Zerohedge

President Trump announced on Saturday afternoon that he will increase tariffs on Canada by 10% in response to an anti-tariff advertisement by the province of Ontario that featured Ronald Reagan, and which is roiling one of the world’s biggest bilateral trade relationships.

Trump said the ad campaign misrepresented Reagan’s speech on tariffs, and aimed at interfering with the upcoming Supreme Court hearing on his administration’s global tariffs.

“Canada was caught, red-handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s Speech on Tariffs,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“The Reagan Foundation said that they, ‘created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan. The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address,’ and ‘did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is reviewing its legal options in this matter.’”

“Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD. Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now.”

The US president didn’t specify the scope of his new measure. While Canada faces a US base tariff of 35%, the rate doesn’t apply to most Canadian goods because of an exemption for products and shipments made within the rules of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Steel and aluminum products don’t have that waiver — and Canadian-made cars and trucks are only partially eligible for exemption from Trump’s 25% tariffs on most foreign autos.

“Tariffs at any level remain a tax on America first, then North American competitiveness as a whole,” Candace Laing, head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Ottawa, said in a statement. “We hope this threat of escalation can be resolved through diplomatic channels and further negotiation.”

Canada PM Mark Carney has been engaged in talks with the US to lower the levies and Ontario Premier Doug Ford has pledged to pause the Ontario-funded ads in the US on Monday after speaking to Carney in hopes that the talks could resume. After Trump first halted the negotiations, Carney said Ottawa was prepared to resume discussions “when the Americans are ready,” and said that the two sides had been making progress on steel, aluminum and energy.

In contrast, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News on Friday that negotiations with Canada have “not been going well” and Trump is “very frustrated.”

Trump said the ads appear to be timed to influence a US Supreme Court case challenging the legality of many of his global tariffs, threatening a pillar of his reelection campaign and subsequent economic agenda. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case on Nov. 5. Trump said SCOTUS would create a disaster if it overturns his country-based tariffs, including forcing the US government to refund companies billions of dollars in duties.

Trump said Thursday he’d end all talks with Canada because of the ad, which used excerpts from a 1987 Reagan speech defending free trade and slamming tariffs as an outdated notion that stifles innovation, drives up prices and hurts US workers.  When Reagan delivered the radio address, he had just placed “select” tariffs on Japanese electronics for what he considered unfair trade practices. 

The Reagan quotations were edited together from different parts of his speech, prompting the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute to complain that the ad misrepresented the full address. The foundation said it’s reviewing its legal options.

The Government of Ontario just spent $75 million on a pro-trade/anti-tariff ad starring… Ronald Reagan. pic.twitter.com/uD5wJgZEzv

— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) October 15, 2025

Trump made his latest announcement while en route to a three-country trip to Asia that includes stops at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea. Asked if he had any plans to meet Carney during the two summits, the US president said as he began his trip that “I don’t have any intention of it, no.”

A gunman who rushed the stage at the Wikipedia WikiConference in New York City last week was a suicidal pedophile who was going to kill himself in protest of the propaganda website’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy when it comes to adults who fantasize about sex with children. 

Connor Weston, 27, allegedly rushed the stage, pointed a loaded revolver at his head, and declared “I’m a non-contact pedophile. I want to kill myself.” 

Of note, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said in leaked e-mails that there would be a secret prohibition on self-identifying pedophiles that he made official policy in 2010. Under these rules, editors identifying as pedos are banned indefinitely. Weston posted under the name ‘Gapazoid,’ according to a statement. 

The gunman stepped on stage next to Maryanna Iskander, the Chief Executive Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation that owns Wikipedia, during her keynote address and announced that he was an “anti-contact no-offending” pedophile who was planning to kill himself in protest of the site’s child protection policy.

He described the child protection policy as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, a term used by site co-founder Jimmy Wales in leaked e-mails to describe a secret prohibition on self-identifying pedophiles that Wales officially made public policy in 2010. Under current policy, editors identifying as pedophiles are banned indefinitely. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” references a policy previously in place in the U.S. military regarding homosexuality prior to allowing homosexual individuals to serve openly. –Breitbart

Weston was eventually subdued by two volunteer security members at the conference (wut?) – Richard Knipel and Andrew Lih, site admins who edit as “Pharos” and “Fuzheado” respectively. One day later, Arbitration Committee member “ScottishFinnishRadish” (SFR) published revealed that Weston was behind the Gapazoid account, and that they had implemented a global ban after SFR banned his account on the English Wikipedia site in February. 

SFR admitted that he was violating a non-disclosure agreement by commenting on the incident, though a majority of committee members endorsed the publication of his comment. 

A pedophile activist has been arrested after storming a Wikipedia conference and threatening to commit suicide on stage.

Connor Gardner Weston is a member of a prominent pro-pedophile group that has been promoted by academics and the media.

READ: https://t.co/X5ShJKaSFf pic.twitter.com/PGk8zqB5yF

— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) October 19, 2025

According to Breitbart, “Weston had made over a hundred edits and translated an article from the Japanese Wikipedia, before commenting on the discussion page of the child protection policy to complain the policy conflated “non-offending pedophiles and supporters of child sex abuse.” He was banned several days later.”

What’s more, Weston emailed Wikipedia notifying them of his intent to protest at the Foundation headquarters.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

In 2007, Wales wrote this in response to a thread about banning pedophiles;

I agree with this completely.

This is a thorny issue, and I have little to add to it. We don’t want a
witch hunt. We also don’t want a huge press scandal.

It is inevitable that at some point a reporter is going to come to me
and tell me about a user I don’t know about, asking “Why does Wikipedia
allow a self-confessed pedophile to edit articles about children?”

And my response is going to be: “O RLY? *block*”

I will use “disruption” as my reason or “useless editor” or whatever
seems to suit the circumstance.

At the same time, other than that, I think our best approach is just
like our best approach with other types of problems:

1. Quiet diplomacy is good
2. Don’t ask, don’t tell is good

–Jimbo

So the plan when it comes to outed WikiPedos (since we’re guessing there’s a bunch) is to call it a distraction, or minimize the pedo’s import to the organization. 

‘You know it’s bad when…’

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Putin’s senior aide Nikolai Patrushev gave an interview to Arguments and Facts about Japan on the 80th anniversary of its unilateral surrender in World War II in early September that’s important to raise wider awareness of after the appointment of its new ultra-nationalist prime minister. He began by reminding everyone that “Tokyo zealously cultivated an open racism that surpassed German Nazism in its absurdity and inhumanity. And the sovereignty of other countries was considered an empty phrase there.”

Patrushev then touched upon Imperial Japan’s failed geopolitical plot to turn the Sea of Japan into an inland sea and even seize Kamchatka so as “to gain undivided possession of the Sea of Okhotsk” too. He assessed that Japan’s current campaign for “’justice’ on the issue of the so-called ‘northern territories’” is just a disguise for a similar plot to obtain control over new marine (seafood and mineral) resources. Patrushev accordingly warned that it’s planning to make new claims to Russian maritime territory.

The emerging trend of misportraying Imperial Japan as the “victim” of Soviet aggression in 1945, despite the Allies having agreed in advance that the USSR would open up the Manchurian Front three months after the Nazis’ defeat, is meant to lend false legitimacy to these claims. This threat shouldn’t be downplayed, Patrushev warned, since Japan’s “Self-Defense Forces” de facto function as national armed forces, are NATO-backed, and are “systematically building a powerful and ultra-modern submarine fleet”.

In his words, “Japan is one of the most powerful naval powers in the world today. Its fleet is capable of solving almost any task even in remote areas of the World Ocean. The Japanese Navy closely cooperates with the NATO fleet, and at any moment they can be integrated into Western coalition formats.” Even more concerning are Japan’s nuclear breakthrough capabilities: “it is capable of creating its own nuclear arsenal and means of delivery in a few years” if the decision is made, according to Patrushev.

Nevertheless, these threats shouldn’t be exaggerated either since Russia is “building up defensive potential in the Far East and strengthening our naval power in the Pacific Ocean”, thus meaning that it’s more than capable of defending itself from Japan. Rather, “The threat lies not so much in the destroyers and missiles, but in the fact that the national consciousness of the Japanese is shifting from pacifism to rabid revanchism”, which he attributed to a long-running “aggressive propaganda” campaign.

The purpose is to precondition the population to accept the risks associated with Japan more actively advancing US interests in the region via the “Squad” (those two, Australia, and the Philippines), which is envisaged as the core of AUKUS+, the US’ desired NATO-like regional analogue. Japan’s place in the US’ Chinese Containment Coalition just rose as a result of the unexpected Sino-Indo rapprochement, prior to which the US wanted India to play a complementary role, so Japan is now at the forefront of this effort.

The trend is that New Cold War’s focus is shifting from US-led NATO’s containment of Russia in Europe to US-led AUKUS+’s containment of China in Asia, all while the TRIPP Corridor injects Western influence into the Eurasian Heartland to stir trouble for both. India’s Pakistani rival is also poised to play a supportive role on the Central Asian front if tensions with the Taliban abate.

Altogether, Poland, Japan, Turkiye, and possibly Pakistan are now the US’ top containment allies, which isn’t lost on Russia, India, and China.

USDA Warns It Can’t Use Contingency Funds To Cover SNAP In November

The federal government shutdown entered Day 25 on Saturday, with cryptocurrency-based prediction market Polymarket showing odds in the single digits that Democrats and Republicans will reach a resolution before November 3. The market currently assigns a 15% probability that the shutdown will end between November 12 and 15.

We have warned readers of the potential for major disruptions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) if the federal government remains closed. Betting odds markets and limited political chatter in the Capitol Beltway this weekend (so far) suggest a resolution to the shutdown remains muted for next week.

Must Read:

• What Are The Chances Of A Food Stamp Collapse In November?

• 5 Key Dates To Watch As Shutdown Drags On

In 2025, around 42 million people relied on SNAP benefits, which accounted for 12% of the population. This is more than enough people to create chaos should SNAP funds run dry in the coming weeks.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) warned:

Due to Congressional Democrats’ refusal to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR), approximately 42 million individuals will not receive their SNAP benefits come November 1

The USDA states that SNAP’s contingency fund cannot legally be used for regular monthly benefits during a lapse in appropriations. That fund is intended for emergencies such as Disaster SNAP after hurricanes or floods, not to replace missing federal funding. The agency also warned that shifting money from other food programs would undermine school meals and WIC (infant formula and nutrition support), adding that states cannot step in to front the money, because SNAP benefits are fully federally funded and there is no legal way for states to be reimbursed.

Recall from our note citing Goldman analysts over the summer: here is the SNAP exposure for discount chains Dollar General and Dollar Tree.

 SNAP exposure for DG stores

SNAP exposure for DLTR stores

It’s a helpful way to visualize where clusters of SNAP benefits are primarily used geographically.

And now, as Jill McLaughlin details below for The Epoch Times, Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency in Virginia on Oct. 23 to provide relief for residents at risk of losing federal food benefits next month.

The ongoing government shutdown will cause low-income residents in the state to lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits starting Nov. 1 if lawmakers are unable to reach an agreement to pass a budget bill and reopen the government.

Over 850,000 residents in the state could lose benefits, according to the governor, a Republican, who blamed Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown.

“This is an extraordinary action and is only necessary because of the shamelessness of congressional Democrats,” Youngkin said in a statement.

The declaration allows Youngkin to spend state emergency funds to protect the “health, welfare, and safety of Virginians,” according to the governor.

Virginia’s poverty rate is about 10 percent, according to the latest census. The national rate is 12.4 percent.

The federal nutrition program provides monthly payments to eligible low-income households, allowing them to buy food. The average monthly payment is about $332 per household, with most living at or below the poverty level. Households with children receive an average of $574 per month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Four out of five households that receive SNAP payments include either a child, an elderly person, or someone with a disability, the USDA reported.

Other states have also taken emergency action over the looming loss of SNAP funds.

California announced Wednesday that the state was fast-tracking up to $80 million in state funds and deploying the National Guard and state volunteers to support food banks during the shutdown. About 5.5 million Californians are expected to lose SNAP benefits in November.

“This is serious, this is urgent—and requires immediate action,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said on Oct. 22 that he has requested that state lawmakers consider using up to $10 million of the state’s general fund to support food banks and pantries.

Multiple states have also warned SNAP holders they need to prepare to lose benefits next month.

In Washington on Thursday, the Senate failed to pass a bill to pay U.S. troops and active federal workers during the shutdown. The Republican-led “Shutdown Fairness Act” failed on a cloture vote of 54–45, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance.

The SNAP program is set to change Nov. 1. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July, recipient work requirements will apply to adults 18 to 65, unless they are unable to work due to a physical or mental limitation. Other changes to exemptions will also apply.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Despite calls for many Democratic politicians and pundits to temper their inflammatory rhetoric, this week has proven a further escalation in this dangerous form of rage rhetoric.

DNC Chair Ken Martin just told MSNBC’s “The Beat” that “we may be nearing” the moment when “elections don’t matter and then the resistance looks completely different.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on people to “forcefully rise up.”

With political violence on the rise, these leaders are clearly fueling the mob in hopes that they and their party can ride the wave of rage back into power. 

History suggests that it is a foolish delusion. Today’s revolutionaries quickly become tomorrow’s reactionaries.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who pictures himself brandishing a baseball bat has previously called upon people to “fight in the streets.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom previously declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.”

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger  called upon her supporters to “Let your rage fuel you.” She then refused to withdraw her support for the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, Jay Jones, who once expressed his desire to kill his political opponents and his children.

In his podcast with co-host Al Hunt, James Carville was again spewing unhinged hate. He returned to treating Trump and others as Nazis and their supporters as “collaborators.” I previously criticized Carville for that analogy. He later attacked me.

Doubling down, Carville declared

“You know what we do with collaborators? I think these corporations, my fantasy dream is that this nightmare ends in 2029 and I think we ought to have radical things. I think they all ought to have their heads shaven, they should be put in orange pajamas and they should be marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and the public should be invited to spit on them.”

To be sure that his menacing words were not lost, he then added “The universities, the corporations, the law firms, all of these collaborators should be shaved, pajamaed and spit on.”

There was no later push back by his co-host Hunt or anyone else associated with the podcast.

[ZH: Carville later ratcheted up the Trump hysteria with a full-blown doomer meltdown, raging that Trump “hates the United States” and that Americans should be living in fear.

“You have to be scared…there is no hope…there is fear…I know I’m an old man, but I’m one scared dude.”]

James Carville ratchets up Trump hysteria, has full blown doomer meltdown: Rages that Trump “hates the United States” and that Americans should be living in fear.

“You have to be scared…there is no hope…there is fear…I know I’m an old man, but I’m one scared dude.”… pic.twitter.com/TbLob8cbsc

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) October 25, 2025

As one of those Carville has already attacked, I expect he has a haircut and public humiliation in mind for me and a significant number of others deemed insufficiently committed to the resistance.

Even with the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the attempts on Trump and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, these politicians and pundits are still fueling the madness. Even with the sniper attack on ICE officers, they are still calling these law enforcement officers “Gestapo” and “Nazis.”

In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about rage and the uncomfortable truth for many engaging in rage rhetoric:

“What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around us as people engage in language and conduct that they repudiate in others. We have become a nation of rage addicts, flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition to our own truths. Like all addictions, there is not only a dependency on rage but an intolerance for opposing views. … Indeed, to voice free speech principles in a time of rage is to invite the rage of the mob.”

The appearance of guillotines has become commonplace in left-wing protests. From protests against Trump to those against Israel, the symbol of the Terror is being rolled out as a warning to those with opposing views: “We got the guillotine, you better run.”

It is the ultimate expression of an age of rage. There is no question that it is protected speech. However, it is part of what I have called “rage rhetoric,” and it is meant to inflame others. It suggests that the only solution to these issues is what the French called “the razor of the Republic.”

In the French Revolution, the irony is that those who turned the guillotine into the symbol of revolution were themselves beheaded on the same platforms. Robespierre and others would ultimately be dispatched in the same atmosphere of rage and revelry.

As my new book discusses, most revolutions are driven by establishment figures who seek to capitalize on the wave of popular rage to gain power. We are seeing that today with many Democratic leaders using rage rhetoric to appeal to the far extremes of their political bases.

Some have. Protesters are burning cars, dealerships, and even lawyers and reporters on the left are throwing Molotov cocktails at police.

In the end, today’s pseudo-revolutionaries are likely to find themselves tomorrow’s reactionaries. Leading mobs is rarely a safe place to be as more radical elements take hold of a movement. The result is an inexorable pattern that runs throughout history as revolution devours its own.

Amid an ongoing verbal spat and back-and-forth between Washington and Bogotá, the United States on Friday announced extensive sanctions against Colombian President Gustavo Petro, along with his family and a senior cabinet minister.

The Trump White House has accused the Colombian administration of enabling drug cartels and facilitating narcotics trafficking to North America, at a moment of immense US military build-up near Venezuela and Latin America.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement that ever since Petro took office in 2022, “cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to the highest level in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans.”

He hailed Trump’s “decisive action to protect our nation” which sends “a clear message that drug trafficking will not be tolerated.”

The sanctions also target First Lady Verónica del Socorro Alcocer García, Petro’s son Nicolás, and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti – all alleged to be the Colombian leader’s “accomplices.”

American citizens and companies are now effectively barred from doing any business with these listed entities, and they will also see any assets held in the US frozen.

Petro has loudly denounced and rejected the accusations against his country, saying he’s long aggressively fought the significant drug trade in his country.

The NY Times notes that a rise in illegal drugs out of the country has been a trend which began before Petro took office, though the cocaine trade has continued to worsen under his leadership.

“The cultivation of coca, the base product in cocaine, has soared since Mr. Petro took office in 2022. It also soared under his predecessor, Iván Duque, a conservative and close ally of Washington Republicans,” the publication writes.

“In the CIA, we didn’t give a hoot about democracy. It was fine if a government was elected and would cooperate with us, but if it didn’t, then democracy wouldn’t mean a thing to us.”

-Former CIA Agent Philip Agee

‘In the CIA, we didn’t give a hoot about democracy. It was fine if a government was elected and would cooperate with us, but if it didn’t, then democracy wouldn’t mean a thing to us’

-Former CIA Agent Philip Agee

Democratically elected Presidents overthrown via CIA-backed coups… https://t.co/RyK8J2aNoc pic.twitter.com/OVkMAKHGbF

— Going Underground (@GUnderground_TV) October 24, 2025

The NY Times reviews further:

Mr. Petro, a leftist, is one of few leaders in Latin America who have been vocal in their criticism of Mr. Trump’s decision to bomb boats carrying people his administration says are drug traffickers. The bombings have killed dozens of people, and Mr. Petro has said that Colombians have been among them and has accused the United States of committing murder.

Mr. Trump has responded by calling Mr. Petro “an illegal drug leader” and said that he would cut off aid to Colombia. About $377 million was designated to Colombia in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the Congressional Research Service. About a third of that money is meant for law enforcement and narcotics control.

But when it comes to the many decades-long so-called ‘war on drugs’ – there’s plenty of blame to go around. The CIA has at times even participated in it at times, to raise funds for the Nicaragua Contras in the 1980s, for example.

Since President Gustavo Petro came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to record high rates, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans. President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity. Today, President Trump is… https://t.co/8ONvbFFPFr

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) October 24, 2025

Days ago the US for the first time attacked alleged drug smuggling boats on the Pacific side of South America for the first time, suggesting these operations could geographically expand at any time.

Amid mounting trade war tensions which saw the market suffer its biggest drop since April two weeks ago following a post on Trump’s Truth Social in which he threatened a fresh surge in Chinese tariffs over its retaliation with rare earth minerals, the latest round of talks between the two superpowers in Malaysia started off on the right foot after the US said it held “very constructive” discussions with China as President Donald Trump began his trip to the region including a meeting with the Chinese leader next week.

As Bloomberg reports, Chinese and American officials met in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday for a new round of talks aimed at defusing a standoff between the world’s two largest economies. A spokesperson for the US Treasury gave a brief description of the exchange and said it will resume Sunday.

The Chinese delegation made no public remarks after the 5.5-hour-long meeting at Merdeka 118, the world’s second-tallest building. Vice Premier He Lifeng led the Chinese side and was joined by Trade Representative Li Chenggang and Vice Finance Minister Liao Min. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent headed the US team.

As a reminder, two weeks ago, when the trade relations between the two countries suddenly collapsed, Bessent lashed out at Chenggang calling him “unhinged”, as he announced the US is planning “price floors” and “forward buying” to prevent future supply chain disruptions by Beijing’s export controls. Bessent made the remarks five days after President Trump threatened an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods in response to Beijing’s rules requiring companies to seek permission to export products made with rare-earth or critical minerals, reducing the flow of batteries, magnets and semiconductors to the US.

Bessent revealed more of the backstory behind China’s surprise rule changes announced Oct. 9, claiming that the bellicose Li Chenggang “showed up uninvited” in DC on Aug. 28 and threatened that “China would unleash chaos on the global system” if the US didn’t abandon docking fees for Chinese ships. 

“There was a lower level trade person who was slightly unhinged here in August … threatening, saying China would unleash chaos on the global system if the US went ahead with our docking fees on Chinese ships, and this is something they clearly were planning all along,” Bessent said during CNBC’s “Invest in America” forum.

We expect many questions why China decided to deploy Chenggang again, knowing well it would antagonize the US Treasury Secretary, unless of course that was its intention.  

Bessent and He, a longtime associate of Xi, face the task of negotiating down new escalatory measures imposed by their countries against one another. They are also setting the stage for expected talks on Thursday between Xi and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit in South Korea. 

Ahead of the meeting, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he and Xi have “a lot of things to discuss” and expects both sides to make compromises, although he won’t put odds on getting a deal.

“They have to make concessions. I guess we would too. We’re at 157% tariff for them. I don’t think that’s sustainable for them, and they want to get that down, and we want certain things from them,” Trump said Friday on his way to Asia.

Asked what odds he would put on imposing the additional 100% levies on China, Trump said: “I don’t know. I have no odds. I don’t think they would want that. It would not be good for them. I wouldn’t like to see it.” 

The US president will meet with Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Sunday to discuss trade, investment and security. Bloomberg News previously reported he looks to sign economic agreements and critical minerals deals with trading partners during the trip, the first to the region during his second term.

Ahead of his meeting with Xi, Trump said he wants to extend a pause on higher tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for Beijing resuming American soybean purchases, cracking down on fentanyl and backing off restrictions on rare-earth exports. Earlier in October, Trump lashed out against Beijing’s vow to broaden controls on rare-earth elements, raising the prospect of setting a sky-high tariff rate on Chinese goods and even canceling his first in-person meeting with Xi since he returned to the White House this year. His comments sparked a painful if short selloff. 

At stake is a trade truce that’s set to run out on Nov. 10 unless extended. Months of tentative stability in the US-China relationship have been upended in recent weeks after Washington broadened some tech restrictions and proposed levies on Chinese ships entering US ports.

China responded with parallel moves and outlined tighter export controls on rare earths and other critical materials. On Monday, the Ministry of Commerce convened an unusually large meeting in Beijing with foreign businesses, in an effort to reassure them that its latest export controls aren’t meant to restrict normal trade.

The global ripples of China’s export controls underscore how the trade war has injected uncertainty into the world economy and trade. Chinese shipments to Southeast Asia and the European Union have jumped this year as US tariffs soared, which may pressure local manufacturers. 

After meeting south-east Asian leaders in Malaysia on Sunday, Trump will fly to Japan to meet Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s new prime minister. 

In a post on X on Saturday, Takaichi said that she had held a “good and candid” with Trump. Takaichi, who became prime minister this week, added that she would seek to strengthen Japan’s alliance with the US.

Had a good and candid conversation with @realDonaldTrump today and truly appreciated his warm congratulatory message on my appointment as Prime Minister. Together with him, I am determined to elevate the Japan–U.S. Alliance to even greater heights.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be…

— 高市早苗 (@takaichi_sanae) October 25, 2025

On Friday, she announced plans to increase Tokyo’s defence spending, in a move that analysts said would give her scope to pledge further expansion of the military budget during Trump’s visit.

Speaking at the Mount Fuji Dialogue forum in Tokyo on Saturday, US ambassador to Japan George Glass said Trump was visiting Japan “at a time of rising tensions in the region”.

“This is a very tough neighbourhood,” Glass said. “The US-Japan alliance and our partners face determined and dangerous adversaries, adversaries that will do whatever it takes to undermine our alliance and weaken our regional partnerships.”

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The data are in: The United States is getting older and welcoming fewer babies. This decades-long phenomenon is creating a demographic squeeze that some anticipate will affect nearly every aspect of the nation’s economy and infrastructure over the next couple of decades.

“I see a total reshuffling of our economy and society, brought about by historic demographic turnover,” regenerative medicine specialist Dr. David Ghozland told The Epoch Times.

In a report for the American Enterprise Institute, economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde called falling U.S. fertility rates “the true economic challenge of [the] time.”

The number of adults aged 65 and older is forecast to hit 82 million by 2050 and will make up 23 percent of the population, according to the Population Reference Bureau. That is a 42 percent increase from 58 million people aged 65 and older in 2022.

Meanwhile, the general fertility rate—the number of live births per 1,000 women of childbearing age—has dropped to record lows. The North American rate plummeted from 3.1 in 1950 to 1.6 in 2023, according to a McKinsey Global Institute analysis published in January.

Ghozland said he believes that this population inversion will force structural changes at the budget and care level, potentially leading to what he called a “cruel choice” in the next 10 years.

“We will experience a regulated destruction of safety nets such as Medicare,” he said, calling the rapidly aging population the “primary political and economic competition of [the] era.”

Health Care Upheaval

Ghozland said he is already seeing a dramatic change in the health care industry.

“We are currently observing the boom of the longevity business, which is going to become a multibillion-dollar industry exceeding 30 trillion [dollars] that will integrate biotech, wellness, and regenerative medicine,” he said.

Medicine and wellness care focused on supporting longevity is no longer a niche industry, according to Ghozland. However, he said this new economic driver in the health care sector hides a “great threat.”

Ghozland said that population inversion, aside from putting more pressure on existing U.S. health care resources, will lead to the long-term disintegration of the “social contract.”

Aspen Economic Strategy Group Director Melissa S. Kearney wrote in a September 2024 essay for The Dispatch: “We should not blithely declare that falling birth rates are of no real consequence, or even something to be celebrated. An increasingly aging and childless culture poses problems for individuals, families, and nations.”

Staffing shortages within the health care sector are already creating challenges. A recent AAG Health report on staffing statistics stated that the United States is already short 500,000 nurses this year, with a 10 percent shortage projected to last through 2027. Based on current industry trends, the United States could face a dearth of 3.2 million health care workers by 2026.

In a 2024 study published in the journal Aging, researchers said the health care system, as it stands, is “underprepared for the onslaught of demands this aging population will impose.”

In his work in reproductive care, Ghozland has seen the other side of the U.S. population inversion.

“There is a greater social-psychological cause of declining birth rates that I term ‘procreative dissonance,’” he said.

“My patients maintain the optimal levels of health and are biologically young even in their 40s. This creates a robust yet untrue feeling of suspended biological time, which comes into conflict with the fixed timetable of female ovarian aging.”

Ghozland said he believes that this contradiction—between readiness to have children and the biological window of time in which to have them—is “a dividing line” that prevents many couples from starting a family. Data also support his observation.

Between 2023 and 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention observed a decline in birth rates among females in the 15 to 34 age category, while women in the 40 to 44 age category showed an increase in births. This tracks with the established national trend of declining teenage pregnancies, which fell by 28 percent between 1990 and 2002.

Moreover, some evidence suggests that adults are not simply waiting longer to have children; many are opting out of parenthood entirely. A 2024 Pew study reports that the number of adults younger than 50 without children who say they are “unlikely to ever have kids” rose by 10 percent between 2018 and 2023.

While some researchers say the dangers of this demographic shift are overstated, others believe that it will have a massive effect on the economy.

The McKinsey analysis stated that younger generations will inherit “lower economic growth and shoulder the cost of more retirees, while the traditional flow of wealth between generations erodes.”

At the same time, according to analysts, nations, including the United States, need to raise fertility rates to avoid a passive “depopulation.”

Economists and the Social Security Administration have warned for years that more beneficiaries and fewer people paying into the program will make it insolvent. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, in a 2022 report, stated that by 2034, Social Security costs will exceed Social Security revenue to the tune of $437 billion.

Labor Market Transformation

The labor market will also undergo a drastic transformation as fewer people enter the workforce over the next several decades. Meanwhile, adults are choosing to work longer into what traditionally would have been their retirement years. Some are even reentering the job market.

“It’s not so much the average age of the population that will be … important, [but rather] the average age of the workforce,” Scott Siff, CEO of Pivoters, told The Epoch Times. Pivoters helps match job seekers older than 55 with employers seeking talent.

“At the moment, there are around 110 million people in the population over 55, and only about 37 percent are working,” Siff said. “But 74 percent of them want to be working.”

Figures vary, but the number of U.S. adults older than 55 is estimated to be near 103 million, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

“The biggest change we can look for is that the entire concept of retirement will change dramatically, and perhaps fade away entirely,” Siff said.

Siff said he believes that as overall population growth begins to slow, millions of adults older than 55 will start reentering the workforce en masse—and only partially because of lack of retirement savings.

While they need to work for financial reasons, “increasingly, they also want to work because of the dramatic positive impacts work has on longevity, happiness, health, and sense of purpose,” he said.

“The median savings today for people reaching so-called retirement age is about $50,000, but now that people can live decades past this notional retirement age, estimates are that people need to have $1 million saved for retirement,” Siff said.

Annual retirement costs for more affordable states in the Midwest and South run to about $50,000, according to a Visual Capitalist analysis. Consequently, this puts many in the age range of 55 and older in a financial bind.

Read the rest here…

Authored by Jill McLaughlin & Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An appeals court in Florida paused a lawsuit Wednesday over the South Florida Detention Center, also known as Alligator Alcatraz, after the Trump administration argued its attorneys were furloughed during the ongoing government shutdown.

Judges on the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the federal government’s motion to halt litigation and directed the administration to let them know when it can continue.

Environmental groups sued the government in June, alleging that authorities rushed to build the facility without public comment or an environmental review, a process typically required under federal law.

The same appeals court blocked a federal judge’s order to dismantle the facility in an earlier ruling issued in September.

In August, a district court sided with environmentalist groups, including Friends of the Everglades and Florida’s Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, finding that the federal government had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in failing to conduct an environmental impact review before construction of the facility.

The district court also ruled that the operation of the facility was not in the public’s best interest, nor would closing it result in irreparable harm.

The appeals court disagreed with both of these rulings in a 2–1 decision, with circuit court judges Barbara Lagoa and Elizabeth Branch siding with the defendants, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

Lagoa said the defendants were likely to demonstrate on appeal that they did not violate NEPA or the APA, because the court found no evidence that federal funding had been formally committed to the project.

The Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental organizations suing the administration over the illegal immigrant detention center, alleged that the government was further harming the environment with the request to pause the lawsuit.

“With this delay, the government is dodging accountability and imposing even more harm on the fragile Everglades,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades.

The group said it was determined to shut down the facility to protect Florida’s environment.

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians will join the Friends of the Everglades and other protesters in a demonstration outside the center’s gates in the Big Cypress National Preserve on Sunday.

The Friends of the Everglades also plans to hold a weekly vigil.

The groups said the Everglades is the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere. It was designated as an endangered UNESCO World Heritage site in 2010.

The average retail prices for gasoline in the U.S. are nearing the sub-$3 mark, but food inflation has remained sticky as the Trump economic team embarked this week to correct the worst cattle shortage the nation has experienced in a generation, a crisis that sent prices sky-high well before Trump’s second term. The good news this upcoming Thanksgiving holiday season won’t be the absence of American spirit at the White House, but also Walmart offering an affordable holiday meal package at price levels not seen since 2019.

Earlier this week, Walmart revealed its annual Thanksgiving meal basket will be the most affordable yet. This basket consists of 20 items, including a Butterball turkey priced at $0.97 per pound, which is the lowest price since 2019. The entire basket serves 10 people for under $40. 

“We are really excited about what we have planned for this year at Thanksgiving,” U.S. Walmart CEO and president John Furner told Good Morning America on Wednesday, “This is a time of year when people are busy. They don’t want to sacrifice quality, and we want to do all we can to help them celebrate the holiday any way they want. And we want to do it in a way that’s very affordable with a lot of value.”

WATCH: ABC’s George Stephanopoulos tries to get Walmart’s U.S. CEO to bash Trump and claim the economy’s in a tailspin. CEO John Furner was not having any of it.

First, Stephanopoulos tried to argue turkey prices are way up, but Furner replied Walmart’s turkeys will be their… pic.twitter.com/mI6acOdNQ6

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 21, 2025

Walmart’s Thanksgiving basket includes: 

• Butterball Turkey, 13.5 lb. ($0.97/lb. – lowest price since 2019)

• Kinder’s Fried Onions, 4.5 oz.

• Campbells Cream of Mushroom Soup, 10.5 oz. (1 can)

• Stove Top Turkey Stuffing, Twin Pack 2 x 6 oz. 

• Great Value Dinner Rolls, 12 ct. 

• Fresh Russet Potatoes, 5 lb.

• Fresh Cranberries, 12 oz.

• Great Value Baby Carrots, 2 lb.

• Great Value Corn, 15 oz. (3 cans)

• Great Value Green Beans, 14.5 oz. (3 cans)

• Great Value Artisan Macaroni & Cheese, 12 oz. (3 boxes)

• Great Value Brown Gravy Mix, 0.87 oz. (2)

• Great Value Pie Crusts

• Great Value Evaporated Milk, 12 fl. oz.

• Great Value 100% Pure Pumpkin, 15 oz.

Last week, discount grocery chain Aldi revealed that its Thanksgiving meal deal to feed 10 people will cost around $40. There appears to be a meal deal war amongst grocery chains for this upcoming holiday season amid mounting consumer pressures. UBS analysts warned in recent weeks that “lower-income consumer weakness is spreading to at least middle-income consumers.” 

For ZeroHedge Pro subs, Goldman has an informative note this month on supermarket pricing trends, showing Walmart continues to lead with aggressive discounts. The full note is available in the usual place.