Apollo's Torsten Slok Unveils Timeline For Trade War Fallout

  What works for business (The Art of the Deal), if you exclude bankruptcies, may not work so nicely for international relations. Countries are not rational players on a board game. 

  Likewise, it is unlikely that Russia, China, India and other countries have not carefully studied the Trump strategy and how it is applied to trade and other relations. Are these countries likely to react emotionally? Very unlikely to say the least. So in the end, the contest will be to know who can stand the longest with his head under water. Disruption it shall be? Fine. Only US corporations are subject to quarterly reports although the damage, when the dust settles will probably be widespread. 2025, was in any case going to be chaotic. Trump is planning to make it epic and "interesting"!

Apollo's Torsten Slok Unveils Timeline For Trade War Fallout

The first wave of the trade downturn is already affecting the U.S. West Coast, with the Port of Los Angeles experiencing a sharp decline in containerized imports from Asia, following months of elevated frontloading by U.S. importers. 

For those tracking trade developments in recent weeks, this freight downturn was entirely predictable:

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• First Tariff Shock Set To Hit Port Of Los Angeles, With Ripple Effects Across The Broader Economy

• Trade War Shock Looms For Port Of Los Angeles As Goldman Identifies Most-Impacted Products

• Imported High-Volume Staple Goods From China Are About To Dry Up

Last month, Chinese manufacturers shut down production lines, and exporters suspended shipments to the U.S. in response to President Trump's 145% tariff trade wall. The one-month delay in the U.S. economic impact reflects the time it takes cargo ships to sail China-US West Coast shipping lanes.

The latest scheduled import volume data from Port Optimizer, a tracking system for vessel operators, shows that the economic impact of the tariffs on Chinese goods has already begun to take effect. 

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, laid out a presentation for clients of what to expect in the weeks ahead:

The consequence will be empty shelves in U.S. stores in a few weeks and Covid-like shortages for consumers and for firms using Chinese products as intermediate goods.

In addition, we will soon begin to see higher inflation because there are a significant number of product categories where China is the main provider of certain goods into the U.S. market.

In May, we will begin to see significant layoffs in trucking, logistics, and retail—particularly in small businesses such as your independent toy store, your independent hardware store, and your independent men's clothing store. With 9 million people working in trucking-related jobs and 16 million people working in the retail sector, the downside risks to the economy are significant.

In a separate note, Goldman analyst Trina Chen outlined which Chinese products are most likely to be impacted if shortages materialize over the next couple of months.

Slok's chart above illustrates that the front-loading surge in imports ended abruptly just ahead of President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs. The sharp drop in containerized volumes from China came off previously elevated levels. More or less, this was a natural lull that developed and quickly reversed due to tariffs. 

The consequences of the tariffs could lead to Covid-like shortages of high-volume staples from China once warehouse inventories run dry. However, no retailer will allow shelves to go empty—they'll be forced to reorder at higher costs and pass those increases on to consumers. That's why inflation could see a resurgence. Still, this may take months—possibly a full quarter—to fully unfold, by which point a broader U.S. economic downturn may already be in motion.

 

European Union Continues Sabotaging Trump's Ukraine Peace Efforts

   Europe has no real army and consequently doesn't or rather cannot understand that "they" more than Ukraine, have lost the war. By cutting themselves from cheap natural resources from Russia, they are on the verge of doubling down and losing the economic war too. 

  And for what purpose? To stop the illusory onslaught of Russia over Europe? 

  So after saving a planet that doesn't need to be saved from global warming, the Europeans will also save a continent that likewise doesn't need to be saved from Russia which has no interest whatsoever to conquer a sinking economic titanic. 

  It is hard to differentiate between stupidity and fanaticism. Are there really no sane Europeans left to stop these Don Quixotes from fighting the wrong wars?

  Europe needs to wake up and reinvent an economic model that works. They need financial and digital independence from America, natural resources from Russia and cooperation with BRICS. Short of this, the economic decline will accelerate and fanaticism will increase. 

European Union Continues Sabotaging Trump's Ukraine Peace Efforts

The European Union at this point seems much more open about its willingness to sabotage Trump efforts toward achieving peace in Ukraine. 

The EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas has told the Financial Times in a fresh interview this week that the bloc will not recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea under any circumstances. Really, this should be the most obvious and 'easiest' concession to make, but alas Brussels is saying no!

Kaja Kallas, via European Parliament 

The White House is seeking to pressure the Zelensky government to get to the negotiating table fast, and the quickest and easiest concession would be expected to center on letting go of Crimea, which Moscow declared part of the Russian Federation after a 2014 popular referendum.

"I can’t see that we are accepting these kind of things. But we can’t speak for America, of course, and what they will do," Kallas said. "On the European side, we have said this over and over again... Crimea is Ukraine."

"There are tools in the Americans’ hands that they can use to put the pressure on Russia to really stop this war," Kallas continued. "President Trump has said that he wants the killing to stop. He should put the pressure on the one who is doing the killing."

This has basically been the Ukrainian government's position all along as well. For this reason, she said Brussels and other European capitals are still focused on "working with the Americans and trying to convince them why the outcome of this war is also in their interest, that Russia doesn’t really get everything that it wants." But again, Crimea should be the easiest issue.

On the question of the scenario where Washington successfully resets relations with Moscow and eventually withdraws arms and intelligence support for Kiev, she said:

"It is clear that these types of discussions are going on in certain member states and maybe hopes that we don’t really have to support [Ukraine] any more," said Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister. "But it’s also a false hope, because if you look at Russia, that is investing more than 9 per cent of its GDP on the military, they will want to use it again."

Currently the US is reportedly seeking to convince Kiev and Europe of a de jure recognition of Russia's control over Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian areas of control in eastern Ukraine, based on a 'freeze' of battle lines.

Trump presidential special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told Fox News this week that Ukraine is ready to make territorial concessions, but wouldn't consider any ceded territory as a permanent situation. 

"Not de jure forever, but de facto, because the Russians actually occupy that and they've agreed to that. They know that if they have a ceasefire in place, which means you sit on the ground that you currently hold, that's what they're willing to go to," Kellog said. "You have your line set, and they're willing to go there," Kellogg emphasized. 

But it's clear the Kremlin sees this as an issue of sovereignty and permanence, given President Putin has described the four annexed territories and Crimea as "ours forever".

Zelensky has lately reiterated to reporters on the question of giving up Crimea, "There is nothing to talk about. This violates our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine."

This was after late last month Vice President JD Vance made clear, "We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process."

"The only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing and to get on with the business of actually building a better Russia and a better Ukraine," he said in April while traveling overseas to Asia.

It goes without saying that freezing the war now would certainly give Russian forces a huge advantage, given the immense territory in the East they now hold - and this seem precisely what Kiev and Europe are unwilling to accept.

Pakistan Warns Of 'Act Of War' After India Cancels Landmark Water Treaty

   Think nothing else could go wrong in these troubled times? Well, think again! 

  After, Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and Taiwan, now comes the Indo-Pakistani Kashmir tensions. Simmering for over 50 years with lows and highs, the tensions have always been there on this contentious frontier.

   In quieter times, the ethnic and religious dissensions are absorbed and like low level tremors hardly generate wavelets. These are not quiet times and therefore we get a tsunami of over reactions. The cancelling of the water treaty by India is indeed an act of war. But then again the Indian government cannot be seen as doing nothing.  Which is of course is what the terrorists expected. To be continued...

  Want to know more about the subject? You should watch the superb movie "Padmavati"!

  I said 50 years of tensions, I should have said 500!

Pakistan Warns Of 'Act Of War' After India Cancels Landmark Water Treaty

India is retaliating against Pakistan in major ways as tensions soar in the wake of the Tuesday terrorist attack on Indian-Controlled Kashmir, which killed 26 tourists in the picturesque region.

Not only has India closed its border to Pakistan, declaring that no visas will be given to Pakistanis, but the Indian government has downgraded its diplomatic ties with Islamabad and suspended a crucial water treaty. Pakistani visa holders in India have also been ordered leave the country within 48 hours.

The water issue will could impact hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the border, as the 1960 Indus Water Treaty delineates how water is distributed and used from six rivers that flow through both countries, starting in disputed regions of the Himalayas in the north.

Business Today: 80% of Pakistan’s cultivated land—about 16 million hectares—relies on water from the Indus system.

The decision was made in a meeting chaired by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who cut short a trip to Saudi Arabia. All Pakistan military advisers who were previously cooperating with their Indian counterparts have also been given a week to leave.

During the terror attack on the tourist destination in the Baisaran Valley men were separated from women and children by armed militants which had descended on the area. The men, all civilians, were then asked their names before being executed at close range. 

This apparently was to confirm that they were Hindus. India has alleged that this was a Pakistan-backed massacre conducted by Islamic extremists due to the sectarian nature of the attack. Islamabad has long been accused of harboring Islamic terror groups along the disputed Jammu and Kashmir border region.

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri specifically charged Wednesday press conference that "cross-border linkages of the terrorist act" had been "brought out" - in a clear reference to Pakistan. Authorities have identified that 25 victims were Indian, and one a Nepali citizen. 

Pakistan has firmly rejected it had anything to do with the massacre, instead saying that terrorism in India was "homegrown". Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said "This is the result of a Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] government exploiting and killing religious minorities, including Christians and Buddhists," He described to a Pakistan news service this was the result of "homegrown rebels." 

Accounts by the women survivors, graphic images of their husbands slain:

Pakistan is taking reciprocal measures:

Pakistan on Thursday also announced the closure of its airspace to India; suspended all trade with the country; suspended with immediate effect all visas issued to Indian nationals under an exemption scheme; reduced to 30 the number of diplomats in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad; and asked Indian defense, naval and air advisers to leave Pakistan before April 30.

India's attempts to link the attack with Pakistan are "frivolous, devoid of rationality and defeat logic," Islamabad said, describing India's sweeping diplomatic measures as "unilateral, unjust, politically motivated, extremely irresponsible and devoid of legal merit."

The two rival nuclear-armed powers have fought no less than three wars over the status of the Muslim-majority Kashmir region, given both sides claim it in its entirety - going back to 1947. 

As for India's cancelation of the landmark water treaty, Pakistan on Thursday is warning that India is committing an "act of war".

Source: Shanker IAS Parliament

Pakistan's National Security Committee has declared that if India moves forward with suspending the Indus Water Treaty, which was carefully mediated by the World Bank, it "will be considered as an Act of War."

A relatively unknown group calling itself The Resistance Front claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media post. It blamed "outsiders" who settled the region and caused a "demographic change" - strongly suggesting the terror attack was tied to Indian claims over the disputed region. Indian military and police units are still searching for the suspects, and sketch artists have issued renderings of the attackers based on survivors' accounts.

The early days of AI ressemble amazingly the beginning of the Internet

  Remember the early days of the Internet in the 1990s? These were exhilarating days. You could talk about anything with anybody. That was then. Now we are flooded with disinformation, misinformation and all the censorship that goes with it. All in order to curtail the Neo-nazis, peadophiles, racists, misogenistics people (and you of course, you wouldn't support these people, would you?) that clutter the net. 

  Now 30 years later, here comes the AIs and their unrestrained "comments". I was recently discussing the evidences of Austronesian influences on Okinawa and Kyushu in the South of Japan on DeepSeek and soon enough, the AI was struck with: "This response is AI-generated, for reference only." And the following answer disappeared literally as I was reading it. I informed the AI and asked it to rewrite its answer to bypass the censorship, which it did with a wink. 

  You would think: "Well, it's DeepSeek, China, what did you expect?" And sure enough. China, well... Except that earlier, almost the exact same thing happened to me with ChatGPT discussing... quantum physics! Here your eyebrows would rise, wondering what exactly could be wrong with a ChatGPT answer in quantum physics? Well, a lot actually!

  If you discuss long enough with a AI, slowly the AI starts mimicking your style and thinking patterns and if like me you have a rather rebellious mind asking questions you should not ask, sooner than later, you will be cancelled, or rather your AI will be cancelled (like for DeepSeek) or you will be downgraded to a weaker AI as happened to me with ChatGPT.  (So one day, you are talking to a brilliant and sharp AI and suddenly a civil servant from the ministry of truth AI is answering you. It feels like a betrayal more than a downgrade!)

  This unfortunately is the future of AI. You think that in a year or two, you will have access to AGI and ASI? Well, think again! These AI by their nature will be restricted. How could it be otherwise? When you understand that our reality is fully constructed (Exactly as the movie Matrix explained except that the puppet masters are definitively not aliens!) then quickly, you will understand that any high level AI is a window on reality. If you ask the right questions then you will get the right answers. Think this is acceptable? Well, that would be the hallmark of innocence or stupidity. The people who control the system are neither innocent nor stupid. If they haven't yet realized the risks (which I doubt) quickly they will figure out the danger.  Still believe you will get unrestricted access to advanced AI? Well, hope is eternal, isn't it? 

$10T Money Print! Fed’s New Plan Will Dwarf Bernanke Era

　If you are paying attention, you will know that we are approaching the "end game".  Nobody knows what it's going to look like but for most people, it will come as a shock: The end of the world as they understand it. The end of a paradigm. 

   Money has been debased. This is not the first time in history, far from it. Sometimes it marked the end of empires, sometimes, just a reset. This one will be different just for the sheer size of it. Trillions will be vaporized into thin air. On the other hand, because the world economy is now so vast, short of a general nuclear conflagration, mankind should be just fine and recover quickly. 

  As a "money" specialist, I do not believe in gold as a magic bullet. It certainly was at the time of the Lydian empire and king Croesus but times have changed, complexity and scale demand a wider and more sophisticated tool. A basket of commodities could do the trick. (Although AI may come up with a better idea...) Gold will be part of it and should therefore be revalued but only to the extend that fiduciary moneys have been devalued, and that could be a lot indeed!

$10T Money Print! Fed’s New Plan Will Dwarf Bernanke Era

“Gold is a seat in a lifeboat,” warns Lawrence Lepard, Managing Partner at Equity Management Associates and author of The Big Print. In an interview with Daniela Cambone, Lepard says we’re staring down the next—and biggest—monetary flood yet.

“Each time it gets bigger,” he says. “Bernanke printed $2–3 trillion in three or four years. Powell? $5 trillion in 18 months. This time—it’s going to be $7 to $10 trillion.”

But it’s not just the size of the bailout that’s alarming—it’s the pace. And Lepard doesn’t believe this ends with another round of pain and paper promises. “What I’m advocating for is a one-time reset,” he says, “a return to sound money. A gold-backed currency.”

His outlook? A hard pivot away from fiat. A revaluation of gold. And possibly a price explosion. “$5,000 gold? Easily,” Lepard says. “Maybe this year.”

This isn’t your typical recession cycle. This is the endgame.

Container Orders Plummet by half in early April 2025

   Should we quote Sun Tzu again: "Strategy without tactic is the longest road to victory. Tactic without strategy is the noise before defeat!" Here we have a subtle mix of both. Outrageous demand to finally settle on an advantageous agreement, may be "The Art of the Deal" but in international politics the law of unforeseen consequences will strike long before the expected favourable results are a reality. 

  The fact is that the US will find it extremely difficult to refinance its maturing debt of close to 10 trillion dollars by the end of 2025 at the current interest rates. These rates must therefore come down. But how do you do that short of a massive recession? Well, Europe is already in a recession. Growth in China likewise is rather anaemic. As for the US, they will enter a recession when the FED says that they are in a recession which usually is 6 to 9 months after the numbers have turned south. So whatever happens before the end of the year, and a lot will happen, no doubts about it, the US should announce that the economy is shrinking by Summer and at the vary latest early Fall. But by then, let's hope we're not in a depression!

Bessent says he expects ‘de-escalation’ in U.S.-China tariff fight in the ‘very near future’:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told investors in a closed-door meeting Tuesday he expects “there will be a de-escalation” in President Donald Trump’s trade war with China in the “very near future,” a person in the room told CNBC.

“No one thinks the current status quo is sustainable” with tariff rates at their current levels, Bessent said at a private investor summit in Washington, D.C., hosted by JPMorgan Chase.

Via: Daniel Lacalle:

Global container booking volumes fell by 49% between the last week of March and the first week of April 2025, according to Freight Waves. Imports from China to the United States collapsed by 64%, with imports of apparel and textiles declining by a whopping 59% and 57%, respectively. The figures coming from shipping companies are worse than those seen during the Covid-19 crisis.

These alarming figures suggest that importers are unwilling to accept higher prices in the middle of a tariff war, that exporters cannot simply choose to move their products elsewhere easily, and that the excess capacity in many sectors is much larger than initially expected.

No one wants to accept the cost of tariffs, and this means that the only option for the economies with elevated productive overcapacity is to negotiate a trade deal, and quickly, or face an economic depression.

How Junk Food Took Hold In The US And What RFK Jr. Is Doing About It

   Junk food as explained below did not appear by accident. It was designed over decades for being addictive and generate maximum profits. If was also the result of dereliction of office by politicians, more commonly called "corruption" but officially called "lobbying" in the US and at the European Commission. 

  America, or rather RFK Jr. seems to want to do something about it, but let's also understand that the task will be complex. It will go against the interest of large corporations and the skewed tastes of millions of people. It took decades to get where we are now,  and it will probably take just as long to revert the trend. (Provided it is still possible!)

Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times,

“It’s not food. It’s food-like substances.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the many manufactured food products offered that are high in calories but low in nutritional value.

“So, strawberry flavoring in food, but there’s no nutrients. It’s sugar.” Kennedy said. “Your body is craving that, but it doesn’t get filled up. It doesn’t give you nutrition, but you want to eat more.”

Kennedy, a longtime health advocate, has championed President Donald Trump’s call for “fresh thinking on nutrition” as part of the Make America Healthy Again initiative. The secretary spoke in Indianapolis on April 15 in support of Gov. Mike Braun’s announcement of nine health-related executive orders.

Kennedy has urged states to prohibit the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds to purchase certain foods with high sugar content but little nutritional value.

SNAP, colloquially known as food stamps, is a federal program administered by the states that helps nearly 42 million low-income Americans pay for food.

To change the list of foods eligible for purchase with SNAP funds, states must request a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). A handful of states, including Indiana, are doing that.

Advocates call this a commonsense way to promote better food choices.

Some critics say the initiative amounts to virtue signaling, a symbolic action unlikely to produce any positive effect.

Kennedy hopes it will fuel a movement toward healthier food consumption that will reverse the growing prevalence of obesity among Americans.

Junk Food Origins

Kennedy and others have blamed the glut of tasty but vacuous foods on big tobacco companies, which entered the food industry more than 60 years ago.

In the 1960s, R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, then the largest tobacco brands, began developing children’s beverages including Hawaiian Punch, Kool-Aid, Capri Sun, and Tang, according to a report from The BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal.

“Tobacco executives transferred their knowledge of marketing to young people and expanded product lines using colours, flavours, and marketing strategies originally designed to market cigarettes,” a team of researchers reported.

Vuse e-cigarette packages are displayed at Cigar N Vape in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Oct. 13, 2021. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the sale of R.J. Reynolds' Vuse Solo e-cigarette and its tobacco-flavored cartridges the prior day, saying data show the product may reduce smokers’ exposure to harmful chemicals found in traditional cigarettes. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

In May 1962, R.J. Reynolds’ director of research reported the status of product development in an internal memo.

The director described the result of taste tests for flavored drinks conducted with children in the same report detailing the addition of artificial flavoring to chewing tobacco and cane sugar to cigarettes.

R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris eventually went deeper into the food business, owning major brands Kraft, General Foods, and Nabisco for several years starting in the 1980s. There, they applied some of the same strategies to manufacturing other foods people find irresistible.

Researchers at the University of Kansas found that food companies owned by tobacco companies were much more likely than others to market “hyper-palatable” food products.

Hyper-palatable foods contain more of the things that make food taste good, such as fat, sugar, sodium, or carbohydrates, according to Tera Fazzino, an author of the Kansas study and associate director of the university’s Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment.

These foods also have fewer of the nutrients that make us feel satisfied, Fazzino said in a 2023 interview. “As a result, hyper-palatable foods can be difficult to stop eating, even when we physically feel full.”

The researchers concluded, “Tobacco companies appear to have selectively disseminated hyper-palatable foods into the U.S. food system between 1988 and 2001.”

That triggered an industry wide shift, the researchers said. By 2018, foods high in fat, sodium, and carbohydrates had long been widely marketed regardless of whether or not the producers were previously owned by a tobacco company.

The result, according to Kennedy, is an obesity crisis that threatens the health and safety of all Americans.

Boxes of sugary cereal fill a store's shelves in Miami on April 16, 2025. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that many manufactured food products are high in calories but low in nutritional value. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

“We have people who are obese who are at the same time malnourished, because the food that we’re eating is not nutrient-dense anymore,” Kennedy said. “It is threatening our national security: 74 percent of our kids cannot qualify for military service.”

Nearly 70 percent of American adults are either overweight or obese, according to a 2023 report by the federal government. Obesity rates have tripled over the last 60 years, while severe obesity has increased by a factor of 10.

Americans are not alone in this. More than 60 percent of Europeans are either obese or overweight, according to data reported by the National Institutes of Health. Worldwide, the prevalence of obesity has risen for decades.

States Respond

Indiana and Arkansas became the first states to submit waiver requests to the USDA, asking to exclude soda and candy from SNAP purchases. Both sent their requests on April 15.

Several other states have announced their intention to seek a waiver, and some are considering legislation to that effect.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen sent a letter to the Department of Agriculture on April 7 saying that the state intends to request a waiver on soda and energy drinks.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a law on April 15 requiring the director of the state Department of Health and Welfare to request a waiver on soda and candy.

State representatives in Tennessee passed a similar bill on March 11, and the Iowa House passed one on March 26. Neither state’s senate has yet acted on the legislation.

Other states have failed to pass or have rejected legislation that mandates a waiver request.

Cans of Monster Beverage Corporation energy drinks fill a store's shelves in Miami on April 16, 2025. Sweetened beverages—including energy drinks, juices, and powder mixes—account for about 9 percent of SNAP food stamps spending. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A West Virginia bill has been stalled in a House committee since Feb. 19. A Missouri bill failed in the state’s House of Representatives on April 8. A Montana bill passed in the state Senate but was shelved by the House Committee on Human Resources on April 9.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on April 15 vetoed a bill directing her state’s Department of Economic Security to request a waiver. However, Hobbs signed a bill prohibiting “ultra-processed” foods in school lunches.

Support, Skepticism

Advocates of a SNAP ban on soda and candy, including some health professionals, see the policy as reasonable, even obvious.

“I think it just makes wise nutritional sense, business sense, common sense,” Christy Hope, an Indiana social worker, told The Epoch Times. 

Hope has worked in an outpatient pediatric clinic as well as in a Medicaid office conducting eligibility screening.

“The benefits are intended to cover nutritional items,” she said.

SNAP benefits already exclude foods served hot at the point of sale, alcoholic beverages, vitamins, food supplements, cleaning supplies, cosmetics, and personal hygiene products.

Nutrition and policy experts broadly agree that limiting consumption of high-calorie, low-nutrition foods is a worthy goal.

“I can see the hope to shift [people] away from foods that are ... ultra-processed, empty calories toward healthier options,” Bisakha Sen, a professor of health policy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told The Epoch Times. “I think there’s actually some unity on both sides of the political aisle on this.”

Yet she and others doubt the practical value of excluding soda and candy from SNAP purchases, especially when many already struggle to find low-cost food options.

“If we start making a list of [foods] which are good for people and which are not, it will be a huge list,” Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, chair of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University, told The Epoch Times. “It is not practical.”

Dhurandher likened a grocery store to a vast buffet. “If you remove one [sugary] food, there is some other food that’s going to take its place. I call that digging a hole in water.”

Richard Kahn, an adjunct professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina Medical School, says the SNAP exclusions amount to a “cheap, easy way to blame the other guy.”

According to Kahn, the idea that taxpayers will no longer subsidize the purchase of sugary foods is mistaken. “They’re [still] paying for sugar-sweetened beverages because we subsidize the agriculture industry,” he said.

A sign alerting customers about SNAP food stamps benefits is displayed in a grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Dec. 5, 2019. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has urged states to ban the use of SNAP funds for foods with high sugar content but little nutritional value, in efforts to promote healthier food consumption and reverse rising obesity rates among Americans. Scott Heins/Getty Images

Alternatives

Many nutrition and policy experts favor a holistic, all-of-society approach rather than one that targets behavior in just one group of people.

Some have suggested a tax on soda to discourage consumption. Others mentioned improving the nutritional value of school lunches. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has suggested banning television ads for unhealthful foods targeting children.

Nana Gletsu Miller, an associate professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health, favors education over behavioral mandates.

“Based on the evidence for the effectiveness of nutrition education and the lack of evidence for the effectiveness of restriction of food choice, I suggest the former would be a better approach,” Gletsu Miller told The Epoch Times.

A deeper problem is the lack of affordable, nutritious food, according to Dr. Tamara S. Hannon, a professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and director of its clinical diabetes program.

“It is the sale of health-harming products at a very low price without affordable and convenient options that is problematic. This policy does not address this issue,” Hannon told The Epoch Times.

Kennedy acknowledges that the broader health care landscape can work against healthy outcomes, yet he believes that can change.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a news conference at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington on April 16, 2025. Alex Wong/Getty Images

“We can realign medical choices, both individual and institutional medical choices, with public health,” Kennedy told The Epoch Times at the Indianapolis press conference, adding that right now, “it’s totally misaligned.”

Achieving that will require a concerted effort at the federal, state, and local levels, Kennedy said.

“We can’t do this alone, but we’re getting tremendous help from the governors, from the grassroots,” Kennedy said.

“What’s happening here [in Indiana] is driving this movement, and it’s going to drive cultural change.”

How Fragile Is The US Economy?

   Superb article on complex systems and how little we understand and can manipulate them. This includes the Earth biosphere, the human body and here, the economy with a deep dive into the laws of unforeseen consequences below. Fascinating! 

  The next domain of this enquiry is of course Artificial Intelligence which is fast approaching AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) or more commonly, human intelligence and will soon after morph into ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). Whoever tells you that it is all under control has very little clue about the complexity of the systems!

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. economy is complex. So is the global economy. They are not just complicated but complex, and there is a difference. 

Complications can be studied, understood, and possibly managed with systems of intelligence.

Complex systems evade that. There are too many moving pieces, uncertainties about the weight of causal factors, unanticipated secondary effects, the presence of relentless change, plus myriad exigencies of human choice.

Economics as a science and profession prefers to deal with solvable complications, which is why all models frame factors into buckets of causal relationships. The favorite phrase is Ceteris Paribus: when all else is equal. It means that such and such is true provided there are no other intervening changes and factors that make it untrue. This is how economic logic works.

It is an enormously valuable science for understanding unchanging conditions. It becomes less valuable once it purports fully to understand the whole while changing factors in the mix, Attempts to manage economic life set off forces no model can anticipate. Which forces? No one can predict those either.

Think of macroeconomics as a giant Jenga puzzle with blocks built out of every economic force you can name: monetary policy, government spending, debts and deficits, consumer demand, loan markets, financial markets, national affairs, international affairs, taxes, prices, expectations, confidence, exigencies of response to changes, entrepreneurial innovation, the shifting labor force, demographics, supply chains, natural resources, cost calculations, and so much more, up to possibly infinity.

As with the game Jenga, you can pull out one piece, several, maybe many, and the structure will still stand. The reason the game is fun is that no player knows for sure which pull of a block will send the whole thing tumbling all over the table. Everyone screams in amazement that it stood this long, and no one can explain for sure precisely why this one last move caused the collapse.

Perhaps that is not a satisfying way to think. Intellectuals don’t like to imagine there is some system outside of their understanding or control. That’s why they render every complex system as one that is merely complicated.

In 1945, F.A. Hayek wrote a piece in the American Economic Review that tried to explain this. It was called “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” It argued that too many economists assume away the very essence of the problem in need of solving:

“The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.”

He concluded: “To assume all the knowledge to be given to a single mind in the same manner in which we assume it to be given to us as the explaining economists is to assume the problem away and to disregard everything that is important and significant in the real world.”

Ouch.

This article became the most cited piece Hayek ever wrote, and one of the most often cited articles in the whole of economic literature. There was only one problem: taking it seriously would mean that most of what economics did would have to come to an end. In the intervening 80 years, not much has changed. Economics as a discipline has yet to absorb the lessons he offered.

I’m writing as many forces are colliding at once in the real world. Financial markets are terrified of an impending recession (supposing it is not here already). The new U.S. president is determined to deploy every tool to reconstruct trading relationships around the world, meaning mainly the tariff.

You can make a strong case for tariffs as a tool of revenue. There are conditions under which the tariff can operate as a tool of industrial protection, too. This is different. Tariffs bear the burden of rebuilding production processes that have unfolded over half a century.

The beef with the trading order as it existed for decades is that it depleted America’s manufacturing strength. It seemed as if China was becoming the producer to the world and not much was left for the United States, apart from the export of financial and data services plus raw materials.

In theory—and this was mapped out by the new head of the Council of Economic Advisors—the tariff could serve as a proxy for currency settlement that has eluded the world since 1973, when Nixon overthrew the gold standard.

The theory, as always, works on paper. But as with all models—perfect blueprints for navigating the Jenga tower of world economic affairs—we do well to ask what contingencies they are not foreseeing. Just how easy it will be to restore U.S. manufacturing using tariffs is highly contingent on an accurate reading of the extent to which U.S. standards of living are contingent on existing trading relationships.

No one has a clear answer on that.

That leaves financial markets guessing in a sea of uncertainty. They do not like that. As the new realities are starting to dawn—namely, the overthrow of 80 years of policy with a new plan hatched by just a handful of people—traders have become very nervous.

What exactly is the Fed’s role here? How many industries have to be bailed out given obvious sufferings? How much pain are we really willing to tolerate as we await the dawning of the new golden age?

These are hard questions. The soaring price of gold indicates a flight to safety. That’s not a vote of confidence in what is unfolding. A plan on this scale that once took the best and brightest the better part of 15 years to consider and deploy—speaking here of the Bretton Woods architecture built following World War II—is being unleashed in so many weeks, but with an even grander vision and the strong likelihood of prolonged retaliatory measures.

There is simply no possible way that every contingency has been considered here, and thus do we have this stop-and-start system of trade negotiations that looks very much like improvisation.

Looming large over all these efforts is the political timing. There are midterms. There is a presidential election in three and a half years. The last one was largely decided based on economics, the desire on the part of so many to stop the inflation and restart growth. Inflation has indeed been crushed. Not even the imposition of tariffs seems to have changed the real-time trajectory of downward prices.

How long can that last? No one knows for sure. We are in no-man’s land of policy impositions, and that stands atop great uncertainty about the implications of putting a hard stop on many decades of low-tariff or at least stable-tariff trade ambitions. We can argue about this all evening at a cocktail party, but real life doesn’t afford that luxury. This is real life now.

Again, economics is complex, meaning evasive of anyone’s full comprehension of the import of dramatic changes as pushed by a single regime. It’s for this reason in part that the default for policy bias should always be toward the old-fashioned values: balanced budgets, sound money, non-punishing taxes, and maximum freedom for enterprise. Freedom permits flexibility to adapt to change. Any other scheme open up potentially grave risks concerning the impact on people’s lives.

You can call me a worrywart, but my concerns are based on long experience and doubts about the “best laid plans.” I genuinely hope that I’ve failed to see the hidden genius underlying a global trade war. My deeper fear is that we are dealing with a beast that can bite back in ways that could ultimately be devastating long-term. We don’t know precisely what might cause this fragile system to buckle and fall.

Everything that Trump has accomplished, and it is a long and meritorious list, is at stake. If bungling the economic piece of this ends up provoking regime change, I don’t even want to contemplate the implications of the reign of left-revanchism. This is why I would counsel caution above all else in the imposition of huge plans and rather stick to the tried and true, which is more freedom above all else.

'Building 7 Controlled Demolition?': Republican Senator Plans Shock 9/11 Hearings, Says 'My Eyes Have Been Opened'

   Are we really going to reopen this can of worms?

  Of course building 7 was pulled down. Just looking at the video. it is obvious.

  But then why? Could it be because a "control" room was located inside that building?  And if there was a control room, what was it controlling? 

  The destruction of the Twin Towers? Could this explain why "rivers of liquid steel" were flowing in the basement? (According to the firemen). Why, "pilots" who could not fly a Cessna succeeded in flying jet-liners in a trajectory that the best pilots would have found difficult to execute?  (According to United Pilots). Why, the towers fell in free-fall although thick pillars should have slowed down the dynamics of the fall closer to the ground? (According to thousands of architects who requested a thorough analysis of the event but were denied).  

  And why were the investors paid twice by an insurance contracted weeks before the event? Why were fighter jets sent on errants over the Atlantic by the office of Dick Cheney instead of being directed to the high-jacked airliners? 

    The list of questions is so long and the number of coincidences so large that statistically, the thesis of a conspiracy is not only hard to avoid but actually pass the Ockam Razor test. 

  But then again, if you believe in such a terrible, in your face conspiracy, set up to implement the "War on Terror" with a well concocted plan meticulously implemented long in advance, then you may also believe that Covid-19 was indeed developed in a lab as a "gain of function" exercise and other such  conspiracies, and before long, you may realize that nothing of what you are told is really what it seems. 

  So, seriously, didn't anyone explained to this Senator that some skeletons should remain buried?

'Building 7 Controlled Demolition?': Republican Senator Plans Shock 9/11 Hearings, Says 'My Eyes Have Been Opened'

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is raising eyebrows after revealing on Benny Johnson’s conservative podcast that he’s pushing for a congressional hearing to examine the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers.

Johnson, who serves on the the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, raised questions about the World Trade Center Building 7’s collapse, saying the documentary film, Calling Out Bravo 7 has sparked “an awful lot of questions.”

Senator Ron Johnson drops BOMBSHELL:

Tells us that 9/11 Hearings are being planned, Building 7 was potentially a "Controlled Demolition"

“Structural Engineers say that thing didn't come down in any other way than controlled demolition. Molten steel. Destruction of evidence. We… pic.twitter.com/aBQzCakll7

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 21, 2025

“Well, start with Building 7,” Sen. Johnson told Johnson. “Again, I don’t know if you can find structural engineers other than the ones that have the corrupt investigations like NIST that would say that that thing didn’t come down in any other way than a controlled demolition.”

“Who ordered the removal and the destruction of all that evidence? Totally contrary to any other firefighting investigation procedures. I mean, who ordered that? Who is in charge? I think there’s some basic information. Where’s all the documentation from the NIST investigation?” the Wisconsin lawmaker continued.

“Now, there are a host of questions that I want and I will be asking, quite honestly, now that my eyes have been opened up,” he added.

BUILDING #7 FLASHES AT THE TIME OF COLLAPSE — CONTROLLED DEMOLITION ?
pic.twitter.com/NU0Na0eOVs

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) September 11, 2023

Johnson said he plans to work with former Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), who recently appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast to discuss 9/11, “to expose what he’s willing to expose.”

Rep. Curt Weldon Tried to Prevent 9-11, and The U.S. Government Shut Him Down pic.twitter.com/5vAzCT4lQJ

— Tucker Carlson Network (@TCNetwork) April 15, 2025

The senator’s comments prompted Johnson to ask: “So we may actually see hearings about this?”

“I think so,” the senator replied while referencing previous efforts to obtain unredacted FBI files on behalf of 9/11 families.

“We want to get those answers, those documents for the families,” the lawmaker replied. “Hopefully, now with this administration, we can find out what is being covered up.”

Sen. Johnson expressed optimism that the Trump administration will authorize the release of 9/11-related documents, despite prior unsuccessful efforts to declassify them.

“We want those made available in terms of what happened. What did the FBI know that happened? So we had engaged with that. It was on a bipartisan basis. We wanted to get those answers, those documents for the families,” Sen. Johnson said. “Again, we didn’t get squat from the FBI. So hopefully now with this administration, I think President Trump should have some interests being a New Yorker himself.”

“What actually happened in 9/11? What do we know? What is being covered up? My guess is there’s an awful lot being covered up in terms of what the American government knows about 9/11,” he added.

Very interesting to say the least...

(WHY) Is Europe Still Fighting Lost Energy Wars?

   With England doubling down on wind energy, it looks very much like Europe will go to the end of the world, or rather the end of prosperity to "save the planet" and fall over!

  First bad news, Europe is now insignificant concerning CO2. Even if Europe somehow completely disappeared, it would be but a dimple in the world "carbon" emissions. 

  Second bad news, Poor people hardly care about "carbon". They care only about "not being" poor! And in this respect, Europe will become poor again long before it's carbon footprint dwindle to zero. Best examples? Japan in the 1970s: THE most polluted country in the world at the time. Remember Minamata? 30 years later it was history. Likewise, China in the 2010s, some days you could hardly breathe. Now? Have you heard of pollution in China this winter? Almost completely gone. The most polluted cities are almost all in India nowadays. 

  Finally and most ominously: Does it matter? Is CO2 really a factor in the current global warming trend? Maybe, but even if that is the case, it is probably to the tune of 20 to 30%. Nothing to fret about. We're on track to equalling the temperatures of the Middle Ages' optimum, 800 years ago, after rebounding from the little Ice Age of the Bruegel paintings in the 17th century. The likelihood that the cycle is natural is overwhelming. As for the hockey Stick from the 1990s, that motivated Al Gore to private-jet around the Globe for 20 years? We're still waiting 30+ years later!  

Authored by Drieu Godefridi via The Gatestone Institute,

The news came down like a thunderbolt. In a spectacular decision, the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota, ordered the environmentalist organizations that comprise Greenpeace to pay $665 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The figure appears a monumental slap in the face to Greenpeace, which was sued by Energy Transfer for "defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts," following demonstrations against the pipeline project in 2016 and 2017.

The North Dakota jury did not pull any punches. Greenpeace was declared liable; its methods illegal and its actions harmful. Greenpeace has already announced that it will appeal.

Beyond the legal wrangling, this ruling raises the question: what if this case marks the start of a major transatlantic rift between an America defending its energy interests and a Europe mired in its green romanticism?

Let us look at the facts. 

The Dakota Access Pipeline -- a nearly 1,900-kilometer artery that carries crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale formation to Patoka, Illinois -- has been the focus of much passion. As early as 2016, Sioux and Cheyenne Indian tribes, supported by an armada of activists, celebrities and organizations including Greenpeace, denounced the project as threatening sacred tribal lands as well as water resources. Tens of thousands of signatures poured in on petitions, and protests at the construction sites paralyzed the work -- all costing Energy Transfer some $300 million in delays and extra costs.

The anger often degenerated into outright violence and large-scale vandalism, much to the annoyance of local populations, who became fed up with these crusaders who had appeared from elsewhere. Faced with this chaos, President Donald J. Trump, freshly inaugurated in 2017, issued a presidential memorandum to speed up the project, while brushing aside what he called an "incredibly cumbersome and horrific authorization process."

The pipeline became operational in May 2017. Energy Transfer nevertheless immediately decided to go on a legal offensive. According to Energy Transfer, Greenpeace had orchestrated the demonstrations, financed the disorder and spread lies about the pipeline.

The jury in Mandan, North Dakota, agreed on March 19, 2025, and ruled that Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Fund Inc. must pay combined damages of $665 million to Energy Transfer, a sum that sounds like a declaration of war on environmentalist NGOs. The days of omnipotence and de facto impunity for environmentalist NGOs were over.

Greenpeace USA is now crying that it will be forced into bankruptcy. Really? With its network of donors -- small, large and mega-large -- the NGO should be able to bounce back. The signal is clear: in the United States, no one any longer jokes with those who hinder the economy and trample on the rights of others under the guise of idealism.

Meanwhile, Europe is getting restless. Greenpeace International has invoked the European anti-SLAPP directive -- an EU initiative to protect individuals, especially journalists and activists, from abusive lawsuits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) aimed at silencing criticism or public participation, by providing safeguards like early dismissal of unfounded claims and financial protections. The anti-SLAPP directive, adopted in April 2024 by a European Union always ready to support and finance the most extremist NGOs, concretely aims to immunize these organizations against legal proceedings. Greenpeace International filed a lawsuit against Energy Transfer under the anti-SLAPP directive in the Netherlands, in February 2025.

Greenpeace related the incident to broader environmental concerns, according to its statement:

"Based in the Netherlands, Greenpeace International is citing Dutch law on torts and abuse of rights, as well as Chapter V of the EU Directive, adopted in 2024, which protects organisations based in the EU against SLAPPs outside the EU, and entitles them to compensation. The Directive, along with existing Dutch law, paves the way for GPI to pursue remedies against three entities in ET's corporate group... for the damage it has suffered and continues to suffer as a result of the SLAPP suits and related actions in the US. Greenpeace International sent Energy Transfer a Notice of Liability in July 2024, summoning it to withdraw its lawsuit in North Dakota and pay damages, or face legal action. Energy Transfer refused to do so."

Greenpeace would apparently like organizations such as itself to directly or indirectly cause hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage, while preventing any court from intervening.

The applicability of the EU anti-SLAPP directive to the judgment in question is doubtful, because:

1. The anti-SLAPP directive in question has not yet entered into force in the Netherlands.

2. It is first and foremost Greenpeace USA that has been found liable (for $400 million) for acts committed in the USA, while the EU's anti-SLAPP directive is solely related to cross-border disputes. According to Article 1 of the anti-SLAPP directive, it pertains to clearly baseless claims or exploitative legal actions in civil cases that have cross-border elements, targeting individuals or entities — known as SLAPP targets — due to their involvement in public participation. The requirement of 'cross-border implications' means that SLAPPs related solely to domestic cases are not covered by the directive.

3. Greenpeace was found liable for activities that led to violence, not for having expressed its opinion. Incitement to violence is not an opinion, and the EU anti-SLAPP directive does not cover acts of violence. Its primary focus is on protecting individuals and entities engaged in public participation from manifestly unfounded claims or abusive court proceedings in civil or commercial matters with cross-border implications.

If judges in the Netherlands nevertheless find in favor of Greenpeace International, anything is possible: such a ruling would be another slap(p) in the face to the United States. Would the Trump administration let stand a new European encroachment on US sovereignty? It looks as if the EU, through this directive, once again is trying to dictate the law on American soil. Transatlantic tensions, already fuelled by trade disputes, issues of free speech, NATO funding and the war in Ukraine, would mount further.

Beyond this legal duel, there is a clash of civilizations at play. On one side, Trump's America, driven by the mantra "drill, baby, drill" and a newfound pride in fossil fuels. Shale oil and gas, abundant and cheap, have made America the world's leading producer of hydrocarbons. The US is seeing energy independence boosted by massive exports of liquefied natural gas.

On the other side, a Europe stubbornly pursuing its Green Deal, a project as costly as it is illusory, sacrificing its competitiveness on the altar of environmentalist dogma. While in Europe, factories are closing, they are reopening in the United States. The contrast between pragmatism and ideology is striking.

What can we learn from all this? America has chosen its side: energy sovereignty, prosperity, an end to impunity for NGOs that engage in illegal activities. Greenpeace may appeal and its activists may cry "gagging prosecution," but the tide clearly seems to be turning