Pages

Wednesday, July 02, 2025

2: Elon Musk

Elon Musk wants to create a new political party. Building rockets may be easier Citing his disappointment in President Donald Trump and his massively expensive domestic policy bill, Musk said he would form the “America party” the day after the “Big, Beautiful Bill” passes, if Congress approves it. Musk has called Democrats and Republicans the “uniparty” because government deficits have risen dramatically under administrations and Congresses controlled by both parties. He says he wants to build a fiscally conservative party that reins in spending – although he’s presented few other details of what the party’s platform might be. ...... A senior White House official brushed off Musk’s criticism of the bill. “No one really cares what he says anymore,” the source said......... Musk may be the richest person on Earth, but he could also encounter some financial resistance himself. Former DOGE adviser and Trump supporter James Fishback said he is launching his own super PAC to counter Musk’s money in congressional races. ........ Fishback, who runs an investment firm, said he will provide $1 million in initial funding to the super PAC, which will be called FSD PAC, an abbreviation for Full Support for Donald.......... Funding a new party has its own hurdles. The McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2022 set strict limits on donations to political parties. The current limit is just under $450,000 spread across different party purposes. Musk would need thousands of co-donors to help him fund his party, said Lee Goodman, an attorney and former chair of the FEC........ “You can fund super PACs all you want. But you can’t fund a political party, as a strange part of American law” ........... Super PACs are not legally allowed to coordinate spending with parties or candidates, although previous candidates have tested these limits, as nothing prohibits coordination when the information is shared publicly. “Coordination has, in fact, become commonplace,” the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center has said.

Walmart hit by 'immediate crisis' as mass firings begin
Ukraine’s Beaver drones shred Russian air defenses, jet in Crimea
Americans Frustrated As Prices Continue Rising Under Trump
Trump Said Trade Deals Would Come Easy. Japan Is Proving Him Wrong. But the Japanese officials stood their ground. From the start, they had told the Americans they wouldn’t agree to any deal that preserves Trump’s 25% automotive tariff, according to people familiar with the conversations. That impasse continues........ On Monday, Trump appeared to cut off talks with Tokyo. Japan “won’t take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,” he posted on Truth Social, despite Japan importing hundreds of thousands of tons of U.S. rice annually under a WTO agreement. Trump added that “we’ll just be sending them a letter”—a reference to his repeated pledges to dictate to trading partners what they would have to pay the U.S. ........ “Dear Mr. Japan, here’s the story. You’re going to pay a 25% tariff on your cars, you know? So we give Japan no cars. They won’t take our cars.” ........ After slapping so-called reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries on what Trump dubbed “Liberation Day”—then putting them on hold—the White House vowed to strike a spate of trade deals before July 9. The standoff with Japan shows how hard that is turning out to be. ....... Administration officials attempting to negotiate multiple deals have at times contradicted one another about goals and timelines, and Trump has further muddied the picture with references to sending letters. Adding to the uncertainty is an appeals court hearing set for late July over the legality of the emergency authority Trump used to impose the so-called reciprocal tariffs. ........ Even the tariff deadline is in question. On Friday, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated some countries could get an extension, Trump injected further uncertainty. “We can do whatever we want,” he said in a news conference. “We can extend it, we can make it shorter. I’d like to make it shorter.” On Tuesday, Trump he’s “not thinking about” extending the deadline. ......... The chaotic situation has left Japan and other countries bewildered, unsure of what the White House wants or when they have to deliver a deal. Thus far, the administration has cut only a limited trade agreement with the U.K. and struck a tariff truce with China. Hanging over the entire process is Trump’s earlier promise to restore the Liberation Day tariffs on countries that don’t do deals—potentially triggering another round of market chaos. ........ In April, Peter Navarro, Trump’s senior trade and manufacturing adviser, said the administration could land 90 deals in 90 days. After the U.S. struck the limited agreement with the U.K. in early May, Trump said he believed the deals would start flowing at a rapid pace. ......... The U.S. complicated its negotiating position with Japan and other countries by increasing tariffs as talks progressed, such as in June when Trump doubled global steel tariffs with no warning for trading partners. Other so-called national-security tariffs on products such as lumber, semiconductors and critical minerals remain in the planning process, making some nations hesitant to strike deals before they are unveiled. The administration’s bellicose approach also became a political issue in some countries it was negotiating with, encouraging resistance to the U.S. rather than cooperation. ......... “We sometimes forget that other countries have politics, too, and trade has a way of spurring on domestic politics because of the direct and indirect effects it has on particular constituencies,” said Michael Froman, U.S. trade representative under former President Barack Obama and current president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)