Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Thursday, April 16, 2026

China's economy grew faster than expected in the first three months of the year, even as countries around the world feel the impact of the US-Israel war with Iran. Gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 5% in the period, compared to a year earlier, according to official data. Economists had expected the figure to come it at around 4.8%. That came despite the conflict in the Middle East, which started on 28 February, severely disrupting global energy supplies, with Asian countries hit particularly hard.

More

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

Pres Trump touts the decline in imports for the US as a consequence of his tariffs.

But what he fails to note is that World Trade seems now to be bypassing the US.

And China seems to be the main beneficiary of that new routing of world trade.

#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-16 12:29 AM | Reply

@#1

World Trade Without the US
www.cato.org

... As the Trump administration imposes a barrage of illegal and unprecedented tariffs on an ever-increasing number of imported products, the rest of the world is showing that it can continue trading despite these tariffs and without the United States.

Other countries are lowering trade barriers with each other by concluding new bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements, and exporters are reconfiguring supply chains to route around American protectionism.

Regardless of whether the United States remains indispensable to the global economy, international trade is still happening -- and it is happening increasingly without the United States. ...

[emphasis mine]

#2 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-16 12:34 AM | Reply

The following HTML tags are allowed in comments: a href, b, i, p, br, ul, ol, li and blockquote. Others will be stripped out. Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

Anyone can join this site and make comments. To post this comment, you must sign it with your Drudge Retort username. If you can't remember your username or password, use the lost password form to request it.
Username:
Password:

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy

Drudge Retort