Latest news with #TrumpLiberationDay
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
GameStop Slides Another 6% as Investors Sell the Bitcoin Buy News
GameStop (GME) shares dropped nearly another 6% on Thursday as investors continued to sell the news of the company's disclosure of its initial bitcoin acquisitons. The company on Wednesday morning said it had acquired 4,710 bitcoin — a long-awaited move tied to its crypto treasury strategy revealed in March. At that time, the company initiated a $1.3 billion capital raise to help fund BTC purchases. The stock plunged shortly after alongside a steep drop in broader markets on the Trump Liberation Day tariff announcements. Shares, though, bottomed along with markets mid-month and rose more than 60% in the weeks leading up to the Wednesday announcement. The decline since — now nearing 20% — could be little more than investors selling the news after the big run higher or could be investor exhaustion with corporate bitcoin treasury strategies, which seemingly have been coming at the rate of one or more per day for several weeks. In addition, GameStop's acquisition of "just" roughly $500 million of bitcoin (the dates and prices of the buys weren't disclosed) could be a disappointment given the company's $1.3 billion capital raise, not to mention several billion dollars in free cash that was already on the balance sheet. With a market cap of $14 billion, the company's bitcoin purchase was relatively modest. Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Fox News
17-04-2025
- Business
- Fox News
GORDON CHANG: Trump tariffing China at the worst possible time for Xi Jinping
"There are no winners in a trade war or a tariff war," wrote Xi Jinping this week. If he's talking about China, he's absolutely right. Across the board, the Chinese will suffer. In America, the story will be different. When the dust settles on President Donald Trump's tariffs, there will be 340.1 million people much better off. For more than four decades, China's regime has been implementing predatory and criminal trade practices. For various reasons, the U.S. and other countries have let matters slide. Trump in his first term, in 2018, fired a warning shot with his 25% tariffs. Unfortunately, the Chinese regime did not take the hint. This month he raised the general tariff rate on China's goods to 145%. Trump's trade actions could not have come at a worse time for Xi. As an initial matter, his economy is stumbling. It cannot be growing at the 5.4% pace reported Wednesday for the first quarter of this year. Price data for March – the Consumer Price Index was negative for the second-straight month and the Producer Price Index was negative for the 30th-straight month – indicates the country has entered a deflationary spiral. That phenomena suggests the economy is now contracting and will do so for some time. And it's going to get worse. Xi Jinping, despite what his technocrats say, does not want consumption to form the foundation of the Chinese economy. In fact, consumption's share of gross domestic product – an abnormally low 38% last year – is now falling. In these circumstances, Xi's only way to rescue an increasingly grim situation is to export more. Yet Trump's elevated tariffs close off the U.S. market to most Chinese goods. The U.S. accounts for more than a third of global consumer spending. Worse for Xi Jinping, Trump's tariffs are helping end the fast globalization that has marked the post-Cold War period. "Due to many reasons, the world has been deglobalizing for years," trade expert Alan Tonelson told Fox News. "Now, the Trump Liberation Day tariffs are greatly speeding up the process, and further threatening the well-being of the People's Republic of China and other export-led economies." As Tonelson, who blogs on trade at RealityChek suggests, the world is de-integrating. "The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades," wrote Larry Fink in his March 24, 2022, letter to BlackRock shareholders. The world's largest asset manager – BlackRock has $11.6 trillion under management – suggested the Ukraine war killed globalization because globalization had already been weakened by the COVID pandemic, which had lessened connectivity among nations, among companies and among people. In this deglobalizing world, other countries will not allow China to flood their markets with goods the Chinese would have otherwise sold to America. Those markets are not large enough to absorb those goods and, in any event, they will not permit China to decimate their local industries. China will be hurt. Even now, export factories in southern China, with nothing in their order books, are closing. Workers have begun to return to hometowns, many to subsist on farms. The downturn in the export sector is occurring while the country is essentially having its 2008. In 2008, Hu Jintao, Xi's predecessor, decided to avoid a downturn by embarking on what was then the biggest stimulus program in history. In the process, China took on an enormous amount of debt. Today, China's total-country-debt-to-GDP ratio could be as high as an unsustainable 375%. As a result, there have been for four years a series of high-profile debt defaults, especially in the property sector. Prices of flats in China have tumbled, a social stability issue: Approximately 70% of household wealth is in property. And if all of this were not bad enough, Trump has picked this moment to begin challenging China's mighty export sector with tariffs. The obvious course of action for Xi Jinping would be to pick up the phone to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He has, however, made it clear that he won't be doing that. "China wants to make a deal," Trump said last Wednesday. "They just don't know how quite to go about it." No Xi Jinping doesn't. And it's not hard to figure out why something so easy is in fact so hard. Xi has configured the Chinese political system so that only the most hostile answers are considered acceptable. As a result, he cannot now back down or make concessions for fear that will lead to a challenge to his leadership. There are already signs of discontent with his rule, especially in the top ranks of the military. Xi remains intransigent. "China does not flinch from any unjust suppression," he proclaimed during his meeting with visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on April 11. So Xi has boxed himself in. For him, there are no good outcomes. If he does not compromise, the Chinese economy will fail. If he compromises, he will fail. For China's willful leader, the choice is easy: He will not initiate talks with Trump. China, as a consequence, will bear the consequences.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
JD Vance applauded Trump's tariff announcement from the Rose Garden - after spending years calling them a terrible idea
Since the Trump administration rolled out sweeping worldwide tariffs, unsettling global financial markets, Vice President JD Vance has been one of the White House's key messengers, taking to the airwaves to tout his 'enthusiasm' for the unprecedented shift. However, before he was a spokesman for the Trump Liberation Day tariffs, Vance was critical of the very same policies, including directly rebuking Trump when he talked about similar measures during his first term, according to an analysis from CNN's KFILE. The Trump administration's major argument for the tariffs has been that they will encourage firms to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., claims Vance once dismissed out of hand. The former senator for Ohio once called fighting for such jobs 'yesterday's war,' and used other comments to advocate for education and retraining as ways to lift American workers instead. 'So many of these jobs that have disappeared from these areas just aren't coming back. They haven't disappeared so much from globalization or from shipping them overseas,' he said in 2017. 'They've largely disappeared because of automation and because of new technological change.' Elsewhere, Vance responded directly to Trump's long-running calls for tariffs. 'Can't be repeated enough: if you're worried about America's economic interest, focus more on automation/education than trade protectionism,' Vance wrote on what was then Twitter in 2017, after Trump met with manufacturing CEOs that year. 'Vice President Vance has been crystal clear in his unwavering support for revitalizing the American economy by bringing back manufacturing jobs and sticking up for middle class workers and families since before he launched his U.S. Senate race, and that is a large part of why he was elected to public office in the first place,' a spokesperson for Vance told the KFILE. The resurfaced trade comments are the latest example of Vance having to justify his past, often strident, criticisms of Trump and his ideas. Vance, who once flatly declared himself a 'Never Trump guy' who 'never liked' the New York Republican, has reportedly previously called Trump a "fraud," a "moral disaster," a "cynical a**hole," a "bad man," and suggested he could be "America's Hitler." He also once reportedly said Trump had "thoroughly failed to deliver his economic populism.' Vance began to change his tone towards Trump after his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy and association with investor Peter Thiel helped him become a rising star in Republican politics. 'I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy,' Vance said during his 2021 campaign for Senate. 'I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.' During the 2024 campaign, Vance said "dishonest fabrications" in the media previously misled him about Trump. "I've always been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump," Vance said during a vice-presidential debate. "I was wrong first of all because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record.
The Independent
04-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
JD Vance applauded Trump's tariff announcement from the Rose Garden - after spending years calling them a terrible idea
Since the Trump administration rolled out sweeping worldwide tariffs, unsettling global financial markets, Vice President JD Vance has been one of the White House's key messengers, taking to the airwaves to tout his 'enthusiasm' for the unprecedented shift. However, before he was a spokesman for the Trump Liberation Day tariffs, Vance was critical of the very same policies, including directly rebuking Trump when he talked about similar measures during his first term, according to an analysis from CNN's KFILE. The Trump administration's major argument for the tariffs has been that they will encourage firms to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., claims Vance once dismissed out of hand. The former senator for Ohio once called fighting for such jobs 'yesterday's war,' and used other comments to advocate for education and retraining as ways to lift American workers instead. 'So many of these jobs that have disappeared from these areas just aren't coming back. They haven't disappeared so much from globalization or from shipping them overseas,' he said in 2017. 'They've largely disappeared because of automation and because of new technological change.' Elsewhere, Vance responded directly to Trump's long-running calls for tariffs. 'Can't be repeated enough: if you're worried about America's economic interest, focus more on automation/education than trade protectionism,' Vance wrote on what was then Twitter in 2017, after Trump met with manufacturing CEOs that year. 'Vice President Vance has been crystal clear in his unwavering support for revitalizing the American economy by bringing back manufacturing jobs and sticking up for middle class workers and families since before he launched his U.S. Senate race, and that is a large part of why he was elected to public office in the first place,' a spokesperson for Vance told the KFILE. The resurfaced trade comments are the latest example of Vance having to justify his past, often strident, criticisms of Trump and his ideas. Vance, who once flatly declared himself a 'Never Trump guy' who 'never liked' the New York Republican, has reportedly previously called Trump a "fraud," a "moral disaster," a "cynical a**hole," a "bad man," and suggested he could be "America's Hitler." He also once reportedly said Trump had "thoroughly failed to deliver his economic populism.' Vance began to change his tone towards Trump after his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy and association with investor Peter Thiel helped him become a rising star in Republican politics. 'I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy,' Vance said during his 2021 campaign for Senate. 'I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.' During the 2024 campaign, Vance said "dishonest fabrications" in the media previously misled him about Trump. "I've always been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump," Vance said during a vice-presidential debate. "I was wrong first of all because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record.
