O’Leary calls China tariffs soft, but Mark Levin sees the hidden brilliance
On April 8, Kevin O’Leary, commonly known as Mr. Wonderful, appeared on CNN to give his two cents on President Trump's newly announced 104% tariffs on Chinese imports.
O’Leary was critical but not in the way most pundits are critical. On the contrary, O’Leary argued the tariffs weren’t even close to sufficient.
“104% tariffs in China are not enough. I'm advocating 400%. I do business in China. They don't play by the rules; they've been in the WTO for decades; they have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades. They cheat; they steal; they steal IP. I can't litigate in their courts; they take product — technology, they steal it; they manufacture it and sell it back here,” he said.
When CNN host Laura Coates pushed back, O’Leary doubled down.
“I want Xi on an airplane to Washington to level the playing field. This is not about tariffs any more,” he said, noting that people can dislike Trump all they want but that standing up to China is simply the right thing to do.
Mark Levin says O’Leary’s “tough talking” is fine but that Trump’s tariff plan is already brilliant.
“What Trump is doing is he's ratcheting, and that's the right way to approach it,” he says, noting that the plan will cause some discomfort for Americans in the short term but ultimately will create fairer trade practices.
However, his tariff plan is much bigger than just trade.
“I think Trump is looking at — if not defeating the communist Chinese, severely damaging their economy and hence militarily, the way Reagan did the Soviet Union through economics,” says Levin.
“The truth is as big as the communist Chinese economy is, it's not as big as ours. It's two-thirds or so the size of the American economy. They cannot beat us economically, at least right now,” he explains.
These tariff plans are aimed at ensuring that it stays that way.
To hear more of Levin’s analysis, watch the clip above.
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China Expels Missionaries, Treating Christianity As Existential Threat To Totalitarianism
Zuckerberg courted China, silenced Trump, and called it ‘neutral’
Mark Zuckerberg appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” in January sporting a new hairstyle and a gold chain — an image makeover that began with the billionaire tech mogul sparring with MMA fighters in 2023. He cast himself as a reformed free-speech champion, admitting that under the Biden administration, Meta’s fact-checking regime had become “something out of '1984.'” Something, he said, needed to change.
What he didn’t say: Meta’s censorship playbook has long resembled the Orwellian dystopia he now claims to oppose.
‘Meta lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public.’
Under Zuckerberg’s leadership, Meta has operated with "1984"-style control — censoring content, shaping political narratives, and cozying up to authoritarian regimes, all while pretending to remain neutral. While Zuckerberg criticizes China’s digital authoritarianism, Meta has adopted similar strategies here in the United States: censoring dissent, interfering in elections, and silencing political opponents.
Whose ‘shared values’?
Zuckerberg’s hypocrisy is increasingly obvious. His ties to China and Meta’s repeated attempts to curry favor with the Chinese Communist Party expose a willingness to bend democratic principles in the name of profit. Meta mimics China’s censorship — globally and domestically — even as it publicly condemns the CCP’s control over information.
For years, Meta attacked China’s censorship and human rights abuses. But as China-based tech companies gained ground, Zuckerberg’s rhetoric escalated. He warned about Chinese AI firms like DeepSeek, which were producing superior tools at lower costs. In response, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan assured Americans that the company would build AI based on “our shared values, not China’s.”
Zuckerberg even declared he’d partner with President Trump to resist foreign censorship and defend American tech. But that posturing collapses under scrutiny.
Behind the scenes, Zuckerberg worked hard to ingratiate himself with the Chinese regime. As Steve Sherman reported at RealClearPolicy, Meta pursued “Project Aldrin,” a version of Facebook built to comply with Chinese law. Meta even considered bending its privacy policies to give Beijing access to Hong Kong user data. To ingratiate himself with the CCP, Zuckerberg displayed Xi Jinping’s book on his desk and asked Xi to name his unborn daughter — an offer Xi wisely declined.
These overtures weren’t just about market share. Meta developed a censorship apparatus tailored to China’s demands, including tools to detect and delete politically sensitive content. The company even launched social apps through shell companies in China, and when Chinese regulators pressured Meta to silence dissidents like Guo Wengui, Meta complied.
On April 14, an ex-Facebook employee told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism that Meta executives “lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public.”
Political meddling at scale
After the Trump administration moved to block Chinese tech influence, Meta backed off its China ambitions. But the company didn’t abandon censorship — it just brought it home.
In the United States, Meta began meddling directly in domestic politics. One of the most glaring examples was the two-year ban on President Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram. Framed as a measure against incitement, the decision reeked of political bias. It showed how much power Zuckerberg wields over American discourse.
Then came the 2020 election. Meta, under pressure from the Biden administration, suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story — a move Zuckerberg himself later admitted. Though the story was legitimate, Facebook and Twitter labeled it “misinformation” and throttled its reach. Critics saw this as an obvious attempt to shield Biden from scrutiny weeks before Election Day.
Meta’s interference didn’t stop at content moderation. It also funded election infrastructure. Zuckerberg donated $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life and another $50 million to the Center for Election Innovation and Research. These funds were funneled into swing states under the guise of pandemic safety. But critics viewed it as private influence over public elections — a dangerous precedent set by one of the most powerful CEOs in the world.
Meanwhile, Meta executives misled the public about the company’s relationship with China.
Beyond corporate hypocrisy
Zuckerberg’s deference to China wasn’t a phase — it was part of a long-term strategy. In 2014, he wrote the foreword for a book by Xi Jinping. He practiced Mandarin in public appearances. He endorsed Chinese values in private meetings. This wasn’t diplomacy — it was capitulation.
Meta even designed its platform to comply with CCP censorship. When regulators in China asked the company to block dissidents, it did. When Chinese interests threatened Meta’s business model, Zuckerberg yielded.
So when he criticizes China’s authoritarianism now, it rings hollow.
Meta’s behavior isn’t just a story of corporate hypocrisy. It’s a case study in elite manipulation of information, both at home and abroad. Zuckerberg talks about free speech, but Meta suppresses it. He warns of foreign influence, while Meta builds tools that serve foreign powers. He condemns censorship, then practices it with ruthless efficiency.
Americans shouldn’t buy Zuckerberg’s rebrand. He wants to sound like a First Amendment champion on podcasts while continuing to control what you see online.
Meta’s past and present actions are clear: The company interfered in U.S. elections, silenced political speech, and appeased authoritarian regimes — all while pretending to stand for freedom.
Zuckerberg’s censorship isn’t a glitch. It’s the product. And unless Americans demand accountability, it will become the new normal.
The real American factory killer? It wasn’t automation
Dylan Matthews at Vox wants you to believe that robots — not China — killed American manufacturing. Even if tariffs reshore production, he argues, they won’t bring back jobs because machines have already taken them.
This is not just wrong. It’s an ideological defense of a decades-long policy failure.
The jobs lost to offshoring aren't just the five million factory jobs that disappeared — the number is likely more than double that. The real toll could exceed 10 million jobs.
Yes, American manufacturing has grown more productive over time. But increased productivity alone does not explain the loss of millions of jobs. The real culprit isn’t automation. It’s the collapse of output growth — a collapse driven by offshoring, trade deficits, and elite dogma dressed up as economic inevitability.
Ford’s logic
To understand what actually happened, start with Henry Ford.
In 1908, Ford launched the Model T. What set it apart wasn’t just its engineering. It was the price tag: $850, or about $21,000 in today’s dollars.
For the first time, middle-class Americans could afford a personal vehicle. Ford spent the next few years obsessing over how to cut costs even further, determined to put a car in every driveway.
In December 1913, he revolutionized manufacturing. Ford Motor Company opened the world’s first moving assembly line, slashing production time for the Model T from 12 hours to just 93 minutes.
Efficiency drove output. In 1914, Ford built 308,162 Model Ts — more than all other carmakers combined. Prices plummeted. By 1924, a new Model T cost just $260, or roughly $3,500 today — an 83% drop from the original price and far cheaper than any “affordable” car sold now.
This wasn’t just a business success. It was the dawn of the automobile age — and a triumph of American productivity.
Ford’s moving assembly line supercharged productivity — and yet, he didn’t lay off workers. He hired more. That seems like a paradox. It isn’t.
Dylan Matthews misses the point. Employment depends on the balance between productivity and output. Productivity is how much value a worker produces per hour. Output is the total value produced.
If productivity rises while output stays flat, you need fewer workers. But if output rises alongside productivity — or faster — you need more workers.
Picture a worker with a shovel versus one with an earthmover. The earthmover is more productive. But if the project doubles in size, you still need more hands, earthmovers or not.
This was Henry Ford’s insight. His assembly line made workers more productive, but it also let him build far more cars. The result? More jobs, not fewer.
That’s why America’s manufacturing employment didn’t peak in 1914, when people first warned that machines would kill jobs. It peaked in 1979 — because Ford’s logic worked for decades.
The vanishing act
Matthews says manufacturing jobs vanished because productivity rose. That’s half true.
The full story? America lost manufacturing jobs when the long-standing balance between output and productivity broke.
From 1950 to 1979, manufacturing employment rose because output grew faster than productivity. Factories produced more, and they needed more workers to do it.
But after 1980, that balance began to shift. Between 1989 and 2000, U.S. manufacturing output rose by 3.7% annually. Productivity rose even faster — 4.1%.
Result: flat employment. Factories became more efficient, but they didn’t produce enough extra goods to justify more hires.
In other words, jobs didn’t disappear because of robots. They disappeared because output stopped keeping pace.
The real collapse began in 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. Over the next decade, U.S. manufacturing output crawled forward at just 0.4% a year. Meanwhile, productivity kept rising at 3.7%.
That gap — between how much we produced and how efficiently we produced it — wiped out roughly five million manufacturing jobs.
Matthews, like many of the economists he parrots, blames job loss on rising productivity. But that’s only half the story.
Productivity gains don’t kill jobs. Stagnant output does. From 1913 to 1979, American manufacturing employment grew steadily — even as productivity surged. Why? Because output kept up.
So what changed?
Output growth collapsed. And the trade deficit is the reason why.
Feeding the dragon
Since 1974 — and especially after 2001 — America’s domestic output growth slowed to a crawl, even as workers kept getting more productive. Why? Because we shipped thousands of factories overseas. Market distortions, foreign subsidies, and lopsided trade agreements made it profitable to offshore jobs to China and other developing nations.
The result: America now consumes far more than it produces. That gap shows up in our trade deficit.
In 2024, America ran a $918 billion net trade deficit — including services. That figure represents all the goods and services we bought but didn’t make. Someone else did — mostly China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union.
The trade deficit is a dollar-for-dollar reflection of offshore production. Instead of building it here, we import it.
How many jobs does that deficit cost us? The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that every billion dollars of GDP supports 5,000 to 5,500 jobs. At $918 billion, the deficit displaces between 4.6 and five million jobs — mainly in manufacturing.
That’s no coincidence. That’s the hollowing-out of the American economy.
We can’t forget that factories aren’t just job sites — they’re economic anchors. Like mines and farms, manufacturing plants support entire ecosystems of businesses around them. Economists call this the multiplier effect.
And manufacturing has one of the highest multipliers in the economy. Each factory job supports between 1.8 and 2.9 other jobs, depending on the industry. That means when a factory closes or moves offshore, the impact doesn’t stop at the plant gates.
The jobs lost to offshoring aren't just the five million factory jobs that disappeared — the number is likely more than double that. The real toll could exceed 10 million jobs.
That number is no coincidence. It matches almost exactly the number of working-age Americans the Bureau of Labor Statistics has written out of the labor force since 2006 — a trend I document in detail in my book, “Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring Our Jobs Home and Revive the American Dream.”
Bottom line: Dylan Matthews is wrong. Robots didn’t kill American manufacturing jobs. Elites did — with bad trade deals, blind ideology, and decades of surrender to global markets. It’s time to reverse course: not with nostalgia but with strategy, not with slogans but with tariffs.
Tariffs aren’t a silver bullet. But they’re a necessary start. They correct the market distortions created by predatory trade practices abroad and self-destructive ideology at home. They reward domestic investment. They restore the link between productivity, output, and employment.
In short, tariffs work.
Assessing Trump's Diplomatic Juggling Act. Plus, How Anti-Semites Hijacked a Top Scholarly Journal.
The art of the deal: Most presidents, the Hudson Institute's Mike Watson writes, "implement only a handful of initiatives at a time that usually only become public knowledge once they have matured." Not Trump. "I never get too attached to one deal or one approach," he wrote in Art of the Deal. "I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first."
The post Assessing Trump's Diplomatic Juggling Act. Plus, How Anti-Semites Hijacked a Top Scholarly Journal. appeared first on .
Trump’s Art of the Diplomatic Deal
In the three months since Donald Trump took the oath of office, he has launched one of the boldest revisions to U.S. foreign policy in this nation’s history. The flurry of new initiatives and surprising announcements has overwhelmed much of the commentariat’s ability to rationally analyze his presidency, but his goals for his second term in office are coming into view.
The post Trump’s Art of the Diplomatic Deal appeared first on .
Chinese factories are using TikTok to work around retailers and tariffs — big brands say the videos are fake, sort of
Chinese factories are promoting themselves through TIkTok videos and asking American consumers to buy directly from them at a lower cost than retailers.
With President Trump recently raising tariffs on China to 245%, videos have gone viral in recent days of Chinese factories offering products in bulk and/or direct to the consumer from factories that say they supply U.S. retailers.
For example, factories claiming to supply Lululemon and Louis Vuitton have offered products at minimal costs.
As reported by the Independent, one video that garnered 10 million views said it was selling yoga pants from Lululemon for $5 instead of $100, the apparent listed price in the U.S.
Another video reportedly showed a man in a factory who claimed his Louis Vuitton bags can be sold directly to consumers across the world for $50.
Both companies reportedly told the outlet that their products are not finished in China, which raised the question of what "finished" means. Of course, many of these products and factories could be producing counterfeit products, but they also could legitimately be product suppliers that are meant to maximize profits for international retailers.
For Italian products to be labeled "100% Made in Italy" (according the official certification website), a product must be made with "exclusive designs" from Italy, built entirely in Italy, made with Italian semi-finished products, and a have a traceability process.
However, at least some of Louis Vuitton's products do not contain an official seal and simply say "made in Italy."
A Louis Vuitton handbag's tag that says 'made in Italy'
The Independent noted that it found at least one video that falsely claimed to be a Lululemon supplier. However, a Lululemon spokesperson told the outlet that just 3% or thereabouts of the company's finished goods are manufactured in mainland China.
The specific nature of the remark is indeed for a reason, as the provided list of manufacturing partners on the Lululemon website revealed that manufacturers from "China Mainland" were categorized separately from "Taiwan."
Other locations like Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka appeared many times on the list of partners.
Other widely circulated video included $100 alleged Gucci products sold for just $1.49, while another factory boasted laundry pods being sold at a rate of 20 units for $1.
One auto-parts factory promoted a woman in a grime-covered location around dozens of engines who sang, "Many auto parts in my factory, if you need auto parts you can find me."
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CCP-Linked Satellite Company Is Helping Houthi Terrorists Target American Ships: Report
A Chinese satellite company with ties to the Communist country's military is providing imagery to Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis to help target American warships and commercial vessels in the Red Sea, according to U.S. officials.
The post CCP-Linked Satellite Company Is Helping Houthi Terrorists Target American Ships: Report appeared first on .
Report: AI Company DeepSeek ‘Funnels’ American User Data To Red China
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