Author: Brick Tungsten

Brick Tungsten was forged in a Ford F-150 during a Toby Keith guitar solo and baptized in the smoke of a backyard BBQ. A former bass fisherman, amateur theologian, and full-time enemy of tofu, Brick believes America peaked somewhere between the invention of the Budweiser tallboy and Reagan’s first cold stare into the Soviet soul. He doesn’t write columns. He delivers freedom sermons. Each one is a bugle-blast of righteousness straight from the front lines of the culture war—where gender is a science, guns are gospel, and facts are best when cooked medium rare. Brick doesn’t trust the government, but he does trust his gut, his Glock, and the guy who sold him raw milk out of a barn in 2014. He quotes the Constitution like Scripture, Scripture like prophecy, and anything on AM radio like it was beamed straight from Sinai. Every week, he unleashes verbal roundhouse kicks on WOYJO.com—targeting liberal elites, soy-sympathizers, woke kindergarten teachers, and anyone who thinks freedom is optional. His motto? “Live free, grill hard, and don’t apologize.” He has six American flags, one wife (Betsy), two kids named Liberty and Buckshot, and zero regrets.

  • Tariff Refund Frenzy: The Lawsuit Locusts Smell Money, and Small Business Smells Smoke

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I smelled it before I read it. Not hickory. Not diesel. Not brisket fat kissing the fire. This was hot paperwork and lawsuit cologne, the kind that rolls in when someone whispers potential refunds and the class-action crowd starts revving billable-hours engines like it is Daytona.

    Customers sue FedEx and Ray-Ban maker after Supreme Court kills Trump IEEPA tariffs

    Here is the verified mess: the AP reported that retail customers filed proposed class-action lawsuits seeking tariff refunds, targeting FedEx and EssilorLuxottica, the company behind Ray-Ban. The pitch is simple: customers say they were charged tariff-related costs and now want that money back after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

    That Supreme Court part is not barstool rumor. In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, decided February 20, 2026, the Court held 6 to 3 that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. Translation in plain English: tariffs sit in Congress’s lane, and the Executive cannot bolt a tariff cannon onto an emergency statute and call it lawful.

    And once the Court put up the stop sign, the refund gold rush began. AP said more than 1,000 companies have filed suits in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking refunds. Now consumers are jumping in, too. That is not “one more case.” That is a stampede.

    The villains: refund ranchers and the paper-pusher priesthood

    Let us name the two-headed beast. First: the refund ranchers, the class-action bar and its corporate tag-along posse. They do not love you. They love the moment your receipt turns into a treasure map.

    Second: the paper-pusher priesthood that shows up after the battle to tell you the process will be complicated. Complicated is how the swamp keeps the gate, keeps the fees, keeps the delays, and keeps the control.

    Sure, if a company charged a tariff line item and the tariff later gets ruled unlawful, people want clarity. But when it becomes a feeding frenzy, small business gets trampled. The Fortune 50 can float uncertainty. The import-dependent shop owner doing payroll with a prayer cannot.

    Trump’s Plan B: a Section 122 surcharge with a short fuse

    The White House already pivoted. On February 20, 2026, the President issued a proclamation invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a temporary import surcharge of 10 percent ad valorem. The proclamation says it took effect February 24, 2026, and runs for 150 days through July 24, 2026, unless changed earlier or extended by Congress.

    That is a short fuse. The proclamation also says the surcharge is generally on top of other duties and includes carve-outs and technical details, including a goods-in-transit window tied to February 24 and February 28. So you get a Supreme Court stop sign, a White House detour, and a swarm of lawsuits trying to back-calculate yesterday.

    A country cannot reshore on legal quicksand

    China competition is not a seminar. It is a punch clock. If the goal is tough trade policy, the missing ingredient is predictable trade policy. Congress has a role here, and the Court just reminded everybody of that in black and white.

    Right now the winners are obvious: refund lawyers chasing headlines and the swamp chasing control. The losers are also obvious: small businesses trying to plan, manufacturers trying to expand, and workers who need a steady pipeline of orders that does not get kneecapped by policy whiplash.

  • PPI Pops, Wallet Sizzles: Producer Prices Hit the Grill Again

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I cracked the garage door and caught that familiar combo: hot rubber, cold coffee, and the nervous tick of a receipt printer working overtime. You do not need a think tank to translate it. America is paying more, and it is happening in slow, stubborn inches, like a tire leak on a long highway.

    On Friday, February 27, 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tossed fresh numbers onto the coals. Not the kind that makes brisket better. The kind that turns paychecks into smoke.

    BLS: PPI rose 0.5% in January, up 2.9% over 12 months

    The BLS reported the Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.5% in January. Over the last 12 months, that final demand index was up 2.9% on an unadjusted basis.

    The key split: services up, goods down

    Here is the part that matters for regular households:

    • Final demand services: up 0.8% in January
    • Final demand goods: down 0.3% in January

    Brick translation: it is not just “stuff” getting pricey. The fees, the markups, the paper-shufflers, the middlemen, the toll booths of the economy. That is where the heat is coming from, and services inflation is the kind of smoke that clings to your clothes.

    Yes, gasoline prices fell 5.5% in January inside the same report. Nice. Like finding one onion ring at the bottom of the bag. But it does not erase the rest of the bill.

    Markup machine economics and the “inflation priesthood”

    Inflation is not just weather. It is a system where certain people benefit when prices rise and wages chase behind. They will tell you the numbers are complicated, then transitory, then sticky, then somehow your fault for wanting normal.

    Tariff talk and the excuse factory warming up

    Washington also handed businesses a shiny new talking point. A February 20, 2026 White House proclamation imposed a temporary import surcharge of 10% ad valorem for 150 days, effective February 24, 2026, aimed at what it calls fundamental international payments problems and a large balance-of-payments deficit, with exceptions including categories like energy and energy products.

    Important: this PPI report is January data. The surcharge hit late February. So January’s move cannot be blamed on a policy that had not landed yet. But you can predict the next act: the excuse factory revs up and prices magically “need” to go higher.

    Markets flinched, and the Fed gets jumpy

    MarketWatch reported stocks fell after the PPI print. When producer prices run hot, someone tries to pass it along. And when inflation looks persistent, the Federal Reserve gets more cautious about cutting rates, leaving borrowing expensive for households and small businesses.

    Believe your eyes. Believe your receipts. Services inflation is rising like smoke through a screen door.

  • SCOTUS Gets a Smoking Hot Syria TPS Burger: Read the Statute, Not the NGO Menu

    ByBrick Tungsten

    Washington has a smell when someone tries to enforce a law. Burnt coffee. Printer ink. Panic. Like brisket smoke sneaking under a door, the truth has a way of rolling into the room even when the pearl clutchers pile up sandbags.

    Now that smoke is parked in front of the U.S. Supreme Court with the engine running.

    What the Trump administration asked SCOTUS to do

    On February 26, the Trump administration filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to lift lower-court blocks and let the Department of Homeland Security end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrians. The case is Noem v. Dahlia Doe, and it was routed to Justice Sotomayor.

    The Court ordered challengers to respond by 4:00 p.m. Eastern on March 5, 2026. That is not a leisurely Sunday stroll. That is the Court hearing tires squeal and deciding to look out the window.

    The short-fuse fight: the stay request

    Here is the F-150 version. DHS announced, in a Federal Register notice published September 22, 2025, that it was terminating Syria’s TPS designation, with termination effective November 21, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. local time.

    Then the legal machine fired up. A federal district judge in New York, Katherine Polk Failla, delayed the termination in November 2025, and the Second Circuit left her decision in place. So the administration hit the Supreme Court’s emergency lane and asked for a stay pending appeal, meaning: let DHS enforce the policy while the lawsuits continue.

    Numbers (and why the date matters)

    • Reporting citing court documents says roughly 6,100 Syrians are covered by Syria TPS, with about 800 more pending applications.
    • Coverage also cites a Congressional Research Service count of 3,860 Syrian TPS beneficiaries as of March 31, 2025, showing how totals can shift by date and methodology.

    Temporary means temporary

    TPS is temporary by design. Congress created it in 1990 for situations where return would be unsafe due to things like civil strife or disasters. It is meant to be reviewed and extended or terminated under the statute, with the Secretary of Homeland Security making the call after reviewing conditions.

    In this Syria dispute, DHS put its decision in an official notice. The administration’s position, as reported, is that the Secretary can grant or revoke TPS and courts should not micromanage that determination. Challengers argue Syria still faces a humanitarian crisis and ending TPS would force impossible choices for people living here.

    The bigger question: who runs immigration policy?

    This is not just about Syria TPS. It is the recurring American showdown: does the elected Executive Branch execute the law Congress wrote, or do lower courts keep slapping “pause” on major policies indefinitely? SCOTUS has the tray in its hands. Follow the statute, or keep feeding the forever-temporary grift.

  • AI Wrote the Ad, But the Swamp Wrote the Scam

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I could smell it before I finished the first paragraph. That hot, plasticky aroma of a printer spitting out corporate excuses, mixed with the cold exhaust of an HR office that has not seen daylight since the first iPhone dropped. You know the scent: spreadsheet cologne, compliance deodorant, and that faint whiff of “oops, the robot did it.”

    Now the U.S. Department of Justice just took that excuse, tossed it on the grill, and let it sizzle.

    DOJ says AI-generated job ads unlawfully excluded U.S. workers

    On February 25, 2026, DOJ announced a settlement with Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions Inc., a Virginia IT services provider, over allegations tied to job advertisements generated by an AI tool. Those ads allegedly included citizenship status restrictions not authorized by law, including language limiting applicants to certain visa categories like H-1B, OPT, or H-4.

    In plain F-150 English: Americans allegedly got shoved away from the driver seat because somebody wanted a different kind of applicant.

    And DOJ’s message was simple: it does not matter if the ad was typed by a person, a recruiter, or a machine. If it unlawfully boxes out U.S. workers, it is still discrimination, not “innovation.”

    The “AI did it” defense is the new corporate smoke screen

    Corporate America loves a scapegoat. Prices go up? Supply chain. Service goes down? Staffing shortage. And now hiring ads get cooked up to say “visa only,” and the pitch is: “Sorry, it was the algorithm.”

    Buddy, an AI tool is not a Ouija board. Somebody prompts it, somebody approves it, somebody posts it, and somebody benefits from it. The machine is the loudspeaker. The human is the one holding it.

    The settlement description notes that DOJ’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section received a charge in early December 2025 and investigated. DOJ says it found reasonable cause to believe discriminatory advertisements were posted. That is not vibes. That is the federal government saying it checked.

    What the settlement requires (and what every HR shop should learn)

    This is not just a headline. The agreement requires Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions to pay a civil penalty of $9,460, split into two payments of $4,730 each. The second payment is due no later than May 15, 2026.

    • Timeline: The agreement runs for three years from the effective date.
    • Posting: The company must post the DOJ “If You Have The Right to Work” notice in English and Spanish where applicants and employees can see it, including online portals.
    • Policies: It must review and revise or create policies to prohibit discrimination tied to job ads, recruiting, and hiring.
    • Training: It must train relevant personnel using DOJ-provided materials, including an on-demand employer training video and guidance about citizenship status discrimination and recruiting best practices.

    Bottom line

    AI is a tool. A grill is a tool. If you use the grill to cook dinner, God bless. If you use it to burn down the house, do not blame the charcoal. Same rules here: “AI wrote it” is not a free pass.

  • NCAA Finally Finds Its Spine, Right After It Invented the Portal Circus

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I knew something was up before I even turned the key in the F-150. Not brisket smoke. Not tailgate charcoal. This was the sharp stink of panicked paperwork drifting out of compliance offices when the money river starts flowing the wrong way.

    NCAA targets transfer adds outside the January window

    On February 25, the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee recommended emergency legislation aimed at programs that take in a transfer who did not properly notify and enter during football’s January transfer window. Translation: no more sneaking guys through the side door while everybody pretends they did not hear the latch click.

    The proposed penalties (yes, they are loud)

    If a player who was not active in the Transfer Portal participates in athletically related activity at the new school, the recommended penalties include:

    • Head coach barred from all football duties for six contests
    • School fined 20% of its football budget
    • Program loses five roster spots the next season

    That is not a gentle finger wag. That is a warning flare over the tailgate lot.

    Not law yet: April is the checkpoint

    Before anyone starts screaming like a busted whistle, this is still a recommendation. The NCAA says it must be approved by the Division I Cabinet in April, and if approved it would take effect immediately. So yes, the sheriff is talking tough, but the badge is not pinned on yet.

    The critters under the porch

    Let us name the usual suspects. Boosters chasing control and status. The agent-adjacent whisper network chasing cash. And the deep soy state of compliance chasing power through forms, memos, and meetings about meetings. The more complicated the rules, the more the priesthood gets to interpret the sacred text.

    Unlimited recruiting visits, tighter portal enforcement

    In the same NCAA release, the oversight groups also voted to eliminate the annual limit on official recruiting visits, aligning football with other sports, subject to review by the Division I Cabinet on April 14. Unlimited visits, but a tighter transfer window leash. If that does not feel like competing corporate departments managing the same sport, I do not know what does.

    Bar-stool verdict

    If the NCAA is going to keep portal windows, then January has to mean January. Otherwise, call it what it is: year-round free agency with extra hypocrisy. I will be watching April like it is a fourth-and-goal replay.

  • DOJ Says a Retired Fighter Pilot Trained China. That Ain’t ‘Consulting’, That Is Selling the Playbook.

    ByBrick Tungsten

    You ever catch that mix of hot jet fuel and burnt coffee, the smell that says serious people are doing serious work? Well this story smells different: like somebody tried to cash out an oath like it was a rewards card.

    The Department of Justice says a retired U.S. Air Force pilot was arrested for allegedly providing defense services to Chinese military pilots without authorization. If that allegation holds up, that is not a “gray area.” That is a red flare in the night sky.

    What DOJ says happened

    DOJ says Gerald Eddie Brown Jr., 65, was arrested Wednesday, February 25, 2026, in Jeffersonville, Indiana. He is charged by criminal complaint with providing, and conspiring to provide, defense services to Chinese military pilots without the required authorization, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act. DOJ says his initial appearance was expected Thursday, February 26, 2026, in the Southern District of Indiana.

    And yes, because America still does things the right way: a complaint is an allegation, and he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

    • Timeline: DOJ says the conduct dates back to at least around August 2023.
    • Travel: DOJ says Brown traveled to China in December 2023 and stayed until returning to the United States in early February 2026.
    • Authorization: DOJ says he did not have the required State Department license to provide that kind of training, which is treated as a defense service.
    • Intermediary: DOJ says the arrangement ran through an intermediary tied to Stephen Su Bin, a Chinese national who previously pleaded guilty in a U.S. hacking conspiracy involving major U.S. defense contractors.

    An oath is not a side hustle

    DOJ says Brown served more than 24 years, retiring in 1996 as a Major. They also say he led combat missions, commanded sensitive units connected to nuclear weapons delivery systems, and later worked as a contract simulator instructor, including training U.S. pilots on aircraft like the A-10 and the F-35.

    That is not just a resume. That is a vault combination. If DOJ is right and that combination got carried overseas to train Chinese military pilots, that is like a pitmaster handing the secret rub to the rival BBQ team and calling it “networking.”

    Why this matters beyond one case

    DOJ points to broader warnings from the U.S. and allied governments that China targets current and former military personnel to bolster its capabilities. The pitch is simple: money, ego, and a quiet flight out of the spotlight.

    Whether DOJ proves this case or not, the principle is the same: controlled know-how is controlled for a reason. Tactics and procedures are not motivational posters. They are what keep American pilots alive.

  • HUD Puts Eviction Notice Rules Back in Local Hands: Less D.C., More Reality

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I could smell the hickory like a hymn and hear the sizzle like an AM radio truth-teller when the news hit like a tailgate slam in an F-150 lot: HUD just took a pandemic-era eviction notice overlay and tossed it back into the bureaucrat recycling bin. Not everything in America needs to be laminated, stapled, notarized, and blessed by a desk jockey in Washington.

    HUD revokes the 30-day eviction notice requirement for nonpayment

    On February 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development published an interim final rule revoking the federal requirement that certain HUD-subsidized housing providers give tenants a 30-day notice before terminating a lease for nonpayment of rent. This applies to public housing agencies and owners in project-based rental assistance (PBRA). The rule takes effect March 30, 2026, and public comments are due by April 27, 2026.

    HUD frames the shift as streamlined guidance and less red tape, pushing eviction notice timelines back toward what they were before the COVID-era rule stack got bolted onto everything like an aftermarket spoiler on a minivan. HUD also says more than two million households receiving HUD assistance will be affected, which makes this more than a tiny clerical tweak.

    And no, revoking a federal 30-day requirement is not some federal starter pistol for mass evictions. It is a reset of timing and paperwork rules around nonpayment. Notice timelines return to pre-2021 requirements that vary by program and by state and local law.

    The COVID rulebook that never wanted to go home

    During the pandemic, Congress created Emergency Rental Assistance, and HUD’s rulemaking aimed to give tenants time and disclosures to pursue that assistance before a nonpayment eviction moved forward. That was the emergency lane.

    But D.C. treats “temporary” like it is a forever tattoo. HUD’s history describes a 2021 interim final rule and then a 2024 final rule that built in a 30-day runway plus required termination-notice information. Under the 2024 approach, if the tenant paid the alleged amount owed within the 30-day window, the provider was prohibited from filing an eviction for nonpayment.

    HUD’s new interim final rule says the added notice and information requirements created administrative and financial burdens for housing providers, while also limiting some procedural benefits tenants had gotten used to. Translation with a little grill-smoke honesty: protections in the moment came with slower gears and higher costs.

    Real-world operations: buildings still run on math

    Public housing agencies and HUD-assisted property owners are not money trees. Roofs leak, boilers break, insurance climbs, and payroll shows up like clockwork. HUD’s rule text notes provider concerns that longer notice periods can increase accounts receivable and delay resolving nonpayment, which can ripple into property maintenance and stability. That is not ideology. That is arithmetic.

    The villain is not the struggling tenant. The villain is the incentives engine in Washington: bureaucrats paid in process, lobbyists paid in complexity, and advocacy grifters paid in panic, while the person fixing a busted water heater in Building C needs dollars that actually exist.

    HUD also points to the bigger context: waitlists in many places are years long and sometimes closed. Delay turnover when someone is not paying, and you slow the line for families trying to get in. The federal register document also notes only about 1 in 4 eligible households receive rental assistance.

    Local law is not a four-letter word

    Eviction is already a heavily state and local process, with landlord-tenant laws, court procedures, notice requirements, and tenant defenses that vary across the country. Trying to bolt a one-size federal timer onto that is like towing a bass boat with a scooter.

    Under the new approach, notice timelines return to pre-2021 requirements. In public housing, there is still a written notice requirement for nonpayment, but it is no longer a federally imposed 30-day super-notice pretending every state is the same. And for anyone yelling “no due process,” this change does not erase courts, grievance procedures, or state protections. It changes a federal overlay about timing and disclosures born from COVID-era assumptions.

    Paperwork sermons will not fix affordability

    America’s housing crisis is not primarily a notice-period crisis. HUD’s move does not make rents cheap. It does, however, admit a blunt truth: when the federal government jams extra procedures into the gears, somebody pays, and the system can wobble under the weight.

    The pandemic is over. The emergency rulebook should not run the country like a permanent background app draining the battery. Let local law run its lane, let courts do their job, let providers keep the lights on, and let tenants get rules that match the jurisdiction they actually live in.

  • Line 5 Gets a Federal Green Light, and the Lawfare Class Starts Squealing

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I could smell it before I could explain it: hot diesel tang, wet dirt freshly turned, and the faint perfume of paperwork overheating somewhere near a government inbox. That is the aroma of America trying to build something while a choir of loafers chants “process” like it is a hymn and not a business model.

    What the Army Corps just approved

    Here is the plain meat on the plate. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, says it has issued a validated permit to Enbridge Energy for the Line 5 Wisconsin segment relocation project.

    • The permit covers work that includes crossing the White River.
    • The Corps describes wetland impacts that include permanent discharge of fill into 998 square feet of wetlands.
    • It also describes temporary discharges affecting 101.1 acres of wetlands and 0.20 acres of non-wetland waters.
    • The work is described in parts of Bayfield, Ashland, and Iron Counties, Wisconsin.

    Why the reroute is moving now

    Enbridge has started moving forward with rerouting Line 5 around the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation after years of legal wrangling. About 12 miles of the pipeline runs across the reservation. The tribe sued in 2019, and a federal judge in 2023 ordered that segment off tribal land by June 2026.

    So yes, the dirt is getting moved. And yes, new lawsuits are trying to slow the whole thing down. Welcome to modern American infrastructure: you can warm up a bulldozer faster than you can cool off a courtroom.

    What both sides are saying (in plain English)

    The Bad River Band argues the easements expired years ago. They also argue the risk of a spill is unacceptable. You do not have to be a founding father with a torque wrench to understand why a community would worry about what runs through its land and watershed.

    But when a judge puts a date on the calendar, the grown-up world has to pick: build a route that avoids the reservation, or shut the line down. Enbridge is betting on build. The opposition is betting on delay.

    Wetlands, compliance, and the fight ahead

    On the wetlands, the Corps did not pretend it was a magic trick. The public notice lays out measurements and says the agency determined the permit complies with applicable federal laws and regulations, including NEPA and Clean Water Act Section 404, plus other reviews.

    Enbridge says Line 5 supports multiple refineries serving millions of people in the Midwest. The permit is issued. Work is starting. The deadline is June 2026. The rest of this story is whether America builds the reroute under oversight, or litigates until the clock runs out.

  • Turn the Tariff Knob to 15% and Watch the Import Lobby Sweat

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I could smell it before I could explain it: that hot-metal, burned-coffee, factory-floor scent that hits when a country stops apologizing for making things. The radio crackles, the grill pops, and somewhere a Wall Street spreadsheet starts smoking like a cheap sparkler in a rainstorm.

    Trump looks at 15% “where appropriate”

    Here is the word out of the trade shop: the 10% global import surcharge is not necessarily the ceiling. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says President Trump is looking at a proclamation in the coming days to lift the rate to 15% where appropriate. That is not a poetry reading. That is a wrench hitting a stubborn bolt.

    And you can already hear the squeal. Not from welders. Not from shop owners. The noise is coming from the import lobby, the velvet-glove profiteers who want America to be a mall, not a nation.

    The part the media mumbles: the 10% surcharge is already live

    If you run a business in the real world, the key fact is simple: the White House has already put a 10% temporary import surcharge in place, effective February 24, 2026, using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

    • Legal lane: Section 122.
    • Time limit: temporary, built to run for 150 days.
    • What 15% means: turning the same knob up to the cap in that lane, “where appropriate,” with carve-outs spelled out in annexes.

    So when Greer talks about 15%, this is not mystery-meat policy cooked up in a basement. It is a formal move with an effective date, a clock, and paperwork that actually exists.

    The villain: the Import Industrial Complex

    Let us name the villain so the polite language does not hypnotize you. The villain is the Import Industrial Complex: multinational boardrooms, K Street whisperers, and procurement departments addicted to cheap foreign labor like it is a clearance rack they can raid forever.

    They will tell you tariffs are automatically a tax on you. Sometimes, in the short run, prices do move. But in F-150 logic, if you keep buying the cheapest imported brake pads, you pay eventually, one way or another. Layoffs. Hollowed-out towns. Supply chains that snap the first time the world gets weird.

    Yes, the courts are part of the backdrop

    This moment is not happening in a vacuum. The Supreme Court recently struck down Trump’s prior emergency-tariff approach under a different legal theory, and that punch from the bench forced a shift in gears. The point is not to whine. The point is to adapt, legally and aggressively.

    What 15% really signals

    Raising the surcharge to 15% where appropriate is not just about revenue. It is a signal flare to CEOs, investors, and supply-chain managers: build here, not beg there. Tariffs can be pro-worker without being anti-business, especially for small manufacturers who cannot offshore at the snap of a manicured finger.

    And in a world where China competition turns supply chains into a pressure test, you cannot outsmart a cheat by playing fair forever. Turn the knob where it makes sense. Make the cheaters pay a toll. Make the investors notice. Who is really terrified of a 15% tariff: the working man, or the boardroom that got fat shipping his job away?

  • IMF Calls America ‘Buoyant’ and Still Tries to Snatch the Tongs from Trump

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I could smell it before I even turned the key: hot metal, charcoal, gasoline, and an economy that is actually doing something again. Not a scented-candle recovery. Not a spreadsheet revival. Real heat.

    And right on schedule, here comes the International Monetary Fund, floating in like a three-piece-suit lifeguard to tell America it is swimming wrong.

    IMF: growth up in 2026, unemployment steady, inflation cooling

    The IMF released its staff concluding statement from the 2026 Article IV mission on the United States, and it is the classic combo: compliment first, lecture second.

    • Growth: expected to accelerate in 2026 to around 2.4% (Q4 to Q4).
    • Jobs: unemployment rate staying close to 4% in 2026-27.
    • Inflation: the tariff-related impulse should wane, with core PCE inflation falling back to 2% by early 2027.

    AP’s write-up of the same assessment called the U.S. economy “buoyant”, while still spotlighting the IMF warnings about tariffs and rising debt.

    They admit the grill is hot, then complain about the smoke

    Here is the part the hair-gel crowd will skip: the IMF is not forecasting a Mad Max wipeout. It is forecasting a steady, muscular America.

    The IMF also describes a “systemic reorientation” toward more self-reliance: more domestic manufacturing capacity, less reliance on foreign-produced goods, more domestic energy output, and less reliance on unauthorized immigrant labor. That is the IMF describing the lane we are in.

    Tariffs: revenue and trade effects, plus real costs

    The IMF acknowledges higher tariffs should modestly lower the trade deficit and raise around three quarters of a percent of GDP in revenue in the near term.

    Then comes the warning label: the IMF calls tariffs a negative supply shock, estimating they could raise the PCE price index by around 0.5% by early 2026 and reduce the level of output by around 0.5%.

    Debt: the monster under the bed

    On the debt, the IMF is blunt: under current policies, the general government deficit is expected to remain in the 7% to 8% of GDP range, pushing general government debt to 140% of GDP by 2031. It says the risk of sovereign stress is low, but the upward debt path is a growing stability risk to the U.S. and the global economy.

    They also note the federal fiscal deficit fell to 5.9% of GDP in FY25 from 6.3% in FY24, but they still expect deficits above 6% in the next few years. The IMF also flags a current account deficit expected to remain large, around 3.5% to 4% of GDP, with vulnerability if investor preferences shift.

    Energy: the secret sauce they cannot ignore

    The IMF notes the administration’s focus on boosting energy development across fossil fuel, geothermal, biofuel, nuclear, and hydro, plus deregulation efforts that are hard to quantify but could lower energy costs and loosen supply constraints.

    Message to the IMF: keep your hands off the tongs

    Warnings are useful. Fine. But the IMF does not get to run the cookout. Watch tariff effects. Get serious about deficits. But do not confuse “buoyant” with permission to steer America like a committee meeting.

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