The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) is upon us. And as technology companies try to meet the skyrocketing demand for AI-specialized computing capacity, they are dotting the country with data centers – to the dismay of some, but the delight of others. As is all too often the case, many of these companies are coming to states and cities and receiving taxpayer-supported subsidies or tax exemptions.
Amid uncertainty in a vital global shipping lane brought on by the conflict with Iran, gas pump prices are way up.
Some in Congress think that could be a problem for their constituents and for Republicans’ chances in the midterms.
“Naturally, we’re all really concerned,” Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., told The Daily Signal of the gas prices.
Nevertheless, Justice framed it as part of the cost of taking on Iran.
Originally published March 6, 2026 for our weekly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get weekly issues.
By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor
“As (Kavanaugh) explains, the Court’s decision … cannot be justified as a matter of statutory interpretation. Congress authorized the President to ‘regulate … importation. Throughout American history, the authority to ‘regulate importation’ has been understood to include the authority to impose duties on imports….
As I suggested over a decade ago, the nondelegation doctrine does not apply to ‘a delegation of power to make rules governing private conduct in the area of foreign trade,’ including rules imposing duties on imports. Therefore, to the extent that the Court relies on ‘separation of powers principles’ to rule against the President is mistaken.” – Clarence Thomas on the SCOTUS Tarriff ruling
INTRODUCTION
Americans waited for days, weeks, and months to learn what the Supreme Court of the United States would say about President Trump’s use of tariffs under the IEEPA Act (International Emergency Economic Powers).
The long delay in the ruling led many to believe it would be a partial win and loss for the President, but in the end, it would turn out to be a loss, but not a definitive one. The court refused to clean up the mess its ruling has already produced, the scramble for tariff refunds from domestic and foreign interests (a scramble well under way).
It also only selectively struck down tariffs made through the IEEPA Act, not tariffs in general (though the precedent set by this court might eventually do so).
The President responded with defiant words, but compliant action. He chose not to challenge what seems to many Americans to be an on-its-face unconstitutional power grab from the court. He chose instead to create new tariffs through other laws, while offering threats to American companies to attempt to stave off the refund hell coming our way thanks to what this writer considers to be (and has considered for a long time) an anti-American rogue court. In short, this is a Progmerican court, which is NOT American at all.
We analyze Roberts’ ruling primarily, Trump’s response, the market’s response, the global response, and finally offer a Predictive Analysis of where this might be going next.
A. THE RULING
SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts, who invented a tax to save Obamacare, is once again using the invention of a tax to save America’s enemies from the President’s foreign policy.
In his decision, he wrote, “The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it… IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate . . .importation. “
This is a claim that fails basic scrutiny if one goes back more than 50 years. Tariffs have been traditionally used as foreign policy levers mostly from the moment nations started using them, sometimes through congressional action, sometimes through Presidential action. The fact that an IEEPA justification hasn’t been used does not remotely attack the legitimacy of tariffs as foreign policy tools.
The most talked-about example came in 1971, when Nixon imposed an import surcharge of 10% on all dutiable imports. The move was intended to strengthen the American dollar by pressuring allies to open their markets to the U.S.
In 1974, congress passed the Jackson-Volt amendment to the Trade Act of 1974, which cut America’s communist enemies, like Russia and China, from Most-Favored-Nation status, effectively raising tariffs on all of them.
It was after 1974 that America began using tariffs less and less, switching instead to international law standards. By 1994, tariffs were all but nullified. For Roberts, history must not begin until after 1974.
Roberts continues, “IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties. The Government points to no statute in which Congress used the word “regulate” to authorize taxation.”
Here Roberts is playing the tax semantic game, assuming the side effect of foreign policy, de facto taxation, is enough to nullify tariffs as a Presidential tool, yet he did not unilaterally deny the President’s power to levy tariffs.
By this logic, the IEEPA law is irrelevant to the point, it’s about tariffs as a tax only, and not a primary foreign policy decision that costs Americans money (as many foreign policy decisions do).
By Roberts’ logic, the President would be barred from making ANY foreign policy decision that could cost Americans money, for, by his logic, that would have the net effect of being a tax. In the case of Obamacare, the primary right being challenged was the government’s right to create a healthcare monopoly, a state corporation, which the constitution flat-out doesn’t permit. There is no explicit power to create a state healthcare system, but Roberts still allowed it then, because taxation makes it constitutional.
Roberts chose to deny the constitution and protect Obamacare by declaring it a tax. He rejected the higher principle being violated for the lesser principle being executable. Here, he is doing the opposite, he is rejecting the higher principle, the ESSENTIAL right of a President to enact foreign policy. He is ALSO rejecting the President’s power to define what an emergency is, despite the fact that his decision explicitly denies it.
On one hand, he faults the IEEA law for not EXPLICITELY allowing tariffs as a means of response within the IEEA framework, while on the other hand he CREATES explicit standards that have never existed in the history of this country, that tariffs should be viewed primarily as a tax, which ultimately undermines ALL tariffs.
Roberts continues his artless sophistry, claiming THIS as a legal consideration, “until now no President has read IEEPA to confer such power. We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”
His anti-American reasoning is that the IEEPA must EXPLICITELY spell out the tools the President can use in carrying out that law. He does this by arguing that “regulate” doesn’t mean taxation, therefore the IEEPA doesn’t allow taxation to be used. The distinction, as the dissenting justices point out, is pedantic, devoid of any legal substance.
Article III imposes no power on SCOTUS to rule tariffs are primarily a tax and thus can’t be used in regulating the economy in a time of emergency, to be determined by the President, not the quisling Roberts. He fulfilled the role of traitor at least, and CCP collaborationist at worst, in his ruling, for only China will benefit from this anti-American death ruling.
This decision is on its face a gross violation of American rule of law. It is every bit as unconstitutional as the Obamacare ruling, a ruling Roberts made possible with his deciding vote.
This ruling shows the fundamental danger of allowing anti-American human beings like the SCOTUS 6 into American institutions, human beings that clearly do not understand or respect American rule of law. These “justices” are Progmericans at heart, aliens in the land they presume to judge. No progressive has any business being involved in American politics, let alone American courts.
This ruling is, in part, why I am calling on constitutional amendments to make citizenship an agreed-upon covenant (with citizens today grandfathered in) and to create a legal power to remove citizenship rights from citizens that openly advocate for the violation of rights of other citizens.
All gun control advocates would immediately lose their right to bear arms since they can’t respect the rights of their neighbors to be self-stewarded individuals, people who can defend themselves against all enemies, foreign and domestic (in the case of the Progmerican within).
If these amendments existed today, Roberts and the whole SCOTUS group would lose their office, their right to bear arms, their right to vote, and their right to speak sedition in public against the American people (as they did in this ruling).
In this instance, this ruling has set dangerous precedents that are sure to be exploited by Progmerican judges to destroy Rule of law even further. Now, the whisper of the tariff precedent has already been set, and, despite any cautions by Roberts and his cohort of Progmerican traitors to the contrary, the door is now wide open to end tariffs as a means of Presidential power altogether.
We will get into the consequence of this ruling, which reveals just how devastating this ruling is to American power, a consideration that never entered the minds of the quislings who made such an obviously unconstitutional decision. Their refusal to rule on the chaos of potential refunds by American companies and foreign powers reveals the cowardice of a ruling they knew would aid America’s enemies and cripple her in return. It is an obvious act of sabotage by Roberts and the other SCOTUS 6 traitors.
They did not want to put into the record that they are directly complicit in creating utter chaos for the American republic at a time when our very survival is in question. This is the type of ruling that should have immediately produced defiance from the Trump administration. It crossed the line from legally tenable to outright sedition, which is plain to see for Americans, but not so much for Progmericans (or their frenemy, the Neocon).
This SHOULD HAVE been the moment Trump declared war on the DNC-CCP. Instead, he looked for new loopholes to escape the unconstitutional ruling.
The overall ruling was more complex than this, as parts of the ruling had a full majority while one ruling had a plurality decision. That decision hopes to create an anti-American standard that congress must approve any decision the President makes on “significant issues.”
B. TRUMP’S RESPONSE
President Trump had a long rebuttal to the unconstitutional ruling, but the heart of his message was this:
“It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think. It’s a small movement. I won by millions of votes, we won in a landslide. With all the cheating that went on, there was a lot of it, we still won in a landslide. Too big to rig.
But these people are obnoxious, ignorant and loud. They’re very loud. And I think certain justices are afraid of that. They don’t want to do the right thing. They’re afraid of it.
This was an important case to me, more as a symbol of economic national security and also, I would say, just for our country itself, so important, because we’re doing so well as a country. We’ve never done so well.
The good news is that there are methods, practices, statutes and authorities, as recognized by the entire court in this terrible decision — and also as recognized by Congress, which they referred to — that are even stronger than the IEEPA tariffs available to me as president of the United States.”
In this writer’s opinion, Trump is most likely right when he claims foreign influence and partisan interests (or fears of the DNC terror machine) behind this clearly badly written sophistry-pregnant slight-of-hand ruling. You have to really HATE America to read into the law such an uncharitable take as these anti-justices did.
Notice the President continues to call his measures “IEEPA tariffs.” This is in open defiance of the unjust ruling that claims a broadly written law must offer specific tools that can be used to accomplish it, when that hasn’t been the precedent in the past. The only time that applies is when laws SPECIFICALLY limit the tools that can be used to enforce them.
Yet, the President chose to speak out both sides of his mouth, on one side all but accusing them of colluding with America’s enemies, an act of the highest order of treason, while at the same time respecting the ruling by changing his approach to using tariffs as foreign policy tools.
As we talk about in our Final Thought on pg. xx (News War Machines), this President seems to want to preserve SOME Progmerican power for himself, otherwise, he would move to destroy it.
In his defense, if you know you will lose for sure by moving against your enemy, you might want to bide time while you build up your power and continue to erode theirs.
This writer is just not certain that’s the reality he faces. If it is, then he’s doing the right thing by holding his powder. If it isn’t, he’s missing a great opportunity to finish off the Progmericans, at least for a couple of decades before the next threat reconstitutes itself (and it will).
He has already enacted a global 10% tariff tax and says he will use other laws with proven tariff applications historically to get the job done. What he hasn’t addressed in detail is what to do about the refund demands already happening, including from foreign powers.
C. AMERICAN BUSINESS RESPONSE
Immediately after this ruling, the leftist-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce immediately called for “swift refunds of the impermissible tariffs.” Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley attached his name to this action, a decision that might one day prove to be his undoing (and rightly so).
Joining this association was the National Retail Federation, which includes Walmart. They called for “a seamless process to refund the tariffs to U.S. importers.” They claim the refunds will be an “economic boost,” but for whom?
It won’t be an economic boost for a country diminished by an unconstitutional ruling. It will only embolden her enemies, which includes, apparently, these business associations (all taken over by Progmericans).
Walmart will be remembered for its failure here to stand up for America over corporate greed. The money they get back will NOT be passed on to the consumers, who’ve already paid for the tariff, it will go to the corporate leaders.
These were only the start of business associations that quickly lined up to get refunds, despite SCOTUS not ruling at all on the constitutionality of refund-seeking, or how that will come about. The ruling was so reckless they refused to create a mechanism to deal with the mess their ruling created. This is intentional sabotage at work, not judicial caution.
The President threatened these companies with worse deals if they tried to do what they are doing, choosing profit over American security. This writer hopes he follows through with that threat. If you think the left really opposes corporate power, witness their overwhelming support for the corporations seeking profit-taking over national well-being.
These companies prove these American businesses are not run by Americans at all, and as such we should move to nationalize the progressive businesses and sell them to Americans. This might seem ridiculous right now, but within a year or two tops, this call will be echoed by a lot more Americans than me.
D. FOREIGN POWERS RESPONSE
This is a quote from a Grok research pull we did for this paper. We asked Grok how the foreign powers reacted to this ruling. Here is what Grok said about China, “[China] Emerged as a significant beneficiary, with analysts noting a substantial reduction in effective U.S. tariff rates on Chinese goods (e.g., from around 32% to 24% in some estimates, as many IEEPA layers were removed while Section 301/232 tariffs persisted). China called for the U.S. to lift unilateral tariffs on trading partners and stated it would ‘comprehensively assess’ future U.S. changes while adjusting countermeasures as needed. This was seen as strengthening China’s negotiating position ahead of planned high-level talks.”
Grok itself recognizes the power this ruling gives to our current greatest enemy, China. This factor alone should have stopped the quislings from making such a sophistry-laden decision, one that invented a tax standard in favor of ending a President’s power to deal with existential threats at a pivotal point in our history.
By any stretch of the imagination, this was hardly a black and white issue, and legal experts were divided from the start on what the ruling “should be.” They had to take the most uncharitable view to get to the ruling that damages America the most, while empowering and enabling her worst enemies, including China.
While foreign powers might be less inclined to push aggressively for refunds (for fear of inviting Trump’s new tariff counters), they will now be even more incentivized to seek to influence these same judges to continue to rule in their favor, gutting the American presidency in preparation for creating the Progmerican one.
America’s military power is undisputed. Her enemies know this, and they rely on this SCOTUS, and similar quislings within American institutions, to undermine us with soft power from within, with Progmericans who are naturally more aligned with the CCP than George Washington.
PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS
So far, President Trump’s threats for more tariffs have not materialized. He has enacted the 10% global tariff, but he failed to follow through with his threat that he’d bump it up to 15%.
The President’s ability to use tariffs quickly, and to modify them just as quickly, might be all but gone after this ruling, a likely possibility that in and of itself should tell you why this ruling was wholly illegal and sabotaging to U.S. security in every way imaginable.
I’d add a caveat here: Tariff law is complex and somewhat untested until quite recently. There could be a rock-solid path for Trump going forward that is even unassailable by the best sophistic justices out there, but I am highly skeptical such a secret super law weapon exists.
This ruling signals to me either an emboldening of the Progmerican nation within us, or desperation. What Trump’s tariffs have been doing is hammering away at International Rule of Law, a game whose motte of “rule of law” hides its bailey of “diminish American and nation-state powers,” which is what International Law has largely morphed into. THIS is what SCOTUS was protecting, most likely due to threats or profit from foreign powers, including Progmerican organizations in America.
Now, Trump will have to return to those Progmerican international courts to make foreign policy moves against ongoing existential threats to our existence (ESPECIALLY from China, who has its own domestic existential problems).
Failure by the rearguard of the DNC, the RNC, to pass the SAVE Act, the act requiring photo ID and paper ballots for federal elections, will result in a DNC majority in the House, and possibly the Senate.
The DNC-CCP is already aligned with America’s existential enemy, China, so its power in the House will be continued to be used to cripple American power at the benefit of her enemies. To this end, expect impeachments that will come from the tariffs themselves, impeachments this writer believes this court knew full well they were legitimizing in advance.
Were emails or chats leaked one day showing collusion between the DNC and the justices to assure their ruling laid the groundwork for these impeachments, this writer would NOT be surprised. My understanding of human nature and our current reality of power strongly suggests this is highly probable (but not certain).
This writer has little confidence the GOP will muster enough votes and courage to force the SAVE Act through (as they could right now if the party were American, and not, at the top level at least, simply the DNC-CCP’s rearguard protector).
Trump has a few months to move fast to cripple our most pressing enemies, which right now are China, Russia, and Iran. He will not have the power to levy tariffs so easily through these other laws, which will limit his ability to quickly respond to actions by our adversaries in response; but he’ll still have some power. The question is, will he use them?
I am certain his lawyers are already working on plans to justify tariffs, and the enemy, the DNC-CCP and its allies (Progmerican-controlled business associations), are working hard to file lawsuits. These lawsuits will be filed with favorable district judges predisposed to stop Trump’s programs, if for no other reason than they believe they are stopping the Nazis by doing so (constitutional law be damned).
I expect courts favorable to the DNC-CCP to continue to allow the degradation of our security by rubber-stamping foreign powers’ efforts to use our own courts to sabotage our power. I expect some exceptions, as there are still American judges in our courts.
At the SCOTUS level, I expect this court to side with the resistance, and wherever sophistry can remotely be applied to justify the denial of Trump’s policies (to defeat Hitler, in their minds), they will do so. However, there are limitations, even for this rogue court. Some degree of a semblance of Americanism must still be maintained, at least for now.
For that reason, I expect SCOTUS to not fully shut down Trump’s tariff powers, but from here until the first District Court injunction, he has a limited time to act decisively using tariffs to target our enemies for economic warfare.
What many do not realize is this, American pax is over and everyone knows it. There is a new real scramble for power that will leave the losers in destitute circumstances. The race to build the one AI machine to rule them all is on, and Trump recognizes this; THAT is why he chose to use tariffs in this unprecedented, but legal (unprecedented doesn’t equal illegal, Mr. Roberts) way, for he understood the stakes are high.
The world is resetting its power structure, and competition is fierce to not become a subservient to the greater power, and it’s a competition America can lose, especially with Progmerica still fighting to take over from within, aided as they are by quislings in our courts, including our highest court, which should be renamed SCOP, the Supreme Court of Progmerican, which is NO AMERICA at all.
FURTHER RESOURCES:
US Tariffs Gude by Country; US Goods – Brenda Kecskes
American Tariffs From Plymouth Rock to McKinley – Daniel Harriman
Encyclopedia of Tariffs in U.S. History – Edited and Compiled by Cynthia Clark
Democrats are celebrating their continued shutdown of the DHS even AFTER the original reason for the shutdown, Kristi Noem’s continued leadership of the department, is already gone. President Trump has transferred Noem to South America to lead a new security project down there.
Yet, the Democrats continue to allow the funding to pass the Senate, keeping the shutdown going. Lines are beginning to get longer and longer at airports as the DHS runs out funding and can no longer provide the basic security it currently is.
ED. NOTE: The existence of the DHS is a constitutional question that should not be forgotten, but this shutdown is not about opposition to the DHS, it’s purely about opposition to the Trump program being executed. They mean to save Progmerica from the America Trump is, in part, allowing to reform itself in the ashes of this broken land.
Democrats’ Shutdown Stunt Throws Major Airports Around the Country Into Chaos – westernjournal.com
With spring break just around the corner for swathes of Americans, travel season will soon be upon us.
And if Democrats don’t get their act together, the travel season is going to be an absolute nightmare for people — which it already is.
For the unaware, the Department of Homeland Security is currently shut down, as there is an ongoing congressional budget dispute over the agency.
The inability to reconcile those differences has left various branches overseen by DHS to be shut down, including the Transportation Security Administration.
Democrats specifically have been utterly insistent that Immigration and Customs Enforcement must undergo massive reform before any such budget is approved.
With a high-stakes summit in Beijing less than three weeks away, the U.S. has launched sweeping trade investigations that put China squarely in its crosshairs, adding a new layer of friction to an already complicated relationship.
The probes, which will be conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, aim to identify unfair trade practices, particularly structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors.
While casting a wide net over a dozen trading partners, the move takes a clear aim at China, given its well-documented issues such as overcapacity and forced labor, said Dan Wang, China director at the political consultancy Eurasia Group.
As Trump’s negotiating position has been weakened by the military aggression in Iran, “U.S. needs to establish credible threat on tariffs as it remains Trump’s top pressure tool,” Wang said, although Beijing was likely unsurprised by the escalation.
“Maximizing leverage before major bilateral meetings seems to be a standard move now,” she said.
The probes followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to strike down Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, which curtailed his ability to deploy tariffs at will, giving China a boost in leverage ahead of the summit.
The Trump administration is “pivoting to its other tools to continue its tariff agenda … [tariff] is clearly a card that Trump wishes to have in his pocket for negotiations,” said Lynn Song, chief economist at ING Bank.
Iranian missiles and drones attacked at least five vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, signaling a major escalation by Iran in the war. The attacks resulted in the virtual closure of the strait to normal maritime traffic.
Iran is escalating its war on the world by attacking multiple oil tankers, sending oil prices skyrocketing.
Iran’s actions came despite a Truth Social warning from President Donald Trump on Tuesday that, “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”
In the early hours of Thursday, three oil tankers were set ablaze, according to CNBC, following three ships attacked on Wednesday.
Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has almost completely stopped in the days since the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran.
Iran sits above this strategic waterway, which is a vital route for exports of oil, gas and other commodities from the Persian Gulf, and has targeted tankers in the area.
Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has warned ships not to sail through the passageway, saying that vessels “could be at risk from missiles or rogue drones”, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.
Markets on Wall Street retreated and oil prices jumped another five per cent again early Thursday as the war in Iran approached its second week with no indication that the United States and Israel were ready to scale back their attacks.
Futures for the S&P 500 lost 0.5 per cent before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.6 per cent lower. Nasdaq futures were also down 0.5 per cent. On Wednesday, the Dow declined 0.6 per cent to its lowest level the year.
Oil prices initially shot more than nine per cent higher as supply concerns worsened with Iranian attacks on commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. campaign of airstrikes in Iran is now in its 13th day.
Oil prices rose back above $100 and stocks sank Thursday as Iran’s attempts to hit supplies in the Middle East and bring down the global economy overshadowed a record release of strategic crude reserves by the International Energy Agency.
Stock markets in Asia closed down Thursday and European markets opened with losses as investors saw few signs the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran would end soon, despite President Trump’s repeated assurances that it would.
U.S. Energy Secretary Christopher Wright announced on Wednesday that the U.S. would release 172 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, while the International Energy Agency — which has 32 member nations, including the U.S. — announced it would release 400 million barrels from its own reserves.
With jagged cliffs rising from the Arabian Sea, the Strait of Hormuz is striking in its scenery — and these days, its emptiness. This resource superhighway, which normally hosts more than a hundred of the world’s largest oil and liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers every day, has seen no more than a handful all week.
They are the brave ones, daring to run these front lines where U.S. and Iranian naval forces face off. At least 14 commercial vessels have suffered some kind of violent incident, leaving at least eight mariners dead.
An emergency meeting has been called amid fears over a severe global oil shortage, with petrol prices already surging in the UK. Over 30 members will “assess the current security of supply and market conditions to inform a subsequent decision on whether to make emergency stocks […] available to the market,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement.
Oil prices dropped by more than 11% as markets began anticipating a release of emergency oil reserves, a sharp reversal after prices had surged to nearly $120 per barrel on Monday following the supply disruption. Fatih Birol noted that energy ministers from the Group of Seven nations met earlier on Tuesday to discuss possible responses to the crisis.
Here is what’s on President Trump’s agenda today:
8:00 AM THE PRESIDENT participates in Executive Time
2:30 PM THE PRESIDENT participates in a Site Visit at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Cincinnati, Ohio
The national average price for regular gas continues to soar, reaching $3.578 per gallon on Wednesday morning. The price point marks a 64-cent-per-gallon increase compared to a month ago, according to AAA.
The rise in gas prices over the last month is the largest single monthly increase since 2022, when fuel costs increased by 71 cents per gallon between February and March, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Between the week of February 9, 2026, and March 9, 2026, the average price for regular grade gasoline rose from $2.902 per gallon to $3.502 per gallon, according to the EIA. Moreover, gas prices today are nearly 50 cents per gallon more expensive than a year ago, according to AAA.
Oil prices retreated Tuesday, even after Secretary of Energy Chris Wright wrongly claimed in a social media post that the U.S. Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.
“The U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.
U.S. crude oil fell 11.94% to close at $83.45 per barrel. Brent crude, the global benchmark, lost 11.28% to settle at $87.80. Prices fell more than 17% immediately after Wright’s post.
The Trump administration is being urged to tackle imported generic pharmaceuticals, most of which are made in China, due to national security implications.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, wants the Commerce Department to consider using Section 232 national security tariffs on imported generic medicines and their ingredients. Such a move would frame the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain as a national security vulnerability rather than a purely economic issue.
The push comes as policymakers recognize the United States relies heavily on China for key pharmaceutical materials, particularly the raw components of many antibiotics, while producing a small share domestically, China specialist Gordon Chang said.
“Healthcare, as evident in country after country, is best left to the market, but as China weaponizes trade—and continually threatens war—it’s clear that Washington has to temporarily implement non-market solutions to ensure that Americans have access to the medicines they need,” he wrote in a paper published on Conservative Political Action Conference’s website titled “China’s ‘Pharma Death Grip’ on America.”
The Daily Caller Foundation has released a report that exposes “online pharmacies” as being sources for children to get access to “transition” drugs. Kurt Miceli, chief medical officer at DNH, summarized the report, claiming it “reveals how online pharmacies may enable minors to obtain cross-sex hormones with alarming ease.
“From websites listing online vendors across the globe to marketplaces for ‘homebrewed’ hormones, we found a multitude of troubling pathways that appear to bypass basic safeguards and regulatory oversight. Gender-confused kids should not be able to purchase potent, experimental medications with just a few simple clicks. These hormones carry significant risks, including effects that can be irreversible.
We urge the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] and other federal agencies to investigate any potential unlawful sellers and, where appropriate, for states to do the same when their laws are being violated,” Miceli continued. “Protecting minors from unsafe and unregulated access to powerful cross-sex hormones must remain a priority.”
EXCLUSIVE: Online Pharmacies May Be Allowing Minors To Get Transgender Hormones ‘With Alarming Ease’ – dailycaller.com
Some online pharmacies seemingly do not require prescriptions or information about patient age for individuals seeking transgender hormones, according to a Do No Harm (DNH) report released Tuesday.
The new report, first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, also highlights a spate of resources DNH found which promote online pharmacies and other distribution networks for “homebrewed” transgender hormones, as well as guides on how to self-administer such hormones. Kurt Miceli, chief medical officer at DNH, told the DCNF in a statement that the report “reveals how online pharmacies may enable minors to obtain cross-sex hormones with alarming ease.
Tokyo stocks plunged Monday, with the Nikkei index losing over 2,800 points and marking the third-largest point drop in history, as crude oil futures surged amid growing prospects of a prolonged Middle East conflict.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended down 2,892.12 points, or 5.20 percent, from Friday at 52,728.72. The broader Topix index finished 141.09 points, or 3.80 percent, lower at 3,575.84.
On the top-tier Prime Market, the main decliners were nonferrous metal, glass and ceramics product and machinery issues.
The U.S. dollar mostly stayed in the upper 158 yen range in Tokyo amid concerns about the impact of surging crude prices.
At 5 p.m., the dollar fetched 158.45-47 yen compared with 157.79-89 yen in New York and 157.52-55 yen in Tokyo at 5 p.m. Friday.
Seven American service members are dead, dozens of Iranian children were murdered by a U.S. missile strike, oil is raining from the skies to poison the air for thousands of people living in Iran following an Israeli missile strike, and oil and gas prices worldwide are surging as the war has led to the blockade of a critical waterway used to transport oil.
But hey, at least we have a new Iranian leader who is in some ways worse than the murderous oppressor whom the United States killed a little over a week ago!
Indeed, Iran announced on Sunday that it replaced Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with his son Mojtaba Khamenei. The 56-year-old religious cleric lost his mother, wife, and a son, as well as his father, to U.S. strikes.
Given his relative youth, Iran’s new supreme leader could have many years left to rein over the nation with an iron fist. That means we spent billions, lost American lives, and potentially decimated the global economy only to put in someone who may in fact be more extreme than the previous guy who brutally oppressed both dissenters and women.
My colleague Mary Chastain noted in her recent report that President Donald Trump’s team was weighing a takeover of the critical shipping lane of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a vast amount of global oil supply flows.
This development follows on the heels of continuing military targeting covered by our talented Vijeta Uniyal.
I would like to focus on the Strait for a moment, as I noted in an earlier report that Trump ordered a US agency to provide insurance for companies willing to sail through the region. That plan is moving forward.
The U.S. will provide reinsurance for losses up to $20 billion in the Gulf region, to help provide confidence for oil and gas shippers during the war on Iran, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said on Friday.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered the DFC to provide political risk insurance and financial guarantees for maritime trade in the Gulf after oil and liquefied natural gas tanker transit had ground to a halt in the Strait of Hormuz waterway off Iran, where ordinarily 20% of global oil moves daily.
Federal judge blocks HUD, USDA from mandating stricter new-home energy standards Scotsman Guide
from news.google.com
Trump bought Netflix and Warner Bros bonds at height of bidding war with Paramount The Journal Record
from news.google.com
President Donald Trump says a sharp increase in high oil prices is a “small price to pay” in the fight against Iran.
“Short-term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, are a very small price to pay for the U.S. and world safety and peace,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding, “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”
Oil prices have risen to more than $100 a barrel since the United States launched its attack on Iran in conjunction with Israel, killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and striking hundreds of Iran’s military targets.
Crude oil futures in London and New York soared almost 30% to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday, one of the biggest one-day jumps on record in early trading, threatening to raise costs of products from gasoline to jet fuel.
President Donald Trump has issued a warning to the Islamic Republic of Iran, stating that “death, fire, and fury will reign upon” the Persian state should they interfere with the transportation of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital sea trade route.
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) March 10, 2026
Trump claimed that American forces would strike the country “twenty times harder” and will “make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back,” he said in his post to Truth social. The IRGC still seems to think that they are in the driver’s seat, however. They claim that they will be the ones to determine the end of conflict, but that would only be true in the sense that they would choose the date of their surrender.
BREAKING: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say, in response to Trump, that they will be the ones who ‘determine the end of the war’.
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) March 10, 2026
Trump’s message comes after an Iranian announcement claiming that they would allow nations who would expel American and Israeli diplomats to have free passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
JUST IN: 🇮🇷 Iran says any Arab or European country that expels Israeli and US ambassadors will get free passage through the Strait of Hormuz starting tomorrow.
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) March 9, 2026
The Pentagon rarely labels an American technology company a “supply chain risk.” The designation is typically reserved for firms tied to foreign adversaries or companies that could expose sensitive government systems to compromise.
But in late February, the Trump administration applied that label to one of the most prominent artificial intelligence developers in the United States.
On Monday, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI system, turned up the heat on the fight by filing a federal lawsuit against the Pentagon and several government agencies after the administration ordered agencies to stop using its technology across the federal system.
“Anthropic sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies on Monday over the Trump administration’s move to designate it a supply chain risk and eliminate its use across the government,” the report explains. “The company said the effort was ‘unprecedented and unlawful.’”
G7 nations said on Monday they were prepared to implement “necessary measures” in response to surging global oil prices but stopped short of committing to release emergency reserves, despite crude prices briefly surpassing $119 a barrel as the U.S.-Israel war on Iran continues.
“We are not there yet,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told reporters in Brussels, after hosting a teleconference meeting of G7 finance ministers.
A final statement following the meeting said the ministers “will continue to closely monitor the situation and developments in the energy markets and will meet as needed to exchange information and to coordinate within the G7 and with international partners.”
“We stand ready to take necessary measures, including to support global supply of energy such as stockpile release,” it added.
Oil prices hit their highest levels since mid‑2022 on Monday, propelled by fears of prolonged shipping disruption and reduced output from some major producers wary of the conflict escalating. However, the market reversed late in the day, with benchmarks falling below $90 a barrel, after President Donald Trump told CBS News that the war was “pretty much” complete.
Yamaha, the Japanese company that manufactures both musical instruments and audio equipment as well as motorcycles and marine equipment, is leaving Gavin Newsom’s California after being headquartered in the state for 50 years. This is yet another major business to pull up stakes and flee the Golden State, where taxes are insane, crime is out of control, and the Democrats in Sacramento hate business.
Yamaha pulling out of California after half a century: HQ headed to Georgia https://t.co/4K0heOFWaA pic.twitter.com/8V81XKXsNz
— New York Post (@nypost) March 10, 2026
Yamaha is moving to Georgia.
After nearly 50 years in Orange County, Yamaha Motor Corp. USA is packing up its headquarters — trading Cypress, California for Kennesaw, Georgia in a sweeping corporate shift that will impact about 250 workers.
The motorcycle and motorsports giant says the move is part of major “structural reforms” meant to boost profits as costs climb — including pressure from tariffs imposed during the administration of President Donald Trump and shifting market conditions.
The relocation won’t happen overnight. Yamaha plans to start the exit in late 2026, with the transition stretching into 2028.
Company spokesman Bob Starr said consolidating operations in Georgia simply makes business sense.
“In terms of efficiency, to have us all together in Georgia — all the functions of the business — it makes a lot of sense,” Starr said.
The departure marks another corporate blow for Cypress.
President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a federal fraud investigation into New York’s Medicaid program, citing unusually high spending levels in the state.
The probe is being led by Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Oz announced the probe, revealing that the numbers behind New York’s Medicaid spending raise serious questions.
“Heart surgeons are trained to look at the numbers,” Oz said in a video posted on X.
“When something doesn’t add up, you don’t ignore it; you investigate.
“Right now, the numbers coming out of New York’s Medicaid program don’t add up.”
Apple reportedly makes 25% of iPhones in India, up 53%, in pivot from China production Sherwood News
from news.google.com
Restaurants in Mumbai are switching to electric induction stoves for staff meals and looking to tweak menus to conserve gas amid a shortage commercial LPG cylinders that threatens to disrupt their business.
While the government on Tuesday issued an order to regulate supply of natural gas to essential sectors, restaurants say there is no clarity on availability of the commercial cylinders.
As a consequence, as many as 50 per cent of eateries in Mumbai may have to temporarily shut shop, say executives of industry associations.
“We have started using electric induction stove to prepare staff meals, tea and rice based dishes. Some restaurants are looking to restrict their menus,” said Pranav Rungta, vice president of National Restaurant Association of India and owner of Nksha restaurant in Mumbai.
