Two days ago, when discussing China’s surprising announcement that Trump should not cross four “red lines” (including i)Taiwan, ii) democracy and human rights, iii) China’s political system, and iv) development rights) or risk a collapse of the trade truce, we said that “ever since the recent “truce” in the trade war between the US and China was signed in Korea one week ago – the latest of many such ceasefires meant to be broken – skeptics have been patiently counting down until this latest ceasefire is torn up, and tensions between the two superpowers flare up once more.”

Needless to say, China telling Trump what the US president can and can not say is one of those things that the generally “sanguine and quite calm” US president tends to not be too excited about, and which leads to occasional bursts of outrage which then restart trade wars.

Then yesterday, we said that it felt like “‘the cracks in this latest trade deal are already starting to show, whether it is Beijing ordering Trump what he can’t talk about, or quietly ring-fencing its domestic data center by banning US Al chips” and further said that “while China granted Trump a 1 year reprieve on rare earths, it is quietly tightening the export noose on other, just as important minerals. According to the Global Times, China has introduced new export controls on silver, antimony, and tungsten.“

We concluded that “the game of export whack-a-mole in the second World Trade War continues: today the US is getting rare earths (at least until Trump has another Truth Social meltdown), but just got stopped out on other, just as important materials. This export control rotation will continue until the day the US is self-sufficient, which however due to the abovementioned environmental limitations, will take a very long time unless somehow the US govt funnels enough money in domestic producers (and allows them to dump the toxic by products anywhere – who knows maybe Elon can blast them off into space) to short circuit the process.”

Until then, we told readers, “go long stocks of domestic miners that specialize in extracting and producing anything and everything that China feels like no longer exporting to the US.”

We didn’t have long to wait for this to manifest itself in practice, because moments ago the Nikkei reported that not only is China making inroads with new export controls, but the question over the old ones still hasn’t been accurately resolved. That’s because, “discrepancies have emerged over the details of China’s agreement with the U.S. to pause rare-earth export restrictions, with Washington saying past controls will also be eliminated, a condition that has not been announced by Beijing.”

Here is what we know: Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to lower tariffs and ease export restrictions during talks in South Korea last week, with the Chinese Commerce Ministry saying that rare-earth restrictions that had been announced on Oct. 9 would be postponed for a year, there appeared to be some confusion over what was actually agreed upon. 

The restrictions to be paused would have expanded the types of rare-earth elements for which export licenses are required and tightened controls on the export of equipment used for exploration and refining, as well as the technologies necessary for manufacturing rare-earth magnets. They would also require foreign companies making products containing Chinese rare earths to obtain permission from Beijing when exporting to other countries and regions.

And here is where the confusion arises: while China says it will postpone the new regulations for a year, a fact sheet released by the White House on Saturday does not include a time frame, saying “China will suspend the global implementation of the expansive new export controls on rare earths and related measures that it announced on October 9, 2025.”

The difference regarding earlier Chinese restrictions implemented on April 4 – which include a requirement for export licenses for seven types of rare earths, including dysprosium, used in high-performance magnets for electric vehicles and fighter jets – is even more pronounced. Following last week’s U.S.-China summit, the White House asserted these export licenses would no longer be required, saying China would “effectively eliminate” its current export controls.

But this was contradicted by authorities in the rare-earth industry development zone in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. On Monday, an official social media account stated that the April regulations would remain in effect.

The city, located in one of China’s most polluted areas (because rare earth mining is one of the most toxic activities known to man) is one of China’s leading rare-earth producing regions, and the authorities that made the post are reportedly involved in practical matters such as issuing export permits. 

Additionally, Chinese financial news outlet Caixin confirmed the April regulations are still in effect. “As long as the Chinese side deems them valid, the regulations will continue,” a Chinese industry insider said.

Some observers say China can continue to pressure the U.S. through customs procedures regardless of whether or not restrictions are in place. Beijing has done this before. In 2010, China halted rare-earth exports to Japan during a dispute over the Tokyo-administered Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu. Although a legal framework for controlling exports was not fully established at that time, Beijing exerted pressure on Japan by claiming procedural delays.

China accounts for 70% of rare-earth production and over 80% of rare-earth magnet manufacturing. It has been leveraging this bargaining chip in negotiations with Washington.

Exports of rare-earth magnets to the U.S. in April were down 59% year-on-year, according to an analysis of trade statistics by Chinese research company FerroAlloyNet. Amid escalating trade friction and the imposition of tariffs over 100% by both sides, exports were drastically cut. They halted almost completely in May, falling 93% on the year.

Global supply chains were thrown into disarray, with Ford Motor temporarily suspending operations at some U.S. plants. In September, the most recent data available, exports of rare-earth magnets to the U.S. were still down 30% year-on-year. 

Some rare-earth elements, including the particularly rare dysprosium, are concentrated in China and a few other countries.

“The U.S. will likely accelerate efforts to develop supply chains independent of China, but for the time being, it will not be able to escape its dependence on China,” said a source at a non-Japanese company familiar with rare earths.

Which is precisely what we said yesterday, and why the US will have no choice but to invest billions in domestic companies and supply-chains that bypass China.

Fully aware that the US has to ramp up its own supply chains, the US added copper, silver and uranium to a government list of critical minerals as the Trump administration broadens its scope of what commodities it deems vital to the American economy and national security.

The updated US Geological Survey list adds 10 minerals to bring the total to 60, including metallurgical coal, potash, rhenium, silicon and lead, according to a US government site. It includes 15 rare earth elements. The list replaces a 2022 version. 

Rare earths have become a flashpoint in trade tensions between the US and China, with Trump pushing to encourage domestic mining of the material after President Xi Jinping threatened to curb exports. 

The USGS list dictates what commodities are included in the Trump administration’s Section 232 probe into processed critical minerals and derivative products announced mid-April, which could lead to tariffs and trade restrictions. President Donald Trump has made it a priority to bolster domestic supply of these minerals, arguing that an over-reliance on foreign supplies jeopardizes national security, infrastructure development and technological innovation.

The list also informs direct investments in mining and resource recovery from mine waste, stockpiles, tax incentives for US mineral processing as well as streamlined mining permitting.

The resource industry had been pushing for certain metals and minerals, like copper and potash, to be included on the list. Much of the potash used in the US is shipped from Canada, which accounts for roughly 80% of imports of the mineral. Copper imports, meanwhile, comprise almost half of total US consumption and come from countries including Chile, Peru and Canada. The bulk of global copper refining is done in China.

Silver’s inclusion has been a concern for precious metals traders and manufacturers that rely on the material. Any tariffs on silver could wreak havoc on the metals markets because the US relies heavily on imports to meet domestic demand. Silver has wide industrial applications and is used in electronics, solar panels and medical devices.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

We can draw a few conclusions from an off-year election, when iconic races in blue states went, as expected, overwhelmingly Democratic.

Nevertheless, there is only a year left before the midterms. So Republicans must react to even these paltry results.

1) Democrats’ chaotic nihilism still works.

The chaos strategy causes so much turmoil, noise, and negative media coverage that the confused voting public simply cannot sort it all out. The public wishes the upheaval would just go away and often blames those with the most current authority—logically, the incumbent Trump and his administration.

2) Every day of Trump’s first year, there were either campus eruptions, Tesla firebombings, street violence against ICE, or crazy district judges’ injunctions.

The bedlam becomes force multiplied by unhinged outbursts from Democrats like AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Eric Swalwell, and the proverbial Squad.

The latest firecracker was thrown by a now Biden-like, faltering Nancy Pelosi, who recently screamed on CNN that President Trump “is just a vile creature, the worst thing on the face of the Earth.”

The public has no time to sort out all the actual causes for such mad hattery. It knows only from Democrats that the commotion is roughly correlated with “Trump.”

Note that there is never a positive Democrat “Contract with America,” since it is impossible to advance anything popular or moderate past its now firmly socialist base.

3) Democrats also use the chaos strategy to target key electoral groups.

In this week’s election, Republicans finally grasped the purpose of the pre-election shutdown.

It was designed to galvanize key constituencies to get out the vote in a low-turnout year. The lockdown was especially aimed at two groups: laid-off and unpaid government workers and entitlement recipients terrified that their checks would dry up.

Both turned out disproportionately in Virginia and New Jersey.

The Democrats are likely to resolve the shutdown soon, as the initial momentum gained by paralyzing the government is now diminishing.

The same strategy applies to the Hispanic vote that had defected in large numbers to Trump in 2024. However, this week, in many counties, the Hispanic vote shifted back toward the Democratic Party.

The truth does not get out enough that 70-80 percent of deportations are targeted at those with either criminal records or prior deportation orders.

Instead, the nonstop violent protests, the dangerous nullification threats from blue-city officials, and the slanted media coverage worked like proverbial propaganda to reduce ICE to “the Gestapo.”

Too many of the public believed that “Nazis” were hounding only law-abiding housekeepers and landscapers, who have been here for decades and only by accident forgot to make their de facto Americanness official.

Or so the successful Big Lie went—and went unchallenged.

The administration and MAGA do not talk enough about positive news of GDP growth, tolerable inflation, massive foreign investment, a calmer Middle East, or numerous miraculous ceasefires around the globe.

Instead, when there is a vacuum in self-praise, it is more easily replaced by the sensationalism of Trump’s “revenge tour” in hounding the boy scout James Comey and poor Letitia James, of taking a wrecking ball to the revered White House, or of insulting for no reason our blameless, “nice,” and gentle Canadian neighbors. The economy not culs-de-sac win elections.

4) Much of the Trump agenda, other than spectacular military recruitment and a secure border, is more long-term than instantly gratifying.

The multitrillion-dollar foreign investments may take a year or two to create jobs and spark the economy.

The deportations will take time to switch more jobs to U.S. citizens.

New gas, oil, and nuclear energy production, trimming the federal workforce, deregulating, and greenlighting AI and other new technologies will not be felt immediately.

After the summer 1984 convention, even Ronald Reagan trailed the anemic Walter Mondale in a few polls. Then the first three quarters of GDP—cumulatively over 7% growth—were digested, as the economy took off and buried Mondale by the November elections.

5) There is no longer a Democrat Party. It is now an unapologetically neo-socialist Jacobin movement.

So traditional negative advertising designed to incur scandal and shame simply does not always work. All that matters is the hard-leftist fides of a candidate—period!

Threaten a political opponent with assassination? Brag about killing his kids?

Tattoo the 3rd Panzer SS Division death’s-head insignia on your chest?

Promise to arrest a foreign head of state when he visits your city?

Boast about grabbing the “means of production.”

So what?

To the new left, this is just proof that their new candidates and voters “mean business.” They cannot be shamed—not even by mocking Charlie Kirk’s wound or hoping Trump is not so lucky a third time.

There is plenty of time for Republicans to digest these results, especially the strategy and dangerous nature of the new left, along with the mercurial moods of the swing voters—and the need to stick to the economy.

But the clock is ticking.

Ford is reportedly set to scrap the F-150 Lightning, once hailed by top executives as the company’s “modern Model T,” amid absolutely terrible demand. Production lines for the electric pickup remain paralyzed after an aluminum shortage halted operations last month.

A new Wall Street Journal report indicates that the F-150 Lightning is on the chopping block after $13 billion in EV losses since 2023. If accurate, this would make the money-losing truck America’s first major EV casualty.

CEO Jim Farley previously called the F-150 Lightning “as revolutionary as the Model T,” promising a truck that would democratize electric mobility just as the original Model T democratized driving. Yet how could Farley have been so wrong about the Lightning … and did his climate-change blinders end up damaging shareholder value? It’s something the board should be taking a hard look at.

Demand for the EV truck is absolutely horrendous.

Adam Kraushaar, owner of Lester Glenn Auto Group in New Jersey, told WSJ that F-150 Lightning demand is “not there.” He also sells GMC, Chevy, and other brands. “We don’t order a lot of them because we don’t sell them.”

WSJ noted, “No final decision has yet been made, according to people familiar with the discussions, but such a move by Ford could be the beginning of the end for big EV trucks.” 

The big question is whether Farley and other top executives ignored red flags, such as declining orders, dealer warnings, and mounting losses on the EV truck, in their push to appease the globalist climate change cult on Wall Street. If the report is accurate, we wonder whether the board could find grounds to review his terrible EV judgment under the duty of care. 

In October, Ford sold just 1,500 Lightnings, versus 66,000 petrol-powered F-Series trucks. EV sales overall have plunged 24% year-on-year after federal tax credits expired. 

Ford shares have trended lower after the April 2022 release of the EV truck.

WSJ noted, “The company is now racing to build a compact $30,000 EV pickup.”

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday revived President Donald Trump’s bid to dismiss his business records criminal conviction, ruling the president can move his case out of a New York state court.

A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed an order from a lower court judge, saying the judge had “bypassed what we consider to be important issues bearing on the ultimate issue of good cause.”

The panel of judges on the appeals court signaled that it did not weigh in on the merits of Trump’s lawyers’ arguments to dismiss the conviction. His lawyers filed court papers earlier this year to try to move the case out of New York so he could seek a ruling from a federal judge on whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity allows him to toss last year’s Manhattan jury verdict convicting him of falsifying business records.

“We leave it to the able and experienced District Judge to decide whether to solicit further briefing from the parties or hold a hearing to help it resolve these issues,” the appeals court judges wrote.

The panel further said the lower court “should resolve Trump’s motion for leave to file a second removal notice in any particular way” and said it should “consider the motion anew in light of our opinion.”

In May 2024, a jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump pleaded not guilty, maintaining that it was part of a widespread attempt to subvert his 2024 presidential campaign.

Weeks after Trump’s election victory in 2024, the judge in the case sentenced him to unconditional discharge, meaning that he faced no further penalties such as fines or jail time. The conviction, however, will remain on his criminal record.

Just days before Trump was inaugurated in January, Judge Juan Merchan noted in his order that the sentence was made with considerations of Trump being elected president.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied a bid from Trump’s attorneys to remove the case, prompting Trump’s appeal. The judge maintained that Trump had “not satisfied the burden of proof required to show the basis of removal.”

The petition to the U.S. appeals court is one of many appeals that Trump has filed to dismiss the criminal conviction.

Separately, Trump had filed court papers with the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division of the First District, appealing the criminal conviction.

“Targeting alleged conduct that has never been found to violate any New York law, the DA [district attorney] concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory, which the DA then improperly obscured until the charge conference. This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” his lawyers wrote in a filing in October.

Aside from the Manhattan case, criminal charges were also brought against Trump in Washington, Florida, and Georgia. The Washington and Florida cases, which were brought by former special counsel Jack Smith, were later dropped. The Georgia case, brought by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, was dismissed by a state appeals court on Jan. 17, three days before Trump’s inauguration.

As the ceasefire in the US-China trade war starts to fray at the edges (most notably in commodity export controls and tit-for-tat responses), it appears that China is having no issues whatsoever competing with the US for the world’s capital.

China’s return to the dollar bond market generated enough demand to cover the deal almost 30 times over, with a $118.1 billion order book.

“It was so popular,” said Serena Zhou, senior China economist at Mizuho Securities, adding that some investors complained they weren’t allocated enough bonds.

“Although it priced on par, it will still be free money.”

China last issued dollar bonds in 2024, when it sold $2bn of debt in Saudi Arabia.

“Markets are flush with liquidity and geopolitical tensions have eased,” said David Yim, head of capital markets, Greater China and North Asia, at Standard Chartered, which was one of the bookrunners for the deal.

Most notably, The FT reports that bankers on the deal said was the first time Beijing’s borrowing costs had matched Washington’s at issuance (while we do note that Chinese dollar-denominated bonds have previously traded at a negative spread to US equivalents in the secondary market).

China’s finance ministry issued $4bn of dollar bonds in Hong Kong, with the $2bn 3-year bond paying a coupon of 3.625 per cent, on par with US Treasury equivalents, and priced to yield 3.646 per cent, compared with 3.628 per cent for 3-year Treasuries.

The $2bn 5-year bond has a coupon 0.02 percentage points above equivalent Treasuries, with a yield of 3.787 per cent, compared with 3.745 per cent for US equivalents.

Issuance was split evenly between the two bonds.

The negligible spreads over Treasuries on the new bonds were an improvement even over China’s tight prints last year, when its three- and five-year notes were priced to yield just one and three basis points over similar-maturity Treasuries.

Bloomberg reports that more than half of the bonds were placed with investors in Asia, while European accounts got a quarter.

Investors in the Middle East and North Africa were allocated 16%.

The sale comes amid a steady rebound in dollar-note sales by Chinese firms, after the country’s unprecedented property crisis and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hikes triggered an issuance slump.

There’s been about $90 billion of publicly-announced sales in 2025, heading toward a three-year high, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.