It looks as though Elon Musk may have slightly overshot the mark with cost cutting at Tesla.

The company, which saw layoffs number in the tens of thousands so far this year, is now hiring back some of the 500 workers from its Supercharger team it let go, according to Autoblog/Bloomberg. 

Max de Zegher, the director of charging for North America, has returned to his role, according the report. This move follows the termination of Rebecca Tinucci, the senior director, and most of the charging team by Elon Musk last month.

The electric vehicle industry was shaken by Musk’s abrupt dissolution of the charging team, as Tesla’s Superchargers have been considered one of the company’s most strategic assets.

Since the introduction of its first Superchargers in September 2012, Tesla has expanded its network to include over 6,200 stations and 57,000 connectors globally. The extent of rehiring laid-off workers remains unclear, and both Musk and de Zegher have not commented on the matter.

As we have written about extensively, over the past year, Tesla has successfully persuaded competitors to adopt its charging plugs as a standard and has formed partnerships with major global manufacturers to allow access to its charging network.

Musk committed last week to invest more than $500 million this year to expand Tesla’s charging network. Prior to this commitment, he had indicated a plan to slow down the addition of new chargers, focusing instead on the maintenance and efficiency of existing sites.

On May 10, the @TeslaCharging account on X — a social media platform owned by Musk — posted a message expressing gratitude to charging site hosts and suppliers for their patience during the company’s restructuring. De Zegher echoed this sentiment by reposting the message.

As Bloomberg notes, this isn’t the first time Musk has “overdone it” with layoffs. In 2019, he reversed a decision to close most of Tesla’s retail stores and move sales online after facing resistance from landlords, subsequently raising vehicle prices. A similar reversal occurred at Twitter in late 2022 when, after laying off about half of the workforce, Musk asked dozens of employees to return.

Recall, Tesla announced in April it was cutting over 10% of its 140,000-strong global workforce to prepare for a new phase of growth, according to CNBC.

Details on the layoffs were sparse, but in a company memo, Elon Musk said the move was part of a strategic shift towards robotaxi development, stepping away from plans for a more affordable electric vehicle.

Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

A new report reveals that over half of the population of illegal aliens that have come into the United States under Joe Biden’s watch are unemployed, thus creating an even greater strain on the country.

As reported by Breitbart, the report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released on Monday revealed that only 46% of illegals who came to the U.S. “in 2022 or later” were employed at the start of 2024.

“Immigration clearly adds workers to the country, but it just as clearly adds non-workers who need to be supported by the labor of others,” said CIS researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler in the report.

“This was the case in the past, it is true today, and it will surely be the case for immigrants who arrive in the future. Those who simply see immigration as a source of labor need to understand it is also a source of school children, retirees, and many other non-workers.”

The numbers in CIS’s report appear to debunk one of the most common arguments used by advocates of mass migration and open borders, who claim that illegals must be brought into the country to fill jobs that American citizens will not do.

Furthermore, CIS reported that the population of illegals in the U.S. has risen by at least 6.6 million since Joe Biden first took power in January of 2021. As of March of this year, there are over 51.6 million foreign-born illegals in the country, an increase of approximately 5.1 million since 2022. This accounts for at least 15.6% of the entire population of the United States.

“Many advocates for the unauthorized argue they should be given work permits so they can support themselves while they await a court date,” the report noted.

“Of course, others worry that this would only incentivize more illegal immigration. In 2024, a larger share of new arrivals were unauthorized relative to prior years due to the ongoing border crisis.”

CIS previously released a study debunking the Biden Administration’s attempts at claiming that it has overseen job growth in recent years, as many of the new jobs created were filled by illegals rather than American citizens; the number of employed Americans has actually decreased under Biden’s watch, falling even below pre-COVID levels.

After a weekend of the strongest solar storms to rock the planet in years, producing aurora across Europe, the United States, and as far as New Zealand, there is news the sun just burped its largest solar flare of Solar Cycle 25, according to space weather website Solarham. 

“The largest solar flare of the current solar cycle 25, and largest since 2017 was just observed around deparing AR 3664 off the west limb. The X8.7 event peaked at 16:51 UTC (May 14) causing a strong R3 level radio blackout directly over North America,” Solarham wrote.

Solarham continued: “A filament located in the northeast quadrant erupted earlier today and produced a light bulb shaped CME. So far the blast appears to be headed mostly north of the Sun-Earth line. A further update will be provided whenever necessary.”

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center wrote this solar flare was the largest of the cycle cycle (and the 17th most intense solar flare ever recorded). They said the flare was a “behemoth X8.7-class flare let loose from the very infamous parting Active Region 3664. It is the most intense flare seen since 2017.”

The largest solar flare of the current solar cycle (and the 17th most intense solar flare ever recorded!) occurred momentarily ago as a behemoth X8.7-class flare let loose from the very infamous parting Active Region 3664. It is the most intense flare seen since 2017. #spacewx pic.twitter.com/WBp5DvQooB

— Space Weather Watch (@spacewxwatch) May 14, 2024

SWPC highlighted some good news: the solar flare was not directly facing Earth.

No, and that’s the interesting thing—it may have been even more intense if it wasn’t partially eclipsed. Storms launched from this region aren’t very likely to get Earth but the radiational / X-ray piece still is

— Space Weather Watch (@spacewxwatch) May 14, 2024

One X user responded to SWPC:

“If this happened when this group was earth-facing, during all the other craziness, this could have been remarkably bad.” 

If this happened when this group was earth facing, during all the other craziness, this could have been remarkably bad

— Michael Puscar (@michaelapuscar) May 14, 2024

About one year ago, solar physicist Alex James at the University of College London warned that the sun’s increase in solar activity was a sign that the solar maximum could arrive much sooner than anticipated. 

All this evidence suggests that Solar Cycle 25 is “going to peak earlier, and it’s going to peak higher than expected,” James said. 

Here is a graph of Solar Cycle 25.

In 2016, the federal government became increasingly serious about potential grid-down events produced by solar storms with an executive order signed by the Obama Administration titled “Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events.”

While the nation’s power grid, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation, and other communication networks involving space-based transmission all survived the weekend solar blast, some disruptions were reported, including GPS and short-wave radio. 

Sigh… 

In the early 1950s, a notorious bank robber, one of the first fugitives on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, was asked after his capture: Why did you rob banks?

William Sutton’s response: “Because that’s where the money is.”

Fast-forward to today. Thieves are targeting electric vehicle charging stations because the charging cords at each stall contain a ‘gold mine’ of copper that can easily be scrapped. 

Targeting EV charging stations is nothing new (read here). Still, thieves are noticing copper prices moving higher, mainly due to strained mining supplies and robust demand for powering up America in the digital age. And this trend might spark concern with Elon Musk, as his Tesla Superchargers are being targeted in imploding California. 

One Bay Area Supercharger Station had all charging cords severed. This is terrible news for EV drivers rolling up with low battery. 

Tesla Supercharger station in Bay Area hit by thieves with every charging cable cut pic.twitter.com/ro38DkJKqQ

— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) May 13, 2024

EV blog Teslarati said thieves are targeting Tesla Superchargers across several states:

 It now seems this is a new form of attack on Tesla Superchargers, as another identical incident occurred last week in Houston, Texas. Thieves also cut the charging cables in Minneapolis, Minnesota, earlier this year.

This comes as Goldman’s Nicholas Snowdon has warned about the entire copper market “moving into extreme tightness.” 

Prices of Copper are powering higher – preparing for a possible breakout. 

How will Musk protect Superchargers from thieves? 

More importantly, violent crime and theft are a byproduct of failed social justice warriors in progressive states and metro areas that care very little about law and order and more about the destruction of the country.

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

We’re back in a “bad news is good news” regime for stocks, where weak economic data prompts higher prices. That’s typically a supportive backdrop for equities, but investors should be alert for when stocks fail to rally on good news as this signals the economy is potentially in or about to be in a recession, with the stock market poised to see its worst returns.

“Bad news sells best. ’Cause good news is no news,” says Kirk Douglas’s journalist in Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole. But bad news isn’t just a boon for newspapers; stocks also frequently rally on news that intuitively should see them selling off.

Blame central banks for this perverse state of affairs, with their implicit backstop for markets.

Stocks have recently been rallying on the back of weaker economic data points, such as payrolls and the ISM.

But the “bad news is good news” shorthand used by the market needs a more rigorous foundation.

• First, define exactly that we mean by statements like “bad news is good news”;

• second, define the different regimes based on our definition;

• and third, look at how the market has performed through the regimes.

Claude Shannon – the father of information theory which forms the basis of modern communication – invented the idea that information is surprise. The utility in information comes not from what is expected, but what is unexpected. That’s typically how markets behave with economic data, reacting not to the information itself, but by how much it surprises to the upside or downside.

Economic surprise indexes capture the number of surprises on a cumulative basis. When they are positive, economic data is on net beating expectations, and vice-versa when they are negative. Therefore we can define four regimes based on how stocks are changing in relation to economic surprises:

• Good news is good news (stocks and eco surprises rising together)

• Bad news is good news (stocks rise when eco surprises fall)

• Good news is bad news (stocks fall when eco surprises rise)

• Bad news is bad news (stocks fall when eco surprises fall)

I have used the Bloomberg surprise indexes, which are separated out by economic type, such as survey data and labor data. I took the median of these indexes, excepting those that have a negative relationship with the S&P over the whole sample period (we would expect a positive relationship overall, e.g. positive surprises causing the market to rally).

The chart above shows the S&P color-coded for the different regimes. As we can see, the market not long ago went back into a bad news is good news regime. Most of the S&P’s advance since October 2022 has either been in that regime, or the good news is good news regime. These two are typically dominant when the market is in a strong bullish trend – no wonder when stocks go up on good or bad news!

There’s no significant difference if we restrict the sample to the post-GFC period when Federal Reserve support for markets became more explicit, with the percentage of the time when bad news was good for stocks only rising marginally to 26% from 23%.

The market rallying on any news is what you would expect to see more often, given that the market generally rises over time. But if there were no Fed it’s a strong bet that stocks would rise less of the time overall as they would not be as insulated from bad news.

This is all quite interesting, but what does it tell us about stock performance? The table below shows the one, three, six and 12-month average forward returns of the S&P when in each regime, along with the whole-sample average returns for the same time periods.

We can see when stocks are rallying on good or bad news (top two rows in table), forward returns on all time horizons are above average. Thus the current regime is historically consistent with the S&P returning a little above its average over the coming months.

When stocks are selling off on bad news, that’s not great for forward returns, but when stocks can’t even rally when the news is good is when investors need to be most wary (bottom row in table).

It is in this regime that stocks consistently come in below average, performing poorly over the next one, three, six and 12 months.

By what avenue does disappointing data cause stock prices to rise? One way is bad data triggering a flight-to-safety bid in bonds, or a lowering in Fed rate expectations, and the resulting lower yields boosting stock prices. We find that this “bad news is good news” regime is more likely when the stock-bond correlation is positive (on a rolling one-year basis) versus when it is negative.

But that’s not the only way. Positioning can mean stocks can rally as investors sell the rumor of weaker-than-expected data, and then buy the fact when the data comes in.

Nonetheless, in the current environment there are more days when stocks and bonds are positively correlated versus when they are not, increasing the likelihood the bad news is good news dynamic can persist for now.

That will help stocks as they face potential headwinds from an economy that may soon begin to look more recessionary. Unsurprisingly, during recessions even good news is bad for stocks, and it’s best to be out of the market altogether.

Israeli tanks have been seen plunging deeper into the southern Gaza city of Rafah amid reports that some 500,000 people have fled amid the escalating ground offensive.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have initially focused their operation on the eastern section of the city, having seized a key roadway that essentially cuts Rafah in half. “The tanks advanced this morning west of Salahuddin Road into the Brzail and Jneina neighborhoods. They are in the streets inside the built-up area and there are clashes,” one resident told Reuters via a messaging app. Regional media also reports that “Video on social media showed one tank on George Street in Al-Jneina neighborhood.”

The Guardian also writes Tuesday that “Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have fled Rafah since being told to evacuate by the Israel Defense Forces before their first attacks around and in the city a week ago.”

A Monday night CNN report indicated that the Biden administration believes that Israel has now amassed enough ground forces on the edge of Rafah to conduct a full-scale invasion of the city in the next days. However, the report says “senior US officials are currently unsure if it has made a final decision to carry out such a move in direct defiance of President Joe Biden, two senior administration officials told CNN.”

The White House criticism that not enough has been done to evacuate civilians to safety has persisted. “One of the officials also warned that Israel has not come anywhere close to making adequate preparations – including building infrastructure related to food, hygiene and shelter – ahead of potentially evacuating more than one million Gazans are who currently reside in Rafah,” the report continues.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan has clarified in a fresh statement that “The president was clear that he would not supply certain offensive weapons for such an operation were to occur.” He underscored in a Monday briefing, “It has not yet occurred.”

The words came after a dire prediction by Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the near-future fight if Israel goes ‘all in’ on Rafah. “Israel’s on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left, or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Already the IDF has been forced to return to wage battle in some parts of northern Gaza after Hamas reappeared there, though these regions had already been pacified earlier in the conflict.

But on the whole the US now assesses Hamas capabilities have been “significantly degraded”. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said days ago, “You have seen their ability to launch the kind of attacks that they did on October 7 significantly degraded, if not completely eliminated.”

“They couldn’t launch an attack of that scale today,” Miller claimed. “Their weapons production factories underground have been eliminated. Most of their battalion leadership in the north and in central Gaza has been eliminated. So Israel has achieved a great number of its military objectives.”

The US CENTCOM commander has been on the ground coordinating with IDF leadership, despite President Biden signaling to the public and angry progressives he’s getting tough on Israel…

This weekend, the Commander of @CENTCOM , General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, arrived in Israel as the official guest of the Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi.

The commanders held an operational situational assessment and discussed operational developments including the… pic.twitter.com/fSH69QxV9i

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 12, 2024

Meanwhile the IDF is still in control of Rafah crossing, and Middle East Eye has cited aid officials who’ve estimated that southern Gaza has less than a week’s worth of food left:

Displaced Palestinians in central and southern Gaza have less than a week’s worth of food left, after Israel seized the Rafah border crossing last week.

On 6 May, the Israeli military took “operational control” of the Palestinian side of the crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt, essentially cutting off aid into the coastal enclave.

Since then, just six trucks of food have entered Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing with Israel, Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa), told Middle East Eye.

The “very minimum” number of trucks needed is 500 per day, carrying a “combination of fuel, aid supplies and commercial supplies”, Touma said. Within the same time frame, 157,000 litres of fuel has come into Gaza. Touma said that 300,000 litres was needed every day.

With so little coming in, food supplies are dwindling and prices soaring. As a “full-blown famine” devastates northern Gaza, sources in central and southern Gaza described a “miserable” situation that could turn into a “real crisis” in a matter of days.

Relentless IDF bombing of Gaza’s south has continued, also amid stepped up Hamas operations attacking IDF convoys and positions:

After relentlessly bombing Rafah, Israeli tanks & bulldozers are moving in.

Now, 1.5 million refugees — who were made homeless by Israel/USA — will be forced to move further south towards the border with Egypt.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide in a systematic way in real time… pic.twitter.com/XK5EPikLwa

— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) April 23, 2024

One Palestinian journalist and eyewitness additionally described, “We could be seeing a new famine in the displacement areas. Displaced people are very worried about the lack of supplies. A major crisis, too, is related to the lack of water fit for drinking.”

And another eyewitness was cited as listing out that “A few vegetables, such as tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and garlic, and a few legumes, such as lentils, beans and fava beans are all that’s left.”

Update (1215ET): Johnson, Ramaswamy, Doug Burgum, Byron Donalds, Cory Mills, and Eric and Lara Trump all joined Trump today.

🚨Donald Trump is joined in court by Vivek Ramaswamy, Speaker Mike Johnson, Doug Burgum, Byron Donalds, Cory Mills, Eric Trump and Lara Trump:

“The gag order has to come off— There’s never been anything like this in our country. It’s a scam.” pic.twitter.com/L3506zWhz9

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 14, 2024

Johnson gave a speech.

“This is the fifth week that President Trump has been in court for this sham of a trial. They are doing this intentionally to keep him here and keep him off of the campaign trail,” he said. “And I think everybody in the country can see that for what it is.”

“President Trump is innocent of these charges,” he later declared.

BREAKING: Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) travels to New York Courtroom to defend Trump, says, it’s not about justice, it’s all about politics, says, “The crime that they are accusing President Trump of is falsification of business records. But I think everybody knows he… pic.twitter.com/EDF4kkQIhM

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) May 14, 2024

Johnson told reporters that he went to his “friend” Trump’s trial voluntarily.

“I called President Trump and told him I wanted to be here myself to call out what is a travesty of justice. And I think everybody around the country can see that,” said Johnson. “President Trump is a friend and I wanted to be here to support him.”

“I came here, again, today on my own to support President Trump because I am one of hundreds of millions of people, and one citizen, who is deeply concerned about this,” he added.

*  *  *

Now that Donald Trump’s Manhattan ‘hush money’ trial has revealed itself to be yet another Democrat farce, Republicans are coming out of the woodwork to support him now that it’s safe. On Monday, GOP Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio (a VP hopeful) and Tomy Tuberville of Alabama went to the courthouse.

Now, in a display of loyalty to Trump (and of course, optics), House Speaker Mike Johnson is reportedly expected to attend Trump’s trial, according to Axios,

Other names  expected to attend are North Dakota Gov. Burgum as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, both Trump VP contenders. The flood of support comes after a former attorney for Stormy Daniels – who claims she had a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, and was paid $130,000 right before the 2016 election, testified that payments made to her weren’t “hush-money,” and were instead a “consideration.” On Monday, convicted felon and perjurer Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, testified that Trump was intimately involved in the scheme.

“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” Cohen said, adding “What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump.”

Johnson’s trip comes less than one week after House Democrats helped block an attempt by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to oust him from office over his successful ‘America Last’ effort to fund wars in Ukraine and Israel.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly voiced support for Johnson – including during a joint appearance at Mar-a-Lago, after which he urged Republicans to table Greene’s motion to vacate.

Authored by Terri Wu via The Epoch Times,

The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it will impose a 100 percent tariff—quadrupling the current 25 percent—on electric vehicles imported from China in 2024. In addition to EVs, the White House has significantly increased tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum products, lithium-ion batteries, and solar cells.

“China’s using the same playbook it has before to power its own growth at the expense of others by continuing to invest despite excess Chinese capacity and flooding global markets with exports that are underpriced due to unfair practices,” Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters at a call ahead of the announcement.

“China’s simply too big to play by its own rules.”

She added that the tariff increases are consistent with President Joe Biden’s China policy of “responsibly managing competition with China.” “We are working with our partners around the world to address our shared concerns about China’s unfair practices,” Ms. Brainard said.

The administration will make further adjustments to these tariffs as it obtains feedback from the private sector, consumers, allies, and China, according to a senior administration official on the call.

Chinese EVs Are Cheap and in Excess

EVs have been a strategic priority for both the United States and China.

For the White House, EVs are a centerpiece of its climate-related initiatives—achieving half of new car sales as EVs by 2030—and “Made in America” policy to boost the country’s auto manufacturing industry, a vital sector of the American economy.

After setting EVs as one of its priority industries a decade ago, the Chinese Communist Party doubled down at its annual plenary meeting concluded in March, calling EVs one of the “new productive forces.” Instead of changing its economy from investment-led to consumption-led, Beijing seems to be poised to export its way out of its current economic slump.

BYD electric cars for export waiting to be loaded onto a ship at a port in Yantai, in eastern China’s Shandong Province, on April 18, 2024. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Heavy subsidies have driven China’s EV industry into overcapacity. Their prices are cheap, too.

China handed out $29 billion in EV subsidies between 2009 and 2022. Although the subsidies officially ended before 2023, other programs without “EV” in their names effectively continue the incentives. For example, Chinese media reported BYD snatching a third, or $1 billion, of the 2024 emission reduction subsidies from the Ministry of Finance.

As a result of 15-year-long subsidies, cheap Chinese cars have posed an “extinction-level” challenge to America’s auto industry, according to the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an advocacy group representing unionized steelworkers and other companies in the auto supply chain.

Driven by subsidies, China’s cheap EVs are also in excess.

Based on local government plans for the five years between 2021 and 2025, the China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID), an institution under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, expects Chinese EV production capacity to reach 36 million in 2025.

With 15 million Chinese EV sales forecast for 2025, excess Chinese EVs will reach 20 million next year.

China knew about the overcapacity problem and had planned a way out. In a December 2022 report, CCID mapped out exporting cars to the European market. However, it also recommended building factories in Latin America to take advantage of the local incentives there to further expand China’s global EV market share.

In March, BYD, a Chinese EV maker, introduced the BYD Seagull, a mini EV hatchback. The starting price is 69,800 yuan in China, or about $9,650. In Mexico, the price is 358,800 pesos, or about $20,990. It’s still much cheaper than the cheapest EV—about $30,000—in the United States. The average EV price in the United States is about $54,000.

Overcapacity Becomes the Core Issue

Nazak Nikakhtar, former assistant secretary for Industry and Analysis at the Department of Commerce during the Trump administration, said that more would be needed to curb China’s overcapacity problem.

“The dynamic with the Chinese EVs is that they’re not coming directly into the United States. They’re flooding global markets,” Ms. Nikakhtar told The Epoch Times.

Currently, Chinese-brand EVs are not sold in the U.S. market. The Volvo brands owned by Geely, a Chinese company, had a market share of 2 percent in 2023. However, American brands lost a 15 percent home market share in the past three years, according to Kelly Blue Book, a vehicle valuation and automotive research company. The lost share was taken up by German and South Korean brands, and Swedish brands owned by Chinese.

U.S. Electric Vehicle Brand’s Domestic Market Share

Chart: The Epoch Times  Source: Cox Automotive (Kelly Blue Book)

Who Gained from American EV Brand’s Lost Share at Home?

Chart: The Epoch Times  Source: Cox Automotive (Kelly Blue Book)

“It’s the classic—China distorts all the other markets, and then they export their stuff into the United States in those import surges,” Ms. Nikakhtar said, adding that Washington needs to negotiate with Europeans, South Koreans, and Japanese to implement volume limits on their exports to the United States.

Last October, the European Commission began its anti-subsidy investigation on Chinese EVs to find ways to protect EV makers in the European Union.

During her trip to China last month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen discussed the overcapacity issue, especially in green-energy sectors. She announced new dialogues with China’s Ministry of Finance and said the United States would “underscore the need for a shift in policy by China” in those talks.

Since then, Chinese media outlets have made coordinated attacks on U.S. concern over China’s excessive production capacities, calling it “protectionism.”

Other Tariff Increases

The Biden administration has levied new tariffs on Chinese port cranes and certain medical products. It will also triple tariffs on Chinese lithium-ion batteries, steel, and aluminum products to 25 percent this year and double the tariff on Chinese semiconductors to 50 percent by next year. The decision comes weeks after the White House called for tripling Chinese steel and aluminum tariffs.

These tariffs, initially put in place by the Trump administration in 2020, are up for review after four years, according to the “phase one” trade agreement between the United States and China. These “Section 301 tariffs” were imposed according to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which authorized U.S. presidents to impose tariffs to counter international trade violations.

In a press call, a senior administration official said that upon review, the Office of the United States Trade Representative recommended no tariff reduction because “China has not eliminated many of the forced technology transfer policies and practices, and instead has even become more aggressive in some of those actions, including through cyber intrusions and cyber theft that harm American workers and businesses.”

In addition to commercial considerations, President Biden has also expressed national security concerns over Chinese cars. In February, he asked the Department of Commerce to investigate whether Chinese vehicles pose data or infrastructure risks to the United States.

Ms. Brainard at the National Economic Council highlighted the benefit of increased tariffs in two battleground states—Michigan and Pennsylvania—but a senior White House official said that the decision had nothing to do with election-related considerations. According to White House senior officials on the press call, because the tariff decisions were a follow-up on the Section 301 review, the Biden administration has not considered an outright ban on Chinese EVs.

The officials assured that these tariff increases will not affect inflation as they are “a very targeted set of tariffs on specific sectors.”

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in the New York Post on the first day of the examination of Michael Cohen. He is expected to start his cross examination today. How bad will it be? After lying to Congress, courts, banks, and most everyone else, it will be bad. Years ago, Cohen threatened a journalist and told him “what I’m going to do to you is going to be f—ing disgusting.” Well, that bad. On cross examination, Cohen faces a reckoning of biblical proportions.

Michael Cohen apparently wants a reality show but, if his testimony Monday is any indication, reality is about to sink in for not just Cohen but the prosecutors and the court.

In stoking interest in his own appearance, the former Trump counsel promised the public that they should be “prepared to be surprised.”

Thus far, however, Cohen has offered nothing new and, more importantly, nothing to make the case for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Just before he took the stand, the New York Post revealed that Cohen has been peddling a reality show called “The Fixer,” including working with Colin Whelan, who helped create “Joe Exotic: Tigers, Lies and Cover-Up.” Whelan appears interested to stay within that genre.

The Cohen pitch came with a cheesy promo video where he promised viewers, “I am your fixer.”

His first post-Trump client, Bragg, may have to disagree.

Cohen had only one advantage for Bragg: His notoriously flexible morals and ethics, which allows him to say most anything to support his sponsors.

With the prosecution’s case almost over, Bragg needed Cohen to clearly state that Trump intentionally committed fraud to conceal some still poorly defined crime.

The problem is that Cohen only confirmed that Trump knew he was going to pay for the nondisclosure agreement and that it would be buried before the election. None of that is unlawful.

On his reality show promo, Cohen tells viewers that he is now there to fix their problems because “the little guy doesn’t usually have access to people with my particular set of skills.”

Those skills seem to have escaped all of the witnesses who were compelled to work with him.

Witnesses detailed how Cohen was ridiculed as someone “prone to exaggeration” and unprofessional.

Former Trump associate Hope Hicks said that Cohen was constantly trying to insinuate himself into the campaign and that he “used to like to call himself Mister Fix It, but it was only because he first broke it.”

Cohen only succeeded in confirming that he put together this payment and advised Trump to go forward with it.

He assured him that it would effectively kill the story before the election.

None of that is illegal. The “Fix it man” assured Trump that he fixed it and now wants Trump to go to jail for following that advice.

In the course of that representation, Cohen also admitted to taping his client without his knowledge, a breathtaking breach of trust and confidentiality.

This is the man who, according to Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Keith Davidson, expected to be Trump’s Attorney General.

Davidson said that Cohen was “depressed and despondent” and “I thought he was going to kill himself” when he realized that he would not be made a cabinet member.

Cohen contradicted Davidson and insisted that he only wanted to be Trump’s personal lawyer.

He also admitted that he was unaware that the publisher of National Enquirer, David Pecker, had long killed negative stories about Trump and other celebrities for decades.

Cohen has yet to fix the problem for Bragg.

More importantly, he has added to the problem for Judge Juan Merchan. Many of us have ridiculed this case as devoid of any criminal act.

Indeed, Merchan has allowed the prosecutors to proceed without clearly stating what crime was being concealed.

It is not even clear why paying one’s lawyer a lump sum for his services and costs (including the NDA payment) was not a “legal expense” or how it was supposed to be entered on a business ledger.

Absent a sudden epiphany in his final testimony on Tuesday, Merchan should rule in favor of a directed verdict — that is, throwing the case out before it goes to a jury. If he instead sends this farcical case to the jury, it is Merchan, not Cohen, who may have a better claim to a reality show as the ultimate “Fixer.”

Squeezed in between today’s (hotter than expected) PPI and tomorrow’s CPI, Fed Chair Jay Powell will join The ECB’s Dutch Central Banker Klaus Knot at the annual general meeting of the Foreign Bankers’ Association.

After PPI – and a wave of higher prices across various indicators – will Powell admit that he can now see the ‘flation’?

…and if not, will he explain why he is so desperate to start cutting rates (before November?)…

Watch Powell speak live here (due to start at 10amET)… (FBA has blocked playback on all other sites except YouTube, so no embed: click on the image to link to the YouTube stream)…