Tag: Commerce Department

U.S. Retail Sales Rose in November Despite Expected Decline

Just the News

U.S. retail sales rose 0.3% in November compared to the previous month, the Commerce Department said Thursday, despite the Dow Jones estimate that sales would decline by 0.1%. 

The 0.3% estimated increase in U.S. retail and food service sales outpaced inflation from October to November, which was 0.1%. The retail sales are also up 4.1% when compared to the same time last year, the department said, which is still above the inflation rate of 3.1% from November 2022 to November 2023.

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Sen. Joni Ernst Releases List of Federal Agencies with High Employee No-Show Rates Post-COVID

Just the News
Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)

With Christmas fast-approaching, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa put out a “naughty list” of government agencies that have high no-show rates of employees who have not returned to the office after the COVID-19 pandemic ended.

According to Ernst’s list, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Social Security Administration top the list with just 7 percent office occupancy rates.

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U.S. Government Blocks $5 Billion in Crucial AI Chips Ordered by Top Chinese Tech Giants: Report

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President Joe Biden’s Commerce Department has blocked American chipmaker Nvidia from sending billions of dollars worth of key artificial intelligence (AI) chips ordered by top Chinese tech giants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Nvidia was set to deliver over $5 billion in chips from Chinese orders, but the Biden administration is blocking them due to new chip restrictions, according to the WSJ. Nvidia was working on sending the chips before the restrictions took effect but the company received a letter notifying it that the sanctions would take effect immediately instead of one month after their announcement on Oct. 17, as originally scheduled, individuals with knowledge of the situation told the WSJ.

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Chinese Solar Giants Snuck Around U.S. Trade Barriers, Investigation Finds

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The Commerce Department found on Friday that four large Chinese solar panel manufacturers are avoiding longstanding U.S. tariffs by assembling their products in Southeast Asia before importing them to the country.

BYD Co., Canadian Solar International, Trina Solar Science & Technology and Vina Solar Technology violated U.S. trade laws by finishing their products in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia, according to a department press release. The probe was launched in March after California-based solar company Auxin Solar alleged that some solar firms were circumventing tariffs on China by completing manufacturing in Southeast Asia.

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Consumer Spending Surged in January as Inflation Reached Near 40-Year High

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Consumer spending surged in January amid soaring inflation, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday.

Retail sales grew 3.8% in January, far exceeding the 2.1% Dow Jones estimate, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday. January’s figure represents the largest monthly increase since March 2021 and a significant snapback from December 2021 when sales decreased by 2.5%.

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Biden’s Commerce Secretary Is Trying to Shield a $42 Billion Broadband Funding Program from Public Eyes

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Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo requested the inclusion of a provision in the bipartisan infrastructure bill shielding a $42 billion broadband funding program from public scrutiny, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion piece of legislation that passed the Senate in August with significant bipartisan support and currently awaits a vote in the House, sets aside $42 billion in broadband deployment grants to be given to states and administered through guidelines issued by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a division of the Commerce Department.

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Jobless Claims Fall Below 400,000, Hit Economists’ Expectations

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Unemployment sign

The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims decreased to 385,000 last week as the economy continues its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics figure released Thursday represented a slight decrease in the number of new jobless claims compared to the week ending July 24, when 399,000 new jobless claims were reported. That number was revised down from the 400,000 jobless claims initially reported last week.

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U.S. Retail Sales Jump in January in Positive Sign for Economy

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The U.S. retail sales were much higher than economists projected in January, ending a multi-month streak of underperformance, according to the Commerce Department.

Retail sales increased 5.3% and totaled $568.2 billion in January, according to the Department of Commerce report released Wednesday. Economists had predicted retail sales to increase by 1.2%, The New York Times reported.

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Judge Postpones Trump’s TikTok Ban in Suit Brought by Users

The Associated Press

A federal judge has postponed President Donald Trump’s threatened shutdown of the popular short-form video app TikTok, siding with a Pennsylvania comedian and two other TikTok creators who say Trump’s order hampers their free speech.

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone on Friday blocked an upcoming Commerce Department action that would have effectively banned TikTok in the U.S. by cutting it off from vital technical services.

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Trump Allowing Select US Firms to Supply Huawei Has Some in Congress Fuming

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by Rob Garver   National security hawks who normally side with U.S. President Donald Trump on foreign policy issues are up in arms over his announcement on Saturday that he would indefinitely delay the imposition of tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods and relax restrictions on U.S. firms doing business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. In a news conference Saturday that followed a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump said: “U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it. ‘Entity List’ This represents a sharp reversal by Trump, whose administration on May 16 added the company to the “Entity List” kept by the federal Commerce Department. Inclusion on that list is viewed as a sort of death penalty for foreign firms, because it prevents U.S. companies from doing business with them without express permission from the Commerce Department. In an announcement at the time, the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said, “The U.S. Government has determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Huawei has been involved in activities contrary to the national security…

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Commentary: Trump Shuts China’s ‘Backdoor’ to Cyber Spying

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by Thaddeus G. McCotter   President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order in a prescient move to defend America’s national security against Chinese cyber espionage. Invoking his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the president gave the Commerce Department 150 days to devise methods of implementing new rules for American companies that wish to trade with “foreign adversaries” designated as an “unacceptable risk” to U.S. national security. While not specifically named in the president’s order, the Communist Chinese telecommunications company, Huawei, and some 70 affiliates are expected to be on the Commerce Department’s risk list. The Trump Administration earlier precluded the U.S. government and its contractors from using Huawei products, for a host of reasons. The Justice Department has issued criminal charges against a top Huawei executive, the company, and several of its many subsidiaries for stealing trade secrets, as well as misleading banks in order to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. The government further alleges that Huawei stole trade secrets from U.S. companies and competitors. Overall, Huawei is widely believed to engage economic espionage. No wonder that in 2012, the House Intelligence Committee reported that Huawei and ZTE (China’s second-largest telecommunications company) facilitate the regime’s cyberespionage…

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First Medicinal Marijuana Processor To Open in Ohio

Andrew Shirley

Friday, Ohio’s state Commerce Department awarded the first medicinal marijuana processor its certificate of operation. This processor will allow medicinal marijuana to be processed, refined, and distilled into cannabis-infused products. These products include: ​oil, wax, ointment, salve, tincture, capsule, suppository, dermal patch, cartridge or other product containing medical cannabis concentrate, or usable cannabis that has been processed so that the dried leaves and flowers are integrated into other material.​ The move is a major step forward for advocates who wish to see the ubiquitous use of cannabis adopted in the Buckeye State. The process of earning this certificate from the state of Ohio is very competitive. Per the rules outlined the Ohio Medicinal Marijuana control program. “The Department received 104 processor applications. From these, the Department is authorized to award up to 40 provisional licenses.” In addition, the cost of operations is shockingly high. It costs $10,000 to apply for the initial certificate. If approved, the actual certificate costs an additional $90,000. Furthermore, to continue operations at a plant, there is an annual fee of $100,000. While these fees may seem high, relative to other business fees, one of the most appealing arguments to marijuana legalization was the idea that the drug would be taxed heavily and…

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Nine States Back Environmentalists Trying to Shutdown Search for Oil in Atlantic

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by Tim Pearce   Nine states are intervening in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for approving oil and gas companies to search for oil and gas deposits in the Atlantic Ocean. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh announced Thursday the states would join environmental groups in a lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration from allowing seismic testing off the coast of South Carolina. “The National Marine Fisheries Service has issued what are called incidental harassment authorizations. They would, by their own terms, result in harm to hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins and porpoises,” Frosh said. “The permits eliminate a major obstacle to testing and we content that the authorizations are illegal.” Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Virginia accompanied Maryland in intervening in the lawsuit. The NMFS, an agency under the Commerce Department, issued “incidental take” permits Nov. 30 allowing oil and gas companies to conduct the tests. Environmental groups sued the federal government Nov. 11 to prevent the seismic testing, which involves air guns booming in the ocean seconds apart for days at a time. Environmentalists contend the permits violate the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Marine Mammals Protection Act and other regulations. The federal…

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