The August 2025 inflation report has reignited debate over tariffs. Some pundits have been quick to blame trade policy for rising prices, invoking Smoot-Hawley comparisons and warning of disaster on the scale of the Great Depression. But the data tells a different story.
As proof that no company can match China on price, Chinese producers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and the key starting materials (KSMs) used to make them are slashing prices by up to 50%. Not even low-cost India – one of the largest importers of Chinese KSMs – can compete at those levels.
Data centers powering AI need copper wiring and transformers. EVs use nearly four times more copper than gas-powered cars. Wind turbines, solar farms and the modern electric grid all depend on it. As such, copper is a building block of tomorrow’s economy and the backbone of America’s national security.
For the second time in less than two months, the CEO of a publicly traded company admitted that tariff cost burdens will not be passed down fully, if at all, to consumers. With one CEO saying tariffs were too low.
The trade deficit rose 32.5% in July and imports were up 5.9%, but much of this can be attributed to importers bulking up on orders as the full brunt of the “Liberation Day” tariffs were set to start in August.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) upped the ante on their estimate for fiscal deficit reduction last week, all due to higher tariffs that kicked into effect this month. Tariffs are offsetting tax cuts signed into law this summer in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB).
America is dangerously reliant on high-risk foreign suppliers for essential generic drugs, especially APIs concentrated in China and India. That over-reliance has already triggered preventable crises, such as nationwide chemotherapy shortages when a single overseas plant shut down.
It’s been three full months of record-high tariffs, and yet rolling 12-month overall inflation came in at 2.7% in July, the same percentage rate as June, according to last week’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) inflation report. Core inflation (CPI), which excludes food and oil, rose 3.1% in July, up from 2.9% in June.
The initial report of the CPA/PSSI China Space Security Initiative (CSSI) details how Beijing is working to penetrate and control the space sectors of more than 120 countries through hundreds of ostensibly commercial agreements, via state-controlled Chinese companies that, in effect, act as fronts for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The trade deficit fell 16% in June to a low $60.2 billion, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Tuesday, but despite a 3.7% reduction in imports, the goods deficit for the month was surprisingly resilient compared to recent years without tariffs.
