’s house is burning down, your own home is at risk. 

A strong, thriving Mexico makes for a safer America. 

A healthy economy and stable society in the countries closest to us reduces pressure on our border and increases mutual prosperity.

This plan would dismantle the cartels’ business model, reunite families, end the incentive to bring children as props for border entry, and redirect billions of dollars from crime syndicates to the U.S. government. Migrants could fly directly into cities where jobs await—no more treacherous desert crossings or predatory smugglers.

One side of the aisle screams that we don’t want them—but still enjoys the literal fruits of their labor. The other side screams “humanitarian crisis” and “racism”—but takes no meaningful action, even when in power.

In closing, I believe there’s a solution that supports integrity for our border, for our businesses, for our families, and for our neighbors. 

But both sides of the aisle have not been interested in real solutions for a long time—and that begs the question: why? 

What is the benefit of the gray? What is the benefit of a system that is clearly broken and leads to drugs, rape, murder, and chaos?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Japan’s already collapsing population just posted its biggest annual drop on record, falling by 898,000 people as of last October compared to a year earlier, Kyodo News reported.

This marked the 14th consecutive year of population decline in the country, according to a government estimate. The previous record drop was 861,000, reported in July 2024.

This was the largest demographic drop since 1968.

Some more details: according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan’s total population was 123,802,000, as of October 1, 2024, down by 550,000 or a 0.44% year-on-year decrease.

The population of only Japanese citizens was 120,296,000, plunging by 898,000, or a 0.74% YoY drop.

The IMF projects that the total population will shrink by a further 3.5 million by the end of the decade.

The natural population decline, calculated by subtracting births from deaths, reached a record high of 890,000, rising for the eighteenth year running. This decline was 437,000 for women and 453,000 for men. 

The silver lining: for the third straight year, there was a net increase in immigration, with 340,000 more people entering than leaving Japan. Which is good news for globalists: if they are so worried where to put all those African and Middle Eastern refugees who have swept across Europe sparking unprecedented blowback against establishment politics, there is always Japan… assuming the locals accept the flood of foreigners.

The data underscore the country’s unprecedented demographic crisis amid a rapidly aging society and collapsing birthrate.

Japan’s total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime — fell to its lowest level in 2023 since records began in 1947, while the death/birth ratio at over 2.2, is the highest on record.

The figures, released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, show that only Tokyo and neighboring Saitama prefecture registered population increases.

By age group, the working population, consisting of people aged 15 to 64, stood at 73,728,000, a year-on-year decrease of 224,000, while the population aged 65 or older (red and orange in the figure below) increased by 17,000 to 36,243,000. Those 75 or older (red) increased by 700,000, to 20,777,000, and this age bracket now accounts for 57.3% of those aged 65 or older.

In response to the demographic crisis, the Japanese parliament passed a law in June 2024 aimed at reversing the falling birthrate. Measures under the law include expanded child allowances and enhanced parental leave benefits.

And beginning this month, the city government of Tokyo started offering its employees a four-day workweek, hoping to increase the population and create a healthier work-life balance in a country notorious for long hours at the office.

Officials have warned that the period leading up to 2030 represents a critical window to address the trend. Late marriages, financial insecurity, and limited support for working parents are commonly cited as contributing factors.

What was a miserable shortened week for the USD has gone from bad to worse in early Asia trading, when the Dollar index suddenly collapsed to a fresh 3 year low

While there is no specific catalyst for the suddenly collapse in the illiquid early Asian session, which sees many countries on extended Easter holiday, Bloomberg quotes traders that hedge funds are selling the dollar against virtually any currencies after National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Friday that President Donald Trump is still exploring ways to remove Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, according to traders.

“The president and his team will continue to study that,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Friday when asked by a reporter if removing Powell was an option.

Hassett then suggested, accurately, that the Fed under Powell, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, had acted politically to benefit Democrats.

“The policy of this Federal Reserve was to raise rates the minute President Trump was elected last time, to say that the supply-side tax cuts that were going to be inflationary,” Hassett said, adding that Fed officials opted not to go “on TV and at IMF meetings and warn about the terrible inflation from the obvious runaway spending from Joe Biden, and the obvious runaway spending from Joe Biden was textbook inflationary,” Hassett continued. “And then they cut rates right ahead of the election.”

Hassett, is of course, correct, as we first pointed out two weeks ago…

Fed reaction function pic.twitter.com/80AzJlZo3h

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 9, 2025

… as Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett pointed out on Friday…

Fed cut 50bps in Sept when stock market at record high, Atlanta Fed was forecasting +3% US GDP growth; Fed now determined not to cut rates after 20% market plunge, Atlanta Fed forecasting -3% GDP growth

… and as former NY Fed president Bill Dudley made crystal clear all the way back in 2019.

The day is August 27, 2019. Former NY Fed president Bill Dudley writes a Bloomberg oped saying “the Fed shouldn’t enable Donald Trump” and urged the central bank not to “provide offsetting stimulus” in Trump’s trade war with China.

Six years later, here we are pic.twitter.com/H6WT5O0cMD

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 11, 2025

But since the market is terrified of the truth, especially if it means that Trump could take monetary policy actions into his own hands, the result has been a wholesale liquidation of all main currency pairs, with the EUR jumping to 3 year highs, even though Europe’s economy remains an unmitigated disaster (Germany’s upcoming debt spending spree notwithstanding), and even though the surge in the euro will make Europe’s modest recession into a brutal one..

… the Yen surging 11% from its January lows, and at just over 141, the highest it has been against the dollar since the summer of 2023…

… and, of course, gold which is storming to new record highs this evening, spiking above $3,373, its dip last week now a distant memory.

Yet none of these moves are surprising to anyone who read – as we repeatedly urged – the Miran Mar-A-Lago paper: yes, the plunge in the dollar is just what the admin quietly wants (they have repeatedly stated they want a strong dollar “in the long term”, but certainly not in the short, when the collapse in the greenback will boost US exports). 

Ironically, if Powell will not cut rates to ease financial conditions, Trump’s repeated browbeating of the Fed chair and threats to fire him will crash the dollar low enough to where Trump will get his financial easing one way or another.

Still, there was one notable outlier in tonight’s Dollar selloff: bitcoin. While previously any plunge in the dollar (and by extension surge in the yen) would batter what was little is left of the carry trade, hammering tech stocks and cryptos, tonight we finally saw a regime shift, and after flatlining initially, a burst of buying pushed bitcoin almost $2000 higher, above $87000, and its biggest one day move since Liberation Day…

… and the result is that while bitcoin had generally tracked the DXY Dollar index lower for much of 2025, the last few weeks – and certainly Sunday night – have seen a very tangible snap in this relationship.

This breach in the right correlation between the two, suggests that with gold approaching ridiculous prices, the next flight to safety away from the collapsing dollar will be bitcoin – after all, it’s only a matter of time before all other central banks unleash a money printing frenzy to hammer their own currencies.

And since all bitcoin needs is a little unexpected upside to spark a huge short squeeze and to get the momentum trades piling on, should today’s phase reversal sustain for a few days, we may see new all time highs in bitcoin in a very short time.

To no one’s surprise, the world’s largest economy is also the world’s largest consumer economy.

But how much do Americans collectively spend on the goods and services they need? And what items draw the largest share? 

Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao visualizes data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for further analysis.

Where Americans Spend Their Money

America’s consumer class spent nearly $19 trillion on goods and services in 2023.

For context, this was about 68% of the U.S. GDP that year. It was also larger than China’s overall GDP that year as well ($17.8T).

Housing and utilities ($3.3T) and health care ($3.1T) were the top household expenditure categories overall.

Meanwhile, Americans spent the most money on groceries ($1.4T) in the goods category.

In case these numbers seem too big to comprehend, we’ve also broken down household expenditure by year and by month.

Comparative figures may vary as insurance expenditure can sometimes be included within a broader category (housing, transportation), or spun-off on its own.

In a similar vein, another graphic from eight years ago provides some other useful insights: how the share of each category’s expenditure has changed since the 1940s.

While the data isn’t as recent, other trends are visible: health care and housing expenditure have been trending up, clothing and food have been coming down.

The Pros and Cons of the Service Economy

Tellingly, services account for nearly 70% of America’s personal consumption expenditure.

This is matched by the supply side as well: nearly 80% of America’s jobs are in the service sector.

America’s transition away from manufacturing into services—both as producer and consumer—is a story with many episodes and arcs. While it has driven the growth of high-value technology and financial companies, it has also resulted in the loss of blue-collar jobs in America.

This context is particularly relevant in the Trump administration’s second-term.

Broad-based tariffs on imported goods have been declared to reduce trade deficits and to incentivize companies to move their manufacturing back into the country. However, modern manufacturing is built off global supply chains and just-in-time shipping, and economists worry that the disruption will only raise prices for Americans.

Wondering what China’s economy looks like broken down by sector? Check out: China’s $18.6 Trillion Economy in One Chart for a quick overview.

One of the most detrimental consequences of the stagflationary surge in the US since 2020 was the meteoric rise in housing prices, from rentals to purchases to mortgages, across all markets.  At present the cost of housing stands at around 30% of the average American’s income, with home prices and rentals seeing at least a 60% increase in only 5 years.  In high traffic markets the prices have jumped far higher. 

Inflation in fixed expenses like housing, utilities, gasoline, food, etc. directly reduce disposable income which forces consumers to cut back on retail and recreational purchases.  Higher prices in retail goods can be weathered through savings and spending adaptation, higher prices in fixed expenses is much more difficult to deal with and the results are hard to miss.

There may, however, be a light at the end of the tunnel with new developments suggesting a decline in housing costs is on the way. 

The US Existing Home Inventory is back on the rise after hitting rock bottom in 2022, with a considerable jump occurring in the year (February numbers indicate a 17% jump since 2024).  This is partially because incredibly high prices driving down purchases, but recent events indicate that the inventory trend is going to accelerate in 2025.

Foreign Buyers Exiting The US Market

One of the first actions of the Biden Administration in the face of the housing crisis should have been to enact a moratorium on foreign purchases of US properties.  This didn’t happen, of course, but the tides may be shifting in favor of US buyers in the near term/ 

Canadian real estate investors and “Snow Birds” using secondary properties in the US as vacation homes are now reportedly selling off their holdings in light of the Trump Administration’s tariff blitz.  America’s socialist neighbors to the north are apparently cashing out at record pace.  Oddly, Canadian property owners say they’re “afraid of anti-Canadian sentiment” in the US as the reason for dumping their second homes.  The US and foreign media have these people terrified that there’s a wave of “Canadian hate” rolling through the American heartland.

This isn’t happening, but on the bright side this frees up a considerable number of homes for the US market and will ultimately help to lower prices.  Canadians are the largest foreign property buyers, taking up at least 13% of all home purchases in the US in 2024.  

It’s not just Canadians exiting, though. Chinese and European buyers are backing off with some states moving to block property purchases by foreign interests and hysteria over America-first nationalism frightening prospective investors.  Ultimately, this is a net positive for Americans desperate for some relief in a home market that the vast majority of citizens cannot afford.  

Deportations And Falling Rental Prices

It may be true that most illegal aliens don’t buy houses, but they certainly take a massive bite out of available rentals.  With an estimate 17 million to 20 million illegals in the US at the time Joe Biden left the White House and a shortage of at least 11 million houses as of 2024, the obvious solution would be to kick out as many migrants as possible to free up the rental market.  

This may have already begun.  Trump border restrictions and changes to immigration policy have been wildly successful in cutting illegal border crossing.  In March, Border Patrol reported a 95% drop in encounters on the southern border, an epic decline from the Biden Administration.  ICE also reports that they have deported at least 100,000 and arrested 13,000 others since Trump took office.  Some skeptics might argue that this is nowhere near enough, but it does not account for the millions of migrants that are self deporting.       

At least 900,000 migrants that entered the US under Biden’s CBP One App have been ordered to self deport are or be arrested in the coming months.  US rental prices have been cooling for the past year, but much too slowly.  The drop in housing demand by illegals is expected to create a larger availability pool by the end of 2025, though some leftist media outlets assert that the loss of illegals will cause a decline in home construction and hurt the market instead.

Airbnb Bonanza Fizzles And Opens The Market To 2 million Homes

The Airbnb craze has been dying for at least the past two years.  High property taxes, declining revenues, skyrocketing insurance rates and a drop in tourism means the potential for profits is getting slimmer by the month.  With over 2.4 million homes listed as Airbnb rentals in the US right now, there’s a good chance these properties will end up for sale or as long term rentals by the end of 2025. 

The overall trend is deflationary, which is likely to scare a lot of people, but without this is necessary for any return to affordability in housing. Supply must increase in order to offset demand. Unless there are some dramatic changes soon, millions of Americans may be priced out of a home entirely. 

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito filed a strongly worded dissent from the court’s order issued early April 19 that temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting alleged members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua.

The dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, was posted on the court’s website early on April 20.

“In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order,” Alito wrote.

“I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.”

“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The Executive must proceed under the terms of our order in Trump v. J.G.G., and this Court should follow established procedures,” Alito wrote.

The justices acted even though “it is not clear the Court had jurisdiction,” or authority to hear the case, he wrote.

“The papers before us, while alleging that the applicants were in imminent danger of removal, provided little concrete support for that allegation,” Alito wrote.

In Trump v. J.G.G., the Supreme Court on April 7 granted the president’s request to pause a federal district judge’s orders preventing his administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected members of Tren de Aragua but determined that detainees must be given an opportunity to challenge their removal.

The unsigned one-page administrative stay issued early April 19 to which Alito referred directed the federal government “not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

An administrative stay gives the justices more time to consider the emergency request to block the deportations. That order did not provide an explanation of why the court acted.

The order was issued after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency request on behalf of two Venezuelan nationals late on April 18, asking the Supreme Court to immediately block their deportation.

The emergency application in A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. v. Trump challenges President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal immigrants who are alleged or confirmed criminal gang members. A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. are the initials of two of the detained men.

The ACLU also sought a temporary restraining order from the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, as well as a stay of removal order from the Fifth Circuit, according to the application.

On March 14, Trump signed Proclamation 10903, in which he officially declared that Tren de Aragua, a designated foreign terrorist organization, “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”

The group is using mass illegal immigration to the United States to harm U.S. citizens, undermine public safety, and support the goal of the Venezuelan socialist regime with which it is associated to destabilize “democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States,” the proclamation said.

The president invoked the Alien Enemies Act to authorize the “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” of members of the group who are Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older and who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States.

The application said the ACLU’s clients are challenging the Trump administration’s use of the federal statute to deport them. The clients “are in imminent and ongoing jeopardy of being removed from the United States without notice or an opportunity to be heard, in direct contravention of this Court’s order in Trump v. J.G.G.”

“Many individuals have already been loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport,” and are at risk of being sent to a prison in El Salvador, according to the April 18 application.

On March 15, the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to deport at least 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are now incarcerated “possibly for the rest of their lives” at the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center, which is “one of the most notorious prisons in the world,” the application said.

The application alleged that many of those deported since March 15 were not members of Tren de Aragua.

“Such false accusations are particularly devastating given the present Applicants’ strong claims for relief under our immigration laws,” the application said.

The application came one day after U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas denied the ACLU clients’ request for a temporary restraining order halting removal efforts.

Hendrix rejected the ACLU’s claim that its clients were “at imminent risk of summary removal” because the government denied the allegation.

Late on April 19, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to deny the application.

“At a minimum, if the Court keeps its administrative stay in place, the government respectfully requests that the Court clarify that it is administratively staying removals only under the [Alien Enemies Act], and that its order does not preclude removal pursuant to any other immigration authorities,” Sauer wrote.

It looks as though trade progress is being made with Japan, as concessions about automobiles were reported on this weekend, signaling that Trump administration could be heading towards a revised agreement with the key ally nation. 

Japan may loosen auto safety rules for U.S. imports to address President Trump’s concerns over the low number of American cars sold there, Nikkei reports. With differing safety standards between the two countries, Tokyo is eyeing crash test regulations as a possible trade concession, according to Nikkei.

During a White House meeting, Trump criticized Japan’s trade surplus and poor U.S. auto sales. Cabinet-level talks focused on non-tariff barriers, particularly in the auto and agriculture sectors.

Japan, a signatory to a 1958 U.N. pact on unified auto standards, maintains its own certification process, requiring separate approval for American imports—a process that can take months. While the U.S. participates in discussions under the U.N. framework, it uses its own safety rules and lets automakers self-test.

The Nikkei report says that the U.S. Trade Representative recently flagged Japan’s crash test requirements as a non-tariff barrier, citing them as overly burdensome and unfair to U.S. carmakers. These safety standards—especially for frontal and side collisions—have long been a sticking point in trade talks.

During past Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, Japan agreed to ease some requirements for U.S. imports, such as skipping certain tests like fire retardancy. It also expanded exemptions for low-volume American car sales. However, those TPP concessions faded after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the pact in 2017.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Most people on the right have no idea just how crazed many people on the left have become.  Right now, a conspiracy theory which claims that President Trump is preparing to declare martial law in the United States is spreading like wildfire on social media. 

 According to that conspiracy theory, a report will be submitted to President Trump on April 20th which will recommend that he should invoke the Insurrection Act to help deal with the border crisis.  That would allow U.S. troops to help secure the border, but many leftists are convinced that President Trump will also use U.S. troops to round up political activists and send them to prisons in El Salvador.  I realize that this may sound really bizarre to many of you, but this is what many of them actually believe.

Early last month, an article that was published by the San Francisco Chronicle got the ball rolling by highlighting the fact that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security will soon submit a report to President Trump recommending whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act…

The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.

That is not exactly an honest characterization of what that executive order says.  I have reproduced the relevant portion of that particular executive order below…

Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.

The Trump administration wants to use U.S. troops to help secure the border, and that is probably what we are going to see.

But many leftists are absolutely convinced that we are also about to see martial law in this country.

An article that was authored by an anonymous leftist known as “Aletheisthenes” that was entitled “Part 1: On April 20th, 2025, the United States may Cross the Point of No Return” has created a firestorm of panic among far left radicals.  According to that article, once President Trump officially invokes the Insurrection Act it will set a “larger plan in motion”…

And as his two months in office has already shown, he won’t stop at just a legal opinion.

Expect an executive order even that same day or the next, officially declaring the Insurrection Act, restricting freedoms in the name of restoring control of the border and perhaps in blue-state cities, and setting the larger plan in motion.

Of course, this won’t be framed as an attack on democracy. It will be packaged as a necessary response to crisis — as authoritarian takeovers always are.

But once it happens, there’s no going back.

This will be the point of no return.

Aletheisthenes believes that the plan to implement martial law in this nation will unfold in eight stages…

1. “Resist!” Demonstrations Grow — Just As Planned

2. The False Flag Crisis: Turning Protest into “Terror”

3. Trump Declares Expanded Martial Law — And Calls for Militia to assist the police and Military

4. Mass Arrests of Opposition Leaders

5. Military & National Guard Take Over Major Cities

6. Press Censorship & Total Media Control

7. Borders Close & Dissidents Are Trapped Inside

8. Elections Are “Postponed” Indefinitely

Needless to say, this is not what Trump intends to do.

But I do believe that anti-Trump protests funded by very deep pockets on the left will continue to grow, and every time President Trump does something to try to keep those protests under control it will fuel their delusions even more.

Aletheisthenes followed up his original article with another very popular article in which he claimed that Trump’s ultimate goal is to “fully overthrow the United States government”…

On or slightly after April 20th, 2025, Trump will most likely sign an executive order invoking the Insurrection Act.

The excuse will be to secure the border and deport violent gang member illegal aliens, and possibly bring order to out-of-control cities, but it will actually be the first step to eventually fully declare martial law across the United States, and suspend civil liberties, and the US Constitution.

To most it will come without warning. The press might not even report on it until the last minute. When it happens, expect confusion, misinformation, and panic. Many will be caught off guard.

(But a few of us won’t be, at least not entirely — because we saw this coming.)

The ultimate purpose is to eventually fully overthrow the United States government, put Trump, his billionaire co-conspirators, and people who share the values of his very fuzzy reactionary political coalition fully and permanently in control.

This is nuts.

But this is what they actually believe, and they are going to act accordingly.

The narrative that President Trump is some sort of a dictator will motivate leftists to show up at protests, and when some of those protests inevitably turn violent and authorities are forced to respond it will cause even more easily fooled people to embrace that narrative.

You should see what leftists are already saying on social media.  Here is just one example…

“As a veteran, if martial law is declared in the U.S., it means the Constitution is suspended. Civilian government Gone. Freedom of speech, assembly, the press? Gone. Curfews. Checkpoints. Arrest without warrants. No due process. I believe the military would stand with the people & Constitution”

They are openly talking about civil conflict, and this has been going on for months.

But most people on the right have no idea this is happening.

The conspiracy theory that I have discussed in this article has gained so much traction that Snopes was even forced to address it…

One reader emailed Snopes, “I am seeing many posts on Facebook that on April 20, Trump will declare martial law.” Another person referenced an executive order issued on Jan. 20, the first day of Trump’s second term, and asked, “I have seen a variety of posts suggesting that an early executive order signed by the president has set the stage for the imposition of martial law, and that this will be triggered by a report on the state of the border that will be released on April 20. Any truth here?”

At this point, Snopes considers this conspiracy theory to be more of “a prediction than a provable claim”…

As of this writing on April 9, this rumor existed more as a prediction than a provable claim. Searches of the websites for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the White House yielded no announcements, statements or demonstrable evidence that might help to shed light on the unproven matter.

I actually think that there are many on the left that would love to see President Trump declare martial law, because they are convinced that would give them justification for what they have been intending to do all along.

We have never been more divided as a society than we are right now.

Civil disorder on a scale that we have never seen before is coming, but even after all of the political violence that we have already witnessed in recent weeks a lot of people still don’t want to believe it.

But sticking our heads in the sand won’t make the threat go away.

Our society is reaching a boiling point, and it won’t be too long before events spiral completely out of control.

*  *  *

Michael’s new  book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Northrop Grumman’s mission to design and build the world’s largest and most advanced solid rocket motors may have been derailed last week after an explosion rocked its Promontory, Utah, facility.

Local media Fox 13 reported that one of the aerospace and defense technology company’s buildings at the Promontory test facility was destroyed in an explosion last Wednesday morning. When emergency responders arrived at the incident area, they found one building destroyed. 

“Initial reports indicate that there are no injuries or fatalities at this time. However, as with all ongoing investigations, details may change. There is no further information available for release at this time.  We advise the public to avoid the area,” the Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office wrote on a Facebook post hours after the explosion. 

Northrop Grumman told Fox 13 that the building destroyed was used to “produce an ingredient in solid rocket motor propellant and is one of many in its production network,” adding that no solid rocket motors were destroyed or damaged in the blast.

Here’s more context on the explosion and its potential impact, via Space.com:

Northrop Grumman’s Utah facility manufactures and tests solid rocket engines, like those used to launch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis Program. Their campus spans over 10 miles (16 kilometers) of Utah desert, northwest of Promontory, with two central hubs of facilities.

Wednesday’s explosion destroyed a building in the northwest portion of Northrop Grumman’s northernmost collection of site infrastructure, about 8.5 miles (13.5 kilometers) north of the company’s test stand for the SLS solid rocket boosters. 

Northrop Grumman did not provide insight into what caused the explosion at the solid rocket motor factory.