Corporate giant reshores jobs, invests nearly $500 million, thanks to Trump



President Donald Trump's trade policy appears to have helped set the stage for a corporate giant to invest nearly half a billion dollars in Kentucky. However, the state's tariff-averse Democratic governor appears happy to localize all the credit.

GE Appliances announced on Thursday a $490 million investment at its Louisville headquarters "to create its most advanced manufacturing plant for production of clothes washers."

'The tariffs — do they make the benefits better?'

The company, a subsidiary of the China-based Haier Group, plans to reshore production of clothes washers and dryers, create 800 new full-time jobs, and cement "Kentucky's position as a global hub for advanced appliance manufacturing."

"We are bringing laundry production to our global headquarters in Louisville because manufacturing in the U.S. is fundamental to our 'zero-distance' business strategy to make appliances as close as possible to our customers and consumers," said GE Appliances CEO Kevin Nolan.

The total area of clothes care production at Appliance Park in Louisville will reportedly end up being the equivalent of 33 football fields.

Business Wire indicated that the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority helped sweeten the deal with funds to help the company modernize its building as well as by preliminarily approving performance-based incentives under the state's business investment program and workforce training grants through the Kentucky Skills Network.

"This decision is our most recent product reshoring and aligns with the current economic and policy environment," added Nolan.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, a harsh critic of President Donald Trump's tariff strategy, proved unwilling during his press conference with Nolan on Thursday to credit the president with helping shape the "current economic and policy environment" that appears to have helped prompt action on the part of GE Appliances.

RELATED: ‘You built this country’: Trump, triumphant, celebrates historic US Steel-Nippon deal in Pittsburgh — it's home, for good

 Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D). Tasha Poullard/Lexington Herald-Leader/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

When asked whether the governor regards GE Appliances' announcement as a tariff win, Beshear's office simply directed Blaze News to the video of his press conference.

Whereas Beshear was silent on the matter, the liberal media rushed to insist that there was no major correlation between GE Appliances' big move and either Trump's tariffs on foreign-made goods — 10% on imports from most countries and a 30% levy on Chinese goods — or the president's demands on American companies to onshore production.

Louisville Courier Journal columnist Joseph Gerth, for instance, noted on Friday, "This investment and these jobs are not because of him. It's not because of his chaotic tariff scheme."

Nolan appeared to suggest otherwise.

The GE Appliances CEO noted that Trump's trade policy "makes the payback for these things much, much greater."

"The tariffs — do they make the benefits better? Do they make incentives better?" said the CEO, as quoted in Gerth's own article. "Of course they do."

Nolan did, however, suggest that this investment was also the result of "long-term" planning.

"You can't make a decision like this in a short-term-look environment because this is something that is going to be here ... who knows how long," said Nolan. "But a company that doesn’t have this long-term strategy right now is going to struggle to make decisions like this."

The White House did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

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S&P 500 hits new record high following months of Trump tariff doom and gloom



Just weeks into President Donald Trump's second term, the S&P 500 — which had risen over 20% in the previous two years — rocketed to record highs, driven up in part by a substantive increase in corporate earnings as well as the "Trump bump."

After marking its all-time high of 6,144.15 on Feb. 19, the index soon began to slide, prompting anxiety among some investors and doom-saying from various analysts, especially over the potential impact of the president's tariff proposals.

For instance, Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at National Alliance Securities, told the New York Times a month ahead of Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcements, "The tariff rhetoric has become daily and extreme, sentiment is awful and trading is on edge."

In the days immediately following Trump's April 2 announcements, the S&P 500 had its worst day since COVID-19 crashed the economy in 2020, then shed many trillions in market value, prompting more of the concerns and shirt-rending that would become customary over subsequent weeks.

After months of doom and gloom, the S&P 500 hit a new record on Friday, marking a stunning comeback from April. At market open, the S&P 500 went north of 6,154.79.

CNBC suggested that the comeback — what Bloomberg indicated is "shooting toward the second-biggest percentage-point recovery in history" — was driven in part by strong corporate earnings, a stable labor market, and new energy in the AI trade. It certainly doesn't hurt that trepidation over tariffs has largely given way to optimism over Trump's trade deals.

The possibility that Trump might not ultimately implement his Liberation Day tariffs may also have been factored into investors' optimism. After all, the rise came on the heels of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noting that Trump's July tariff deal deadline "is not critical" and "could be extended."

There's also the matter of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's recent revelations to Bloomberg News that the U.S. and China finalized its trade deal this week and that the Trump administration has imminent plans to reach trade deals with 10 other major trading partners.

"We're going to do top 10 deals, put them in the right category, and then these other countries will fit behind," said Lutnick.

RELATED: Trump’s tariffs take a flamethrower to the free trade lie

  Photo by Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"The markets are looking forward, seeing lower interest rates, less regulation in the banking sector, a shift from austerity to stimulus in Europe, and a less biting inflation and tariff environment," Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group, told CNBC. "This sure isn’t the stagflation story we've been told to brace for."

Paul Stanley, chief investment officer at Granite Bay Wealth Management, said to CNN regarding the S&P 500's $9.8 trillion roundtrip, "The market is betting on continued progress on trade and a de-escalation of tensions in the Middle East is giving investors confidence."

Entrepreneur and business expert Carol Roth told Blaze News that "it's important to remember that the market is not the economy, and that other factors, including the Federal Reserve and government policy, have impacted the market, particularly over the last couple of decades."

"The president's heavy-handed approach to tariffs was not expected by the market, but as there had been more certainty gained regarding tariff policy and a belief that further de-escalation is more likely than escalation, the market has moved past that hurdle," explained Roth. "In recent days, commentary from Fed members that suggests a Fed rate cut may be on the table for July has supported risk assets."

Roth noted, however, that "any long-tail effects from tariffs that show up later in the year, or challenges that arise from financing/refinancing our massive debt and deficit could shift the outlook and impact market returns."

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Why I’m rooting for the lunatic over the creep in NYC



Although I would do so reluctantly — while holding a barf bag in one hand — if forced to vote in the next New York City mayoral election, I’d cast my ballot for Zohran Mamdani.

Yes, that Zohran Mamdani.

It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them. Let them live with the consequences.

A dire warning about this unappetizing candidate, a “Muslim lefty from the other side of Queens,” just appeared in the New York Post, which reports that Mamdani consorts with pro-Hamas rioters, adores Black Lives Matter, and recently said Bill de Blasio was “the best mayor of his lifetime.”

In a sane political environment, such a figure would be consigned to the loony bin. But in the present urban climate, voters find themselves grasping for the least ghastly option — if they bother voting at all.

And Mamdani, God help me, appears marginally less disgusting than Andrew Cuomo, who is now the front-runner.

Cuomo, who presided over the slow death of New York as governor, seems poised to take the helm of a city already in decay. In any race to the bottom, he’d win in a landslide. This is a man who groped and manhandled female staffers while parading his feminist credentials; who packed nursing homes with COVID patients, causing the deaths of thousands; who then lied about it repeatedly and shamelessly. He worked tirelessly to eliminate cash bail, unleashing a wave of criminality across the state.

And yet, somehow, Mamdani is supposed to be worse?

That former Mayor Mike Bloomberg — now a prolific funder of leftist candidates — is backing Cuomo only sharpens the stench of this whole affair. The staleness of the New York political class, its complete moral exhaustion, has never been more evident.

Still, I’ll give you another reason I prefer Mamdani: Sometimes collapse is a better catalyst than stagnation.

Cuomo would likely run the city into the ground — but slowly. He’d reward the usual Democratic parasites with patronage, keep street crime just under the boiling point, and exercise marginally more restraint when it comes to unwanted touching. He’d reassure the woke plutocrats and Wall Street donors that he won’t rock the boat too much. He knows the game and plays it well.

But the rot would fester.

RELATED: New 12-foot-tall statue of woman in Times Square meant to represent ‘cultural diversity’

  Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

New York would remain unsafe. Schools and other public institutions would stay in the grip of culturally radicalized unions. The courts would remain ideological tools of the left. Nothing would improve. The decline would just ooze along — business as usual.

Mamdani, by contrast, might deliver a spectacular crash.

If he’s as doctrinaire and deranged as his critics suggest, his administration could bring about real catastrophe with impressive speed. That kind of shock might finally push productive citizens to flee en masse and accelerate the corporate exodus already under way. Sometimes it takes a maniac to wake the slumbering.

This wouldn’t be the first time a disastrous mayor paved the way for genuine reform. In 1994, New Yorkers elected Rudy Giuliani after enduring the catastrophic tenure of David Dinkins. Giuliani cracked down on crime, brought investment back, and helped restore a semblance of order. But it took years of misrule to make that turnaround politically possible.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: That kind of change isn’t possible any more. Cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia are too far gone. Their voting blocs are locked into leftist fantasy. The idea of another Giuliani, a Richard Daley Sr., or even a Frank Rizzo showing up today seems laughable.

Maybe so. But if that’s true, then the voters are getting exactly what they asked for. It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them.

Let them live with the consequences.

Given the state of our urban politics, the choice now is between ideological lunatics and cynical reprobates. Mamdani may fast-forward the train wreck. Cuomo might slow it down. But either way, the crash is coming.

At least with Mamdani, we might finally reach bottom — and from there, maybe, begin again.

Trump’s US Steel play exposes America’s industrial decline



President Trump has approved Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion investment in U.S. Steel. The president travels to Western Pennsylvania on Friday to announce the “partnership” that promises billions in new infrastructure, up to 70,000 jobs, and a more competitive, profitable U.S. Steel.

Trump insists the deal keeps U.S. Steel under American control. The company will remain headquartered in Pittsburgh, and the United States will reportedly retain a “golden share,” allowing the government to protect national strategic interests.

President Trump is trying to make the best of a bad situation. But until Congress gets serious about reshoring, deals like this will keep happening.

The arrangement offers clear advantages to both sides. Nippon gains tariff-free access to American markets. The United States gets an influx of capital.

But this is no cause for celebration. The deal exposes the frailty of America’s heavy industry. It’s not a triumph — it’s a warning.

This should be a wake-up call for Washington: America needs a comprehensive industrial policy.

What’s the deal with the deal?

The fine print remains under wraps, but something about this deal doesn’t add up.

Seventeen months ago, Nippon Steel offered $14.1 billion to acquire 100% of U.S. Steel — a price both sides accepted. Shareholders agreed. The Biden administration blocked the sale.

Now, a year and a half later, Nippon has offered $14.9 billion — not for full ownership, but for a “partnership” that allegedly preserves American control. Why would Nippon pay more for less?

Because it’s not getting less.

Nippon will likely control U.S. Steel’s profits through royalties or dual-class shares. The U.S. government’s so-called “golden share” might resemble preferred stock — giving America a voice, not a dividend. Nippon, meanwhile, collects the returns.

That’s fair. Nippon takes the risk. Nippon makes the investment. Nippon should reap the rewards.

RELATED: Revving up America: Trump’s Nippon Steel deal puts the pedal to the metal

 Phynart Studio via iStock/Getty Images

And the investment is real. Nippon has pledged $2.4 billion to modernize U.S. Steel’s aging plants, plus up to $4 billion to build a new electric arc furnace. By 2028, Nippon expects to pour $11 billion into the company.

This isn’t charity. It’s strategy.

Nippon Steel has done this before — and done it well.

In 1986, the company formed a 50-50 joint venture with Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, called Wheeling-Nisshin. Nippon brought capital, technology, and management know-how. By the early 1990s, Wheeling returned to profitability. By 2011, it posted record profits. Since 2012, Nippon has also partnered with U.S.-based Standard Steel without incident.

Nippon’s track record in American industry is solid. Its commitment to modernize outdated facilities with cutting-edge technology should be welcomed.

As I argue in “Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring Our Jobs Home and Revive the American Dream,” technological innovation is the only durable path to economic growth.

This deal may represent progress. But it stems from America’s industrial weakness — not from strength.

An epic policy failure

Nippon’s promises of capital investment are real — but the deal still reflects the deep dysfunction of America’s heavy industry.

In 1945, the United States produced 60% of the world’s steel. Even after Japan and Europe rebuilt, American steel dominated: In 1969, the U.S. accounted for 40% of global output.

Today, America produces just 4.2% of the world’s steel — roughly equal to Russia. India nearly doubles our output. China produces more than 20 times as much.

What happened?

American steel didn’t lose to cheaper or better alternatives. It lost to foreign governments that treated steel as a national priority. They subsidized it, protected it, and invested in it — not because it was easy, but because it was essential.

RELATED: The real American factory killer? It wasn’t automation

 Peeter Viisimaa via iStock/Getty Images

Japan backed Nippon with subsidies, tariffs, and low-interest financing. Its keiretsu model gave companies the freedom to sell at a loss until they gained control of a market. Once they did, they could hike prices or keep dumping until the competition collapsed.

The decline of American steel wasn’t inevitable. It was policy failure.

This is exactly what happened with Nippon and U.S. Steel.

Foreign steelmakers — from Japan to South Korea to China — flooded the American market with cheap steel for decades. That practice, known as dumping, made steel production unprofitable in the United States. Government-backed producers overseas didn’t mind. But American steelmakers, operating in a for-profit system, couldn’t survive it.

To stay afloat, U.S. firms cut corners. They couldn’t afford the large-scale capital investments needed to modernize. Executives saw the crisis coming — Ross Perot warned about it during his 1992 presidential run — but they couldn’t secure the credit. Why would a private bank finance a company to make an unprofitable product?

America’s steel industry was starved — of both profits and capital.

Now it needs outside help to survive. That help has arrived in the form of Nippon.

Get serious about reshoring

Here’s a better idea: Instead of forcing American companies to sell shares or partner with foreign rivals just to stay alive, the United States should adopt the same industrial strategies that have been used — very effectively — against us.

U.S. Steel struggles not because Americans forgot how to make steel, but because the major capital investments it needs aren’t happening. Banks won’t fund them. The risk is too high. The return is too uncertain.

That’s where Uncle Sam should step in. Federal financing for capital projects — secured by the projects themselves — would protect taxpayers while fueling reindustrialization. Compared with what Washington already spends, the cost would barely register.

Nippon has pledged $2.4 billion to upgrade U.S. Steel’s plants and another $4 billion for a new furnace. That’s real money. But America spent $886 billion on national defense in 2024 — plus another $79 billion for Ukraine.

Protecting our ability to produce high-quality steel isn’t just good economics. It’s national security.

President Trump is trying to make the best of a bad situation. No one wants a Japanese company to own U.S. Steel. But until Congress gets serious about reshoring, deals like this will keep happening.

It’s time to stop outsourcing America’s future.

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'I want our citizens to be financially secure'

China’s chip strategy is ‘Moneyball.’ Ours is ‘Sandlot.’



The “chip war” remains a critical domain in U.S.-China competition. This was clearly the case during the Biden administration, which made semiconductor investment the focus of its marquee legislation. And the emphasis on semiconductors — and competition with China therein — remains under the Trump administration; the field is front and center for the Commerce Department’s newly announced United States Investment Accelerator.

Still, despite this consistent prioritization, Washington risks heading in the wrong direction in the chip war. Washington’s framing of the semiconductor competition misinterprets China’s positioning. In particular, the United States risks ignoring the upstream foundations on which all integrated circuits are built and China’s growing stranglehold over that foundation.

Billy Beane used to say that the Oakland Athletics couldn’t ‘do the same things the Yankees do’ and expect to win. China has taken that advice to heart.

Beijing’s industrial, scientific, and technological policy prioritizes the semiconductor sector. And Beijing operationalizes this prioritization according to a practiced and well-documented playbook. Beijing backs companies with state investment and subsidies, directly funds research and development, and leverages international ties to acquire foreign technology and human capital. This playbook has already allowed China to catch up to international leaders in mature nodes of the semiconductor value chain and in the less high-tech, but nonetheless critical, realms of packaging and testing integrated circuit products.

But while that playbook might be well documented, its specific priorities — and the threat they pose to the United States — are not.

First, the U.S. remains effectively blind to the non-obvious, asymmetric semiconductor sub-sectors where Beijing is doubling down to dominate next-generation capabilities, like wide bandgap semiconductors and photonics.

Second, China has prioritized developing dominance over semiconductor materials and other upstream elements of the value chain and now is vertically integrating on top of a foundation that it controls. Together, these campaigns create an asymmetric strategy that seizes on gaps in U.S. policy and capabilities.

The default U.S. approach to tech competition starts from, and focuses on, protecting crown jewels at the forefront of research and development (for example, increasingly small “nanometer” sizes of chip features and transistor density). But such an approach is akin to assuming that batting average is the only metric that matters for building a baseball roster. And refusing to budge from that assumption even after Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” revolution and the emergence of alternative, asymmetric logics — like caring about how often a player gets on base.

Beijing, by contrast, is taking a “Moneyball” approach to the chip war.

Beane used to say that the Oakland Athletics couldn’t “do the same things the Yankees do” and expect to win. China has taken that advice to heart. China's semiconductor policy prioritizes segments, like wide bandgap semiconductors, and metrics, like market share and vertical integration, that others don’t. And right now, Beijing expects to win.

Take, for example, the strategic value, and corresponding resources, China dedicates to wide bandgap, or third-generation, semiconductors (e.g., those made with silicon carbide, gallium nitride, and indium phosphide). These semiconductors feed into emergent downstream applications including new energy vehicles, telecommunications, and data centers needed to power artificial intelligence applications. And Beijing has recognized that the field is relatively undefended; that its international competitors are not prioritizing wide bandgap semiconductors in any formidable way. Here, then, is an area in which to overtake.

And in this area — as more generally — China is positioning to overtake through vertical integration that starts at the upstream of the value chain. China is the dominant global source of the gallium necessary for gallium nitride third-generation semiconductors. This upstream advantage grants China’s downstream champions cost and process advantages as they develop and scale third-generation semiconductor manufacturing.

Telecom giant Huawei, for instance, has invested through its corporate venture arm in silicon carbide epitaxial wafer company Tianyu Semiconductor. And vertical integration by the likes of Huawei also fuels the leverage China enjoys over foreign companies and countries, which can be exercised through export restrictions like those applied to gallium in December 2024.

The new fault lines that Beijing is creating in the semiconductor war are becoming evident. The U.S. trade representative recently held a public comment hearing as a part of a Section 301 investigation into China’s acts, policies, and practices for targeting dominance in the semiconductor industry.

Participants in that hearing included industry leaders who have felt the unfair competitive pressures of China’s industrial policy up close. Others warned that Beijing is using the same approach in semiconductors that allowed it, a decade ago, to conquer the solar sector. Those testimonies underscored that USTR forging ahead with its full force and authorities is a necessary first step to resetting the competitive dynamics and giving U.S. industry a level playing field against China’s non-market playbook.

However, government defense once China is already on its way to full sector dominance could be “too little, too late.” The United States also needs to position ahead of the curve. The U.S. has to start investing in the semiconductor fields that are going to matter — for the markets, not just for the technological glitz and glam — tomorrow and doing so all across the value chain. And the U.S. also has to start using its market and narrative strengths to start shaping what semiconductor fields, types, and applications will matter tomorrow, in a way that aligns with U.S. strengths.

None of this means mimicking China. Rather, it means being deliberate about the strengths the United States is cultivating and protecting. And it means working now to shape tomorrow’s game.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.

Zelenskyy to sign minerals deal at White House Friday — without security guarantees



President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to travel to the White House Friday — a week after President Donald Trump called him a "dictator" — to sign a deal that would afford America access to some of Ukraine's buried natural wealth in exchange for investments in a reconstruction fund.

Trump noted Wednesday that it would be "a very big agreement."

While there was no mention in a draft of the deal of Ukraine paying the U.S. back for the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that Kyiv has received in recent years, there are similarly no concrete security guarantees on America's part.

According to a draft of the deal obtained by CNN, the two countries plan to create a jointly managed "Reconstruction Investment Fund" that would collect and reinvest revenues resulting from the monetization of relevant Ukrainian-owned "deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable minerals."

Mineral resources already making money for Kyiv, such as the activities of Naftogaz, will not be not part of the deal.

As of Wednesday morning, the proposed deal specified that the Ukrainian government would contribute 50% of all revenues earned from such state-owned natural resource assets to the fund. Contributions will be routinely reinvested in Ukraine in the interest of promoting the nation's "safety, security, and prosperity."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed in an interview last week that when he, Vice President JD Vance, and Zelenskyy previously discussed a version of the deal that would see the U.S. "paid back some of the money taxpayers have given," Zelenskyy said he was on board and would run it through his "legislative process." However, Zelenskyy instead went public, telling reporters that he rejected the deal.

'I want to find a NATO path or something similar.'

Ukrainian officials told the Financial Times (U.K.) that Kyiv proved ready to sign the agreement after the U.S. dropped demands for a right to $500 billion in mineral wealth.

Although the draft noted that the U.S. supports Ukraine's efforts to obtain security guarantees and would maintain a long-term financial commitment to the country's development, it makes no mention of America providing such guarantees.

Trump said during his Wednesday Cabinet meeting, "I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We're going to have Europe do that."

According to the BBC, Zelenskyy confirmed Wednesday he had pushed for a security guarantee from the U.S. but came up empty-handed.

"I wanted to have a sentence on security guarantees for Ukraine, and it's important that it's there," said Zelenskyy.

When asked whether he'd abandon the deal if he did not get what he wanted, Zelenskyy told reporters, "I want to find a NATO path or something similar," adding, "If we don't get security guarantees, we won't have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing."

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WATCH: Trump and SoftBank CEO Announce ‘Historic’ $100 Billion Investment in US

SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications company, will make a "historic" $100 billion investment in American projects over the next four years, President-elect Donald Trump and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son announced Monday. The multibillion dollar investment is expected to create at least 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, including energy, data centers, and chips, […]

The post WATCH: Trump and SoftBank CEO Announce ‘Historic’ $100 Billion Investment in US  appeared first on .

GOP’s growth meal: Appetizers ease regs, main course drives jobs



If policymakers want strong results, history and economic reality identify small businesses as the catalyst for growth. As a new Republican Congress and the incoming Trump administration view their menu of options, it’s imperative they view things from an appetizer and main-course perspective. The main course is bonus depreciation and access to capital, and the appetizers are reducing regulatory burdens, taming government overreach, lowering energy costs, and finding skilled and qualified workers.

The new Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress must serve up the appetizers and main course to fuel new record growth. Here’s what that meal might look like.

The appetizers

The increase in onerous regulations imposed by local, state, and federal governments is generating louder, justified complaints from small businesses. By April 2024, the cost of federal regulations had ballooned to $1.47 trillion. These rising costs are stifling small businesses. According to the October 2024 jobs report and downward revisions in new job creation, employment is weakening across the U.S. economy.

Industries are feeling the regulatory squeeze, and small businesses are suffering — especially in the wooden pallet industry. Ninety percent of all goods in the United States come into contact with a wooden pallet at some point. Regulatory burdens on the forest-products industry, such as reduced availability or higher costs of environmental permits, directly lower the supply of wood and increase its cost. And because wood pallets are manufactured, businesses in this sector must navigate OSHA oversight, air-quality permits, and trucking-related regulations. Customer-related rules, such as the Food Safety Modernization Act, also pass additional costs to pallet manufacturers.

If President Trump and congressional Republicans implement a comprehensive strategy, they could ignite a surge in economic growth the likes of which we’ve never seen.

Easing regulations would help small businesses lower their costs, enabling many to reinvest those savings in new plants, equipment, and workers.

The Trump administration should aggressively reduce the costly regulatory burdens on small businesses through executive actions. These actions should include initiatives to lower energy costs, which would further reduce expenses for small businesses. For manufacturing companies, lower costs would allow them to redeploy capital toward modernizing plants and fostering innovation.

Businesses, particularly small businesses, are struggling to attract new workers. Increased investment in career and technical education at the federal and state levels is essential. Such investment will help create future pipelines of skilled, motivated, and qualified workers.

The tooling and machining industry, which includes thousands of small to medium-sized precision machining manufacturers, serves a wide range of sectors, including aerospace, ordnance, defense, medical, space, electronics and semiconductors, oil and gas, automotive, and more. The lack of a skilled and qualified workforce remains the top challenge and limitation for precision machining.

The main course

The pathway to long-term economic and jobs growth is permanent write-offs for capital expenditures that include both plants and equipment.

To jump-start growth, a 100% bonus provision for plants and equipment for the first year followed by a consistent allowance for plants and equipment in the following years is essential. A heightened level of capital investment gets factories moving, makes small businesses more competitive, and drives higher employment levels and long-term growth.

In a “2 Way Community” conversation with Mark Halperin, Scott Bessent, founder and chief investment officer of Key Square Group and Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Treasury Department, indicated that “100% expensing for equipment is on the table as part of the extension of the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Job.” He also expressed support for “a limited life for structures that can also be expensed by 100%.”

Small businesses in the landscaping and fertilizer industries, for example, would be in a better position to invest in newer technologies and expand their production and distribution capacities.

Small businesses also have increasing capital requirements associated with the drive to automation, the high costs of machinery, and the need for research and development. To remain competitive, small businesses must also have an R&D tax credit available to them. Small businesses operating in the crane, rigging, and heavy transport sector will be able to invest in new cranes and other equipment and have the capacity to grow their businesses.

Every small business must have access to capital. New legislative and regulatory efforts must increase access to capital through streamlined small-business lending. Because 38% of small businesses that fail do so due to lack of capital, there must also be a renewed commitment to community banks, which are essential for small businesses to access capital. Bessent has also expressed support for this idea.

Making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent and adding these additional incentives will change the game and launch a new wave of economic growth. Several key provisions are already expiring or will be phased out at the end of 2025. Expensing for business investments, research and experimentation deductibility, pass-through deductions, and a reduction of the estate tax concludes on December 31, 2025. These are important and should be continued.

Small businesses have historically driven economic recovery and prosperity. If President Trump and congressional Republicans implement a comprehensive strategy, they could ignite a surge in small-business activity and economic growth the likes of which we’ve never seen.

‘The Hostility Is Led by Governor Walz’: How VP Pick Ignored Furious Teachers, Worked To Squash Probe of ‘Corrupt’ Pension Plan That Could Leave Teachers High and Dry

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz knew he had a big problem on his hands when members of his administration caught wind in February that thousands of angry public school teachers had banded together to retain a renowned pension fraud investigator to probe their state retirement plan.

The post ‘The Hostility Is Led by Governor Walz’: How VP Pick Ignored Furious Teachers, Worked To Squash Probe of ‘Corrupt’ Pension Plan That Could Leave Teachers High and Dry appeared first on .