Amazon Makes Last-Minute Bid For TikTok As Decision Looms: Report

 Update (1328ET):

By late lunch, a report from The New York Times specified that Amazon had submitted a last-minute bid to acquire all of TikTok from its parent company, ByteDance, ahead of the April 5 deadline. In a separate report, CNBC's David Faber indicated that a TikTok deal could be announced today. These two developments come ahead of President Trump's scheduled unveiling of reciprocal tariffs at around 4 p.m. EST. However, no specific timing was provided for when the TikTok deal might be announced. 

Here's more color from the NYT report:

Various parties who have been involved in the talks do not appear to be taking Amazon's bid seriously, the people said. The bid came via an offer letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Amazon's bid highlights the 11th-hour maneuvering in Washington over TikTok's ownership. Policymakers in both parties have expressed deep national security concerns over the app's Chinese ownership, and passed a law last year to force a sale of TikTok that was set to take effect in January.

Separately, CNBC's David Faber on "Halftime Report" pointed out that the TikTok deal could be finalized as soon as today: 

So we're coming up on the date by which some deal needs to be done. What I'm hearing today, in addition, of course, what we're hearing from the New York Times in terms of Amazon's interest and I was hearing this this morning, Scott, is that we may get an announcement involving the future of TikTok today, along with perhaps so much else that's coming at us. Not completely clear, but April 5 is the deadline. So of course, that is looming, regardless of whether it is as soon as today, and while the New York Times is reporting this on Amazon and they do say that it sort of may not be taken as seriously by those involved, I've been tracking a deal that has perhaps more of a chance, which is simply one in which you would essentially dilute down the ownership of ByteDance below 20%, allow many of the current owners of ByteDance to step up, bring in new capital and essentially say it is no longer controlled by Chinese adversary. Oracle would still be involved in that are again, people may recall that Oracle is where the servers are housed for TikTok.

The White House is managing a lot today, from a potential TikTok deal to the announcement of new tariffs. 

*    *    * 

Ahead of President Trump's reciprocal tariff announcement across all US trading partners later today, the president will meet with senior administration officials to review a final proposal for the Chinese social media app TikTok. The deliberations come before a Saturday deadline, by which TikTok must complete a sale to a non-Chinese entity or face a US ban. 

CBS News cited sources familiar with the upcoming meeting in the Oval Office that said Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would be present. It's unclear whether Trump will approve the final proposal today, given that today is "Liberation Day." The report noted that Blackstone and Oracle are potential investors. 

At the start of Trump's first term, he signed an executive order granting a 75-day extension for TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app—used by 170 million Americans—to a US entity or face a nationwide ban. The deadline is Saturday, April 5, bringing the final deal down to the wire. 

Over the weekend, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, "We have a lot of potential buyers. There's a lot of interest in TikTok. The decision is going to be my decision," adding, "I'd like to see TikTok remain alive." Trump said Monday there was "a lot of enthusiasm for TikTok." 

In a separate report, the Financial Times said Marc Andreessen's venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, was discussing the purchase of TikTok from ByteDance with Oracle and other investors. 

Reuters noted, "In the closely watched sale of TikTok, the White House is playing the role of an investment bank, with Vance running the auction." 

The Trump administration is about to have a hectic week. It will announce reciprocal tariffs later today, and it must also begin finalizing a deal for TikTok as the April 5 deadline looms. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/white-house-prepares-tiktok-proposal-meeting-wednesday-ahead-deadline

Republicans would love to see AOC lead the Democrats

 If you think Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will save the Democratic Party, think again.

Hitching their wagon to such a leftist firebrand will take Democrats even farther away from the American mainstream to which they must return. It would be the biggest mistake Democrats could make and the biggest gift they could give Republicans.

Since last November, Democrats have struggled to find a strategy, message and messenger. Trump’s executive-power blitz has only added to party frustration that they lack the legislative leverage with which to counter it. 

Democrats’ fury peaked in the last fight over annual funding. House Democrats held almost completely united against the Republicans’ spending bill. They believed such unity set the stage for a successful stand in the Senate, where the filibuster gave them the means to shut down the government, blocking Republicans’ spending bill and momentum.

Initially, it looked like Democrats would indeed use the filibuster’s leverage. Then, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) reversed himself. He and nine other Democrats voted to end the filibuster and support the Republicans’ spending bill.

Leftist Democrats were apoplectic at Senate Democrats’ betrayal, and Ocasio-Cortez was among the most vocal. “There is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” she said. “And this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board — the entire party.”

She is also among the most vocal as a possible future party leader.

Ocasio-Cortez sets leftist hearts aflutter. She is perfectly placed, residing in Schumer’s state — he is up for re-election in 2028. She’s the perfect contrast to Schumer: her young to his old; her ultra-left to his Democratic establishment; her woman to his man. She could also raise big money and garner high-profile endorsements. 

However, Ocasio-Cortez also has personal issues. Her diva-ing down in a designer dress for the $35,000-per-ticket Met gala a few years ago raised ethics questions — and even bigger ones about her level of attention-seeking and her personal judgment. Her latest foible is a notable $4,500 expended from her office budget for dance classes. 

And of course, there were the accusations about her faking an accent at her 2024 Democratic National Convention appearance, a prime political opportunity that she would have slam-dunked by just being her usual left-wing self.

There is also her district, known for high crime and described as akin to a “Third World” country, yet Ocasio-Cortez has been light on her attention to its needs.  Do you think political bases can’t be a liability?  Ask Gov. Gavin Newsom about California, or Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) about San Francisco.

And finally, there are her positions on issues. One need look no further than the Green New Deal (which would cost from $52 trillion to $93 trillion) and past membership in the Democratic Socialists of America to tag her with extremism that won’t, as they say, “play in Peoria” — or virtually anywhere between America’s two left coasts. 

Deeper still, but so far unexplored, is Ocasio-Cortez’s decision-making.  This may be the most damning problem of all for someone touted as a future party leader. 

Recall that just a short time ago, she was demanding that the Senate get rid of the filibuster. But with the recent spending bill in the Senate, Ocasio-Cortez was all for using the filibuster. So, which is it?

Peering even more deeply into the recent funding fight, Ocasio-Cortez would have had Democrats vote against the Republican bill, thereby shutting down the government. It would have been a purely Democrat-triggered shutdown — no ambiguity at all about which party did it.

The House had already passed the funding bill. President Trump was ready to sign it. Senate Republicans were ready to send it to him, with only Ocasio-Cortez’s desired filibuster potentially standing in their way.

What would her exit plan have been — in real time — for getting out of that? Could she have explained this to America?

What would Ocasio-Cortez have done if the nine Democrats who ultimately voted for the bill had still desired to do so? Would she have thrown them under the bus? Threatened them with primaries? Would she have tried to force them to toe her ultra-left line? 

Look at where those senators were from: Five come from swing states, and their seats could potentially go Republican. 

Leadership is about real, hard decisions, not just red-hot rhetoric.  Being a leader means making decisions, not just for yourself, but for those you lead. Is Ocasio-Cortez ready to make such decisions? More importantly, are Democrats ready for her to be making decisions for them? 

Democrats need less Ocasio-Cortez, not more. Liberals are America’s smallest ideological group (just 23 percent of 2024 voters, according to Gallup), yet they make up more than half (54 percent) of Democrats. The party’s problem is that its majority is a tiny ideological minority — a recipe for electoral failure.  

Yet Democrats keep doubling down on their most extreme positions, even to the point of fighting against stronger immigration enforcement and promoting transgenderism.

Not only are liberals taking over the Democratic Party, but their liberals are also moving more and more to the left. Choosing their most leftist members, such as Ocasio-Cortez, to lead their party would be Democrats’ biggest mistake and Republicans’ biggest windfall. 

J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, “Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left” from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5225589-ocasio-cortez-democrats-mistake/

States Need Not Fund Planned Parenthood

 South Carolina shouldn’t have to bankroll Planned Parenthood. Instead, it and all states should be able to send their Medicaid dollars where they think best—even if that means excluding providers that profit from abortion and peddle life-altering transition drugs to minors.

That’s the argument my firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, presented before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. We represent the health care director for South Carolina against the nation’s largest abortion giant, which has long enriched itself on the taxpayer dime.

Planned Parenthood is not a real health care provider. It’s a multi-billion-dollar business that puts abortion and gender ideology over women’s health. Between 2018 and 2023, Planned Parenthood received $3.2 billion in direct public funding. That’s on top of the hundreds of millions more it receives from private donors. And since the year Roe v. Wade was reversed, it’s had a fundraising boom, amassing over $2.5 billion in net assets.

Even The New York Times recently reported that, over the last five years, “the national office has distributed more than $899 million to affiliates to help them deliver care, but none of it went directly to medical services.” Indeed, from 2022-2023, women’s preventative-care visits at Planned Parenthood fell by 31%. Since 2010, cancer screening and prevention services have declined by 71%, including a 72% drop for breast exams and 74% for pap tests.

Much of the money went instead to pro-abortion politicking, legal costs, and marketing. Meanwhile, it appears that quality of care has suffered. More women are now speaking out about incompetent staff, toxic work cultures, filthy facilities, and general harm suffered by patients at the place whose motto is “care, no matter what.”

Mayra Rodriguez worked at Planned Parenthood for 17 years and served as director of three Arizona clinics. When she proposed expanding or converting those clinics to offer more non-abortion services, her superiors repeatedly reminded her that’s not where the money is. She later raised concerns about mismanagement and unethical practices, including the misuse of federal Medicaid and Title X dollars that went toward abortions. Shortly thereafter, she was fired.

Kathy Lesnoff worked as a nurse at an abortion facility in Illinois. She recalls helping perform 40-60 abortions a day, six days a week, with only a few minutes to get a woman on the table and then quickly move her to the next room. If she did anything to slow down the “conveyor belt” (as one former Planned Parenthood nurse described it), she’d get written up, and it would go in her employment file.

As The Times reported, “employees sometimes administered expired pain medication or the wrong medications as they scrambled to move people in and out … it was not uncommon for patients to be taken to the wrong room and prepped for the wrong procedure.”

A Pennsylvania woman got her first abortion at Planned Parenthood at age 19. She described her experience of being drugged and not giving full consent. Later, an abuser forced her to get another abortion. Planned Parenthood didn’t bother asking her about the bruises all over her body or if she even wanted an abortion. It performed it on her anyway.

While abortion is Planned Parenthood’s staple, many don’t realize how active it is in gender transitions, too. Planned Parenthood is now the second-largest provider of transition drugs in the U.S. Despite the growing scientific consensus around the world that giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors is a bad idea, Planned Parenthood doles them out. They profit off the notion that vulnerable kids struggling to find comfort in their bodies should inject themselves with drugs that could leave them permanently sterilized—consigned to live as lifelong patients.

South Carolina was right to deem Planned Parenthood unqualified to receive tax dollars under its Medicaid program. But naturally, the abortion giant wants to keep the Medicaid dollars rolling. It sued in federal court, forcing the state to restore its funding through Medicaid. After several years of appeals, the Supreme Court finally agreed to take the case.

Our nation is filled with high-quality, publicly funded clinics that offer a range of excellent services. South Carolina has nearly 200. There is simply no reason the state should be forced to hand over millions of taxpayer dollars to an already cash-flush corporation that preys on women, harms children, and devotes itself to political activism. ADF is urging the high court to uphold South Carolina’s freedom to direct its resources where it deems best.

Kristen Waggoner is CEO, president, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom. 

https://www.realclearhealth.com/blog/2025/04/02/states_need_not_fund_planned_parenthood_1101537.html

Why Peter Marks Was Asked to Leave the FDA

 On Friday, Dr. Peter Marks announced his resignation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as Director of CEBR (Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research) citing differences with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kennedy regarding vaccines. The New York Times, Washington Post, and other media outlets such as STAT News breathlessly reported that “FDA’s top vaccine scientist had been pushed out.” We have been told that science is at risk. The irony of these reports is that Marks didn’t resign and is not a vaccine scientist. Dr. Marks was asked to leave and then subsequently wrote that he did not want to become “subservient to [Secretary Kennedy’s] misinformation and lies.”

Peter Marks is not a hero of the resistance but instead has been subverting the scientific process at FDA for years.

The media proclamation that Dr. Marks’ is “FDA’s top vaccine scientist” is ironic because he decided to give himself that position. Marks is a physician but has no clinical or scientific training in vaccines or immunology. Dr. Marks trained as an oncologist, a field far from the important and complex area of vaccine biology. At FDA in 2021, Dr. Marks removed top career vaccine scientists so he could force through the approval of the COVID vaccine to meet an arbitrary Biden administration deadline. He also declined to convene the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee to review his decision. These events are clearly outlined in the June 2023 House Judiciary Hearings. Marks ousted Dr. Gruber and Dr. Krause, the top scientists at the Office of Vaccine Research, due to “intransigence” of these real vaccine experts to not ram through the approval of the vaccine. Drs. Gruber and Krause had voiced concerns that they needed more time to understand the safety of the vaccine especially as it relates to inflammation of the heart, now a well known and accepted toxicity of the COVID vaccine. Marks approved the use of the vaccine in children despite the known fact that children have an extremely low risk of serious health effects of COVID-19 infection and yet a known significant increased risk of serious vaccine related toxicity.

On at least three additional, documented occasions during the Biden administration as Director of CBER, Marks disregarded the opinions and expert advice of long-time career scientists to advance his own dangerous agenda. In addition to ignoring and overruling FDA’s top vaccine scientists during the pandemic, Marks also overruled FDA career scientists and supported the approval of the Alzheimer’s drug ADUHELM; a decision later overturned. In 2023, he overruled his own staff scientists amid their concerns and those raised by an FDA Advisory Board to grant approval of ELEVIDYS, a gene treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Furthermore, in 2024 Marks expanded the approval of ELEVIDYS despite FDA staff objections and without FDA Advisory Committee input.

As tragic evidence of Marks’ failed judgement, just 2 weeks ago, the company that markets the therapy ELEVIDYS announced that a treated patient died of fulminant liver failure. Marks overruled his own career staff and experts to drive through a risky and unproven therapy that has now killed a patient. This tragedy should not have happened. After the initial FDA approval, the company conducted a subsequent trial which failed to meet the primary efficacy endpoint. On top of that, ELEVIDYS has proven toxicity including liver failure (22% of patients) and increase in serious adverse events. Despite the lack of proven efficacy and the concerning toxicity profile, Dr. Marks rammed through the initial ELEVIDYS approval and the full approval in June of 2024 against the counsel of his staff and the expert panel. While advocates point to the need for new therapies in severe debilitating diseases such as DMD, giving patients and families hope on a toxic therapy that does not provide a clinical benefit rises beyond simple incompetence. A patient died needlessly, and others have been harmed due to this incompetence.

Dr. Marks also failed to protect public health when he overruled career FDA scientists and supported the approval of the Alzheimer’s treatment AUDHELM, a controversial approval that was subsequently overturned. ADUHELM was approved in June 2021 despite strident objections from FDA staff and against the recommendations of an Advisory Board. In fact, two prominent members of that advisory board resigned in protest of the decision. These members cited a lack of clear efficacy and the risk of serious toxicity including brain swelling and bleeding that can be life threatening. These events led to a congressional investigation which found that FDA had “unusually close” interactions with Biogen, the AUDHELM sponsor and applicant. In January 2024, Biogen decided to remove ADUHELM from the market after confirmatory trials failed to show patient benefit. So, Dr. Marks again supported a dangerous and ineffective therapy that cruelly gave patients hope and provided nothing but risk and cost to Americans.

Both the ADUHELM initial approval and the ELEVIDYS approvals demonstrate that ignoring basic tenants of the use and interpretation of clinical trial data can be very damaging to public health. By ignoring these well-tested tenants of FDA review and approval, Marks endangered patients, gave false hope to those in desperate need and cost vast amounts of money that our health case system can ill afford. It cannot be overstated how destructive this practice is to drug development. This uneven application of basic clinical trial data interpretation calls into question the impartiality and credibility of the FDA. This is particularly relevant now as a patient who otherwise could have lived many more years died from an expected toxicity. And we have yet to fully determine the harm caused by Dr. Marks decision to remove the most experienced and trusted vaccine scientists that simply wanted more time to understand the, now proven, risks of the COVID vaccine.

While Dr. Peter Marks may try to claim differences with Secretary Kennedy on vaccines and the legacy media try to paint Marks as the FDA hero, the real reason he was terminated is that he made bad decisions that were contrary to FDA long-standing policies and which ran counter to the evaluations of professional career staff at FDA. Thanks to Dr. Marks’ terrible decisions, we are left with a drug that has no proven benefit and that just killed a young patient, a vaccine that is not completely safe is being administered to children that have no significant risk of harm from the underlying infection, and an overburdened healthcare system that had to pay billions for another unproven, harmful therapy. Advocates for Dr. Marks claim that he has acted to help patients with life-threatening conditions which have no alternative treatments. But in reality, he catered to industry and hurt patients. Of course, we should strive to advance safe and effective therapies for such conditions, but we should not approve ineffective and dangerous therapies simply to put something out on the market.  Unfortunately, Dr. Marks has repeatedly disregarded long-held FDA policy that is in place to protect patients. That is malpractice not heroism.

George F. Tidmarsh, MD, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor, Pediatrics and Neonatology.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2025/04/01/follow_the_science_why_peter_marks_was_asked_to_leave_the_fda_1101329.html

Ex-Biden aide Ron Klain was alarmed by ‘out of it’ prez ahead of disaster debate: book

 Ron Klain, a longtime aide to former President Joe Biden known for his intense loyalty, is insisting he “never doubted” Biden’s mental fitness — as a new book describes Klain’s distress ahead of Biden’s dismal June 2024 debate against Donald Trump.

In “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” author Chris Whipple writes that Klain viewed Biden, then 81, as “out of it” and even “half-seriously” worried that Biden thought he was “president of NATO.”

“I never doubted the president’s mental acuity,” Klain told The Post Wednesday after a report on Whipple’s book was published by the Guardian.

“He had become singularly focused on foreign policy and detached from Democratic allies in the pursuit of GOP support on Ukraine and Israel,” Klain said of his impressions of the 46th president.

“He thought that being a great foreign policy president was enough.”

Klain viewed Biden as “out of it,” according to a new book on the 46th president’s decline.AP

Biden shocked a worldwide audience with his performance in the debate, appearing vacuous and struggling to make coherent points — even saying at one point that he “finally beat Medicare.”

Although Biden and his allies blamed illness for the weak performance, fellow Democrats forced him to end his campaign for re-election weeks later over concern about his perceived cognitive decline — setting the stage for then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful substitute candidacy.

Whipple writes that Klain, Biden’s White House chief of staff from 2021 to 2023, was “startled” when he arrived at Camp David to help with debate prep.

“He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it,” the author relates.

Klain was apparently alarmed by Biden’s behavior ahead of the first debate.AFP via Getty Images

“We sat around the table,” Klain told Whipple, who is an authority on White House dynamics and best known for his 2017 book “The Gatekeepers” about the role of the chief of staff.

“[Biden] had answers on cards, and he was just extremely exhausted,” Klain said.

“And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders.”

Klain, Whipple writes, “wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the US.”

He just became very enraptured with being the head of NATO,” Klain said. “Domestic political leaders don’t really care what [French President Emmanuel] Macron and [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz think.”

“Uncharted” hits bookstores April 8.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/02/us-news/ex-biden-aide-ron-klain-was-alarmed-by-out-of-it-prez-ahead-of-disaster-debate-book-says/

Putin Envoy Visits Washington For Talks In First Since 2022 Ukraine Invasion

 Earlier this week the Kremlin said it has given the Trump White House formal notification and evidence showing that Ukraine has continued attacking Russian energy sites, despite the US-backed agreement for each side to refrain from hitting this infrastructure.

On Wednesday Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that so far there's been no response from the Trump administration. "So far, there has been no reaction to such actions by the Kiev regime," Peskov said.

Previously Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described that a list of violations had been handed over to US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Russia’s representatives in the UN and the OSCE, "so that they in their work would present concrete facts demonstrating what the word of the Ukrainian authorities is worth," according to TASS.

Kirill Dmitriev (right) is in Washington this week. Getty Images

But Ukraine has said it has done the same thing, as both sides have lately accused the other of violating the partial ceasefire. "We have passed on all the necessary information about Russian violations in the energy sector," President Zelensky said in a Tuesday evening address.

He has called on Washington to strengthen sanctions on Russia, and as of Thursday the US Treasury has issued some further anti-Russia sanctions on its website.

"I believe we have come to the point of increasing the sanctions impact, because I believe that the Russians are violating what they have promised America. At least what America has told us, and publicly," Zelensky said.

This week for the first time a top Russian negotiator and Putin representative will meet with Trump official Steve Witkoff in Washington. The US has temporarily waved sanctions on the Russian official in order to grant him a visa for the visit.

"His visit will mark the first time a senior Russian official has visited Washington, DC, for talks since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and marks a further step in the marked warming in relations between the two countries since President Donald Trump returned to office in January," CNN writes.

Kirill Dmitriev is a "close adviser to Putin and traveled with top Russian officials to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in February to start discussing a settlement for the end of the war in Ukraine," the report notes. "He also worked with Witkoff to free American teacher Marc Fogel from Russia, which the Trump administration hailed as a goodwill gesture."

As for where overall negotiations to end the war in Ukraine stand, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Tuesday that current US proposals on ending the war can't be accepted in their current form.

He complained they don't address the "root causes" and that Kiev doesn't appear ready to get serious about pursuing peace.

“What we have today is an effort to find a framework that would make it possible to ensure America’s vision for a ceasefire. The idea is to then move on to some other models and frameworks, which, as far as we can see, leave no room for Russia’s core demand, that is, the need to resolve the issues stemming from the root causes of this conflict,” he said, as quoted in TASS.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-envoy-visits-washington-talks-first-2022-ukraine-invasion

China Restricts Local Firms From Investing In US As Trump's Reciprocal Tariffs D-Day Arrives

 Hours before President Trump is set to announce reciprocal tariffs—threatening to unleash a global trade war on what he has called "Liberation Day"—the Chinese Communist Party is already preparing a financial counteroffensive. 

Bloomberg cites people familiar with the matter who say Beijing plans to restrict local companies from investing in the United States. This move would give the world's second-largest economy more economic leverage in trade negotiations as Sino-U.S. tensions deteriorate.

Here's more from the report:

Several branches of China's top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, have been instructed in recent weeks to hold off on registration and approval for firms that are looking to invest in the U.S., the people said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues.

. . .

There's no sign that existing commitments by Chinese companies in the U.S. and elsewhere, or China's purchases and holdings of financial products including U.S. Treasuries, would be affected, the people said. It's unclear what prompted the NDRC to halt the processing of applications or how long this suspension might last.

The economic decoupling between the U.S. and China continues to accelerate, driven by trade wars and President Trump, who believes, as he said over the weekend to NBC: "The world has been ripping off the United States for the last 40 years and more ... and all we're doing is being fair."

Source Bloomberg

Trump's planned reciprocal tariffs and China's reported move to restrict outbound investment from local companies into the U.S. signals a new phase of superpower decoupling. This decoupling has been happening across multiple areas:

• Technology 

• Capital Flows

• Trade  

Goldman analyst Chloe Garber commented on the BBG report, noting:

BBG reported this morning that China has taken steps to restrict local companies from investing in the U.S. ahead of new tariffs, people familiar said. Several branches of China's top economic planning agency have been instructed in recent weeks to hold off on registration and approval for such firms. Simply put – there are a lot of unknowns here still and mkts hate the uncertainty.

With just hours to go before Trump's "Liberation Day" announcement—expected around 4 p.m.—here's everything you need to know to stay on top of the tariff news cycle (read: here).

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-restricts-local-firms-investing-us-trumps-reciprocal-tariffs-d-day-arrives