Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The federal government will facilitate and pay for the self-deportation of those who have entered the country illegally, while operations will continue to target gang members and violent criminals, President Donald Trump told Fox Noticias host Rachel Campos-Duffy in an interview filmed at the White House that aired on April 15.

The president said that stipends, including plane tickets and money, could help incentivize illegal immigrants to leave and pursue legal status.

“We’re going to make it comfortable for people, and we’re going to work with those people to come back into our country legally,” Trump said during the interview. “And then … if they’re good, if we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can.”

He did not provide further details about how much money illegal immigrants could receive or how to apply for such benefits.

The president also announced a plan to work with some industries, including hospitality and agriculture, to help business owners mitigate the effect of mass deportations.

“We’re making it so that if a farmer can give recommendations to people, we’re going to be very soothing,” he said.

“They’re sort of responsible, and we’re going to have the farmer take responsibility. But you know, ultimately, at some point, we want the people to go out, come back as legal.”

Broadcast to a Hispanic audience, the interview was conducted in English and released with Spanish subtitles. Trump successfully courted the Hispanic vote during his 2024 campaign, according to exit polling that showed him garnering a record share for a Republican Party candidate.

While the United States is offering paths to citizenship for many in the workforce, the president said aggressive deportation operations will continue for violent criminals.

“Right now, we’re getting the murderers out,” Trump said. “We have our total aim on the very bad ones, as you can imagine. These are rough, bad people. We want them out, and that’s mostly our focus.”

He thanked Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele—who visited the White House on April 14 to discuss migration and national security policies—for housing violent deportees in his country’s Terrorism Confinement Center.

Trump said White House officials are looking into the legality of potentially housing dangerous U.S. citizens in the supermax prison.

“I call them homegrown criminals,” the president said. “We are looking into it, and we want to do it. I would love to do that.”

Regarding tariffs imposed on nations around the world, the president suggested that revenues could grow large enough to replace income taxes.

“We’re making tremendous amounts of money, taking in billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs from other countries that, for many, many decades, just ripped off the United States,” he said.

He also repeated his goals of introducing more lenient mortgage deductions; allowing interest deductions for U.S.-made vehicles; and eliminating taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security. But he cautioned that political winds on Capitol Hill are challenging to overcome.

“I have some strange people I deal with, and we have to get it approved,” Trump said.

Far from the international moneyman of mystery as New York Magazine called him, Jeffrey Epstein is now the most notorious child sex trafficker on the planet. But how deep does the rabbit hole go?

After an underwhelming Phase 1 release of the Epstein Files by the Trump administration (still awaiting phase 2 by the way…) we wanted to bring together proper category experts.

I’m starting to think that handing the Mossad pedo files to a bunch of Zionists might not be the best way to get the truth to the public.

— Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith) February 27, 2025

Visit the ZeroHedge homepage tonight at 7:15 pm ET for the ultimate deep dive into government sex trafficking rings, hosted by Ian Carroll.

Panelist include Nick Bryant, author of The Franklin Scandal which is an absolute must-read for those wanting to learn more about government’s systematic pedophilia. Bryant spent the better part of a decade on the ground in Omaha Nebraska piecing together the salacious details behind Larry King’s operations that connected to the CIA and highest levels of the George HW Bush administration.

Also joining is Ryan Dawson who has done mountains of research into the Epstein case and its connections to the country of Israel.

We will see you tonight at 7:15 pm ET. Live and uncensored on the homepage and our X channel.

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Department of Justice is seeking a federal court injunction requiring Pine Tree State schools to immediately stop transgender boys from competing in girls’ sports and return all athletic records and titles to their rightful female owners.

The federal agency will also consider retroactively pulling funding from school districts that have not complied with Title IX regulations in the past, Attorney General Pam Bondi said during an April 16 news conference in Washington.

“Pretty basic stuff,” she said. “This is about women’s sports. This is also about young women’s personal safety.”

Bondi was flanked by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Maine Assemblywoman Laurel Libby, who was censured by her state’s Democrat-led state legislature for posting photos and the identity of a male transgender athlete from Greely High School who won an indoor track state pole vaulting title this year.

Maine high school athletes who competed against transgender males also appeared on stage, along with Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer who brought this debate to the national stage after losing the championship to a transgender male who had competed in the men’s division until his senior year.

Bondi said a Maine transgender male also won a cross-country state title last fall in the girls’ division and placed at state-level skiing competitions this past winter.

“That took away a spot from young women in women’s sports,” Bondi said. “Shame on him.”

Bondi did not disclose where this federal lawsuit was filed.

In a separate court case related to the same debate, a judge ordered the federal government to unfreeze Department of Agriculture funding to schools.

President Donald Trump previously issued executive orders clarifying Title IX and prohibiting males from competing in women’s sports. The NCAA has already complied, and Republican House members are working on a bill to codify that regulation.

Maine’s attorney general has already informed Bondi that his state has no intention of complying with the order. School district superintendents told their communities that until directed otherwise, they are expected to comply with state laws that are contrary to Trump’s executive order.

Trump publicly sparred with Maine Gov. Janet Mills at a governor’s workshop on Capitol Hill in February, warning her that he would pull funding if she continued to defy his executive order.

At the state level, the Greely High School community has shown public support for all transgender athletes, including their state champion pole vaulter, criticizing Trump and the NCAA for its compliance. But Libby has also received plenty of support via her social media presence and continues to state that most Mainers do not support men competing as women in their state.

“Maine Democrats have doubled down on their far-left agenda, and now our students and families stand poised to lose hundreds of millions in federal funding,” Libby said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times.

“Their radical gender ideology is endangering the continued existence of women’s sports and penalizing Maine students against the will of Maine citizens.”

Mills issued a statement after Bondi’s news conference, saying that Trump and the Department of Justice’s actions are politically motivated.

“As I have said previously, this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot,” the governor said.

Another day, another sentiment survey collapsing into the abyss of Trump-Tariff-driven hell…

The Philly Fed Manufacturing Business Outlook survey crashed from +12.5 to -26.4 in April (+2.2 exp) – its weakest in two years. However, quietly, the 6-month forward outlook remained positive and actually improved…

The index for new orders also fell sharply, from 8.7 in March to -34.2 this month, its lowest reading since April 2020, and the prices paid index edged up from 48.3 to 51.0, its highest reading since July 2022

Smells a little stagflationary to us.

The future prices paid index climbed to 63.1, and the future prices received index jumped 28 points to 67.7, its highest reading since June 2021.

Finally, the gap between strengthening ‘hard’ data and collapsing ‘soft’ data continues to grow…

Will this be a replay of Q2 2024 – when the hard data ‘caught down’ to soft data? Or Q3 2023 where the sentiment surveys snapped higher as the hard data refused to fold?

Guess who is in Beijing today?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang boarded a private jet to Beijing shortly after the U.S. Commerce Department announced new export licensing requirements for the company’s H20 AI chips for the Chinese market. Once there, Huang met with the head of a Chinese state-backed trade body, where he reaffirmed Nvidia’s commitment to the Chinese market despite a deepening trade war.

🇨🇳NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Arrives in Beijing at CCPIT’s Invitation, Reaffirms Commitment to China Collaboration
NVIDIA Corporation CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Beijing today at the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). This visit comes… pic.twitter.com/LccSqNHYwp

— CN Wire (@Sino_Market) April 17, 2025

State broadcaster CCTV reported that Huang met earlier today in Beijing with Ren Hongbin, president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade — a trade agency under the Ministry of Commerce.

CCTV noted that Huang arrived in Beijing under the invitation of Hongbin’s state-backed trade group.

Huang emphasized that China remains an important market for Nvidia and expressed hope for continued cooperation with Beijing.

Another state-backed news agency, China News Service, released footage of Huang and Hongbin speaking. 

“We’ve grown up in China, in fact. And China has watched us grow in the last 30 years. It’s a very important market for us,” Huang said. 

NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang visited Beijing on Thursday afternoon. Huang said that #China is one of the most important markets for #NVIDIA, and he’s willing to further promote cooperation with Chinese enterprises. @nvidia @nvidianewsroom @NVIDIANetworkng pic.twitter.com/MD8CbE1Os1

— China News 中国新闻网 (@Echinanews) April 17, 2025

Huang’s flight to China comes a little more than a day after the U.S. Commerce Department said Nvidia will need a license to export its H20 chips to China and several other countries. Nvidia revealed that it would be hit with a charge of up to $5.5 billion related to the controls. 

So what message does this show? Huang jets off to Beijing. Should the world’s largest chip maker be this cozy with America’s foreign adversary? 

Listing service Bright MLS summed up Washington, D.C.’s housing market in one troubling line: “Supply is towering over last year.” That’s been the trend for the last few months, with active listings well above multi-year averages for this time of the year. Add in the latest surge in mortgage rates—on top of mounting DOGE-related layoffs, now numbering in the hundreds of thousands—and the D.C. metro area appears to be heading toward a combination of housing and labor market pains. 

Here are three key takeaways from MLS’s weekly report (for the week ending April 13) on the housing markets in Northern Virginia, D.C., and Maryland. The common denominator across all three regions: supply—and a lot of it. Inventory has surged this spring, well above levels seen over the last three years:

• Contracts keeping pace with last year. The Bright MLS service area had 6,709 new purchase contracts for the week ending April 13. With contracts roughly flat, ticking up 0.8% from the same week in 2024, new contracts have now exceeded last year for five consecutive weeks. Market headwinds have not fully discouraged buyers as mortgage rates continue to see declines, but it may be a bumpy spring season depending on movement in the economy.

• List prices plateau at the record high. The Mid-Atlantic median list price has held at a record high of $449,900 for three consecutive weeks, marking a 4.6% increase over the same week last year. Last year’s peak list price occurred in May. Whether this year’s peak arrived earlier than usual, or will spring ahead in future weeks, is yet to be seen.

• Supply is towering over last year. There were 36,112 active listings at the end of the week, a 27.8% increase compared to the same time in 2024. While inventory is showing encouraging growth this year, buyers looking for specific price points or home types may find the market tight. Supply still has a long way to go before reaching pre-pandemic levels seen in years like 2019.

A snapshot of MLS’ coverage area shows that active listings were up 27.8% for the week ending April 13 compared to the same period last year. Week-over-week, listings rose by 3.1%.

In Washington, DC, active listings were up 47.5% versus the same period one year ago. Week-over-week, listings rose 3.9.% 

Visualizing the data…

A growing number of homeowners in the D.C. area are listing their properties just as the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed above 7% last week.

Coupled with news of 280,000 DOGE-related federal layoffs and declining consumer sentiment amid escalating trade war headlines, the outlook for the D.C. swamp has been darkening. 

Authored by Charles Kennedy via ilPrice.com,

• Russia plans to double its natural gas exports by 2030 and triple them by 2050.

• The strategy focuses on expanding exports to “friendly countries” and developing Arctic energy resources.

• Russia faces economic risks due to global market volatility and Western sanctions.

Russia expects its natural gas exports, including via pipeline and LNG, to jump twofold by 2030 and threefold to 2050 under its new long-term energy strategy approved by the government on Monday.

Russia sees its pipeline and LNG overseas deliveries surge from 146 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2023 to 293 bcm in 2030, and further up to 438 bcm by 2050.

Crude oil and condensate production is targeted to increase from 531 million metric tons per year, or 10.66 million barrels per day (bpd), in 2023 to 540 million tons, or 10.8 million bpd, by 2050.

However, oil exports are expected to remain flat throughout 2050, at around 235 million tons per year, or about 4.7 million bpd.

The new strategy, whose update was ordered by Vladimir Putin, includes measures to accelerate the development of oil and gas processing, expand the regional gas infrastructure development program, and ensure sufficient petroleum product supply on the domestic market at affordable prices.

Under the strategy, Russia will also continue to redirect oil and gas exports “to new markets in friendly countries,” to which Moscow has been exporting since the invasion of Ukraine and the Western embargoes and sanctions imposed in 2022.

Russia also aims to boost oil transshipment capacity in its Arctic and Far Eastern ports and actively utilize the Northern Sea Route’s potential—these are key to delivering oil and LNG from its Arctic projects to markets in Asia.

While updating its long-term energy strategy, Russia faces lower oil and gas revenues in the short term.

For Russia, the oil market meltdown in recent days could pose risks to the economy, Russia’s Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said last week.

“If the escalation of the tariff wars continues, this usually leads to a decline in global trade and the global economy and, possibly, demand for our energy resources. Therefore, there are risks here,” Nabiullina was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency.

In a new note out this week, Deutsche Bank laid out how it believes auto OEMs are going to shift their businesses to adapt to tariffs. 

Deutsche Bank reports that automakers (OEMs) are adopting a wide range of strategies to navigate the uncertainty—adjusting pricing, incentives, and production plans on a rolling basis.

The situation remains highly fluid, with the Trump administration recently floating the possibility of temporarily suspending tariffs to allow more time for OEMs to adjust. However, Deutsche Bank emphasizes that the market should operate under the assumption that “all imported vehicles are currently subject to the 25% tariff,” with imported parts facing similar duties starting May 3.

In its April 15 update, Deutsche Bank observes, “Across OEMs, we continue to see a dispersion of reactions.”

For instance, Tesla has paused sales of U.S.-built Model X and S vehicles in China, while GM halted operations at its CAMI Assembly Plant. Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Subaru have also taken a variety of measures—ranging from absorbing price increases to stopping U.S. inventory shipments altogether.

Among notable strategic shifts, Ford is offering broad employee pricing discounts and reshuffling production to its Fort Wayne facility and Honda has publicly stated it will not raise consumer prices as it evaluates its response.

Meanwhile, Infiniti has indefinitely paused production of two crossover models built in Mexico and Rivian and several other EV manufacturers have so far maintained operations but are assessing longer-term impacts.

While some OEMs are absorbing tariff costs temporarily—Mazda, for instance, will do so through April—others are preparing to pass the cost downstream. Deutsche Bank notes that despite a lack of sweeping public announcements, “the cost impact will not be trivial,” as one unnamed CEO warned.

Deutsche Bank continues to track weekly developments and offers updated data in spreadsheet form upon request, cautioning investors that policy developments could shift “overnight.”

We noted earlier this week Deutsche was still cautious on auto stocks. In a note on Monday it said that as Q1 2025 earnings approach, automakers still face significant uncertainty from new tariffs. They expect strong early-year demand as consumers buy ahead of price hikes, followed by a slowdown in the second half as tariffs bite—pushing 2025 U.S. auto sales to 15.4 million, down from 16.0 million in 2024.

Ford and GM could see gross costs rise by over $10 billion, while Tesla and Rivian face smaller impacts due to their supply chains, the note said. These estimates assume a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and parts starting May 3, with exemptions for USMCA-compliant content.

Deutsche said it believes automakers will share the cost burden with dealers and consumers and use various cost-offsetting strategies. Still, Ford and GM may see a $4–7 billion EBIT hit annually.

“In such a context, we think Rivian may have the cleanest set-up given its relatively small exposure to the tariffs and prospects for a strong R2 product cycle (naturally subject to execution risk though),” analysts wrote.

“We continue to view Tesla favorably longer term as an embodied AI secular winner but acknowledge it faces many cross currents for the next quarter or two.

Authored by Kenin M. Spivak via RealClearWorld,

In March of 2025, President Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imports of steel, aluminum, automobiles, and certain automobile parts. European Union (E.U.) members, except Hungary, announced retaliatory tariffs of 10% to 25% on specific U.S. imports.

On April 2, Trump proclaimed, “Liberation Day” and added a global baseline tariff of 10%, plus customized so-called “reciprocal tariffs.” Because the 2024 U.S. deficit with the E.U. was 39% of imports, he imposed a “discounted” 20% reciprocal tariff on most E.U. goods not subject to the 25% tariff. After a week, excluding China, Trump suspended reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to facilitate negotiations, and the E.U. delayed its retaliation.

While this may appear to be Trump starting a trade war, in reality it’s Trump ratcheting up a long-simmering war against the United States fought with protectionist trade policies, including by some of our closest allies.  Set aside that Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are actually punitive tariffs, that the trade war is depressing global stock and bond markets, raising the specter of recession, and threatening U.S. economic primacy. Those are criticisms largely based on trying to do too much, too quickly. Turning to the disease, Trump is right. We sometimes are treated better by our enemies than by our so-called trade allies. That’s before counting the trillions of dollars America has spent on their defense.

Together, the U.S. and E.U. represent almost 30% of global trade and 43% of global GDP. Last year, the U.S. exported $370 billion of goods to the E.U. and imported $606 billion, generating a $236 billion deficit. The U.S. last had a surplus with the E.U. in 1991.

Most Americans don’t realize how powerful the U.S. economy is compared to the E.U. In 2024, the U.S. GDP exceeded $29 trillion (about $86,600 per person), compared to $19 trillion for the E.U. (about $45,300 per person). When the E.U. takes advantage of the United States, it really should think twice.

High tariffs are not Europe’s main offense. Instead, the E.U. deters U.S. competition by requiring American companies to comply on a worldwide basis with its far-left antitrust, censorship, data privacy, and DEI rules; limits government purchasing to products with at least 50% local components and E.U. ownership; and sets standards for non-E.U. companies that vary country-by-country, making it prohibitively expensive to do business in the E.U.

One of the starkest results of the trade imbalance is the auto sector. Last year, the U.S. imported 757,654 new vehicles from the E.U., but the E.U. imported only 169,152 new vehicles from the U.S., many of which were manufactured by U.S. subsidiaries of E.U. automotive companies.

The U.S. is the world’s second-largest agricultural trader, behind the E.U. Over the last 25 years, the share of U.S. agriculture exports going to the E.U. dropped from 15% to 7.2%. Total exports grew from about $9 billion to $13 billion, well below inflation. Conversely, from 2013 to 2024, U.S. agriculture imports from the E.U. nearly tripled to about $34.5 billion.

In February, President Trump called the E.U.’s trade practices an “atrocity” and asserted that the E.U. “take[s] almost nothing and we take everything from them.”

According to the U.S. Trade Representative report on Foreign Trade Barriers, E.U. barriers include, among many others:

• Tariffs up to 26% for fish and seafood, 22% for trucks, 14% for bicycles, 10% for automobiles, and 6.5% for fertilizers and plastics. Tariff codes improperly reclassify processed foods into higher tariff categories.
• E.U. law restricts non-E.U. ownership in numerous sectors.
• Packaging and labeling requirements, standards, and technical barriers impede market access for U.S. products that meet international standards, including chemicals, medical devices, wine, spirits, food and agricultural products, meat, and live cattle.
• The E.U. imposes fines up to 20% of the worldwide revenue on large digital service providers that fail to comply with its censorship, advertising, and content rules. The E.U. uses this authority to undermine U.S. competitiveness.
• Data maintained outside of the E.U. must comply with rules that conflict with U.S. law, and France requires that cloud providers that handle “highly sensitive” data must be at least 61% E.U.-owned and “immune” from non-E.U. laws.
• Quotas, subsidies, and content restrictions limit the opportunities for U.S. produced film and television content, and U.S. owned content distributors, while AI and intellectual property laws limit the rights of creators to be remunerated for their content, or maintain confidentiality.
• Numerous E.U. countries require E.U. nationality to practice law, and for other professional licenses.

While income and savings rate disparities are in part responsible for the E.U.-U.S. trade deficit, the breadth of restrictions plays a significant role. The U.S. should not be subsidizing the E.U.’s economy, paying for its defense, or relinquishing control of international standards organizations to E.U. members. When it comes to global trade, liberté, égalité, fraternité is an empty slogan.

If the E.U. fails to make considerable concessions within the next few months, Trump should respond with properly computed and targeted tariff and non-tariff measures. While this may reduce trade, economic growth, and prosperity, if well-calibrated, the blame – and the brunt of the cost – will fall squarely on the Europeans.

Kenin M. Spivak is founder and chairman of SMI Group LLC, an international consulting firm and investment bank. He is the author of fiction and non-fiction books and a frequent speaker and contributor to media, including RealClear, The American Mind, National Review, television, radio, and podcasts.

Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday voted to extend martial law and military mobilization for another three months, in a nearly unanimous 357-1 vote which though fully expected, presents yet another obstacle for peace with Russia.

These wartime measures will continue until at least August 6, when another extension vote is likely. This means that there will be no efforts to organize a presential vote during that time, and that Zelensky’s mandate continues. Also, there can be no elections to parliament while the ruling is in effect. President Trump previously derided Zelensky as a “dictator without elections” – in a drastic break from the Biden presidency.

Ukraine’s constitution stipulates that elections cannot be held during martial law, which has remained highly controversial, given also both the Trump administration and the Kremlin have called for some kind of timeline for political transition.

Lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said the extension of martial law passed by a 357-1 vote, while a measure to maintain troop mobilization was approved 356-1. —Al Jazeera

The military mobilization aspect means what conscripts aged between 18 and 60 continue to be barred from leaving the country. Even though Ukrainian men can’t be drafted until they are 25 (a rarity among global militaries as this is a high ‘minimum’ age), the country is seeking to preserve future fighting forces.

For the domestic population, it remains the harsh conscription campaign that is most feared by families, as in some instances young men have been forcibly taken into military service while simply walking the streets or going to restaurants.

This latest parliament vote to extend these policies has been met with some visible pushback by a well-known former leader:

Former president Petro Poroshenko accused the government of rushing the extension through parliament, with almost one month left before the current martial law expires.

Martial law is “being used not only for the defense of the country, but also for the establishment of an authoritarian regime,” the opposition leader, who has been sanctioned by Zelensky, claimed on social media.

Martial law has been in effect since the very beginning of the Russian invasion of February 2022, and it’s increasingly being politically challenged both at home and abroad.

But during that time, Zelensky has effectively barred and rooted out nearly all opposition figures and parties in parliament, especially the ones seen as sympathetic to Russian-speakers.

And the longer the war drags on, the more desperate authorities will become to suppress dissenting voices while pushing polices which seek to rapidly replenish military ranks. But drastic change to an already controversial and strained system could destabilize the Zelensky government.