Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with morning showers and a high of 60. Sunrise is 7:08 and sunset is 6:11, for 11 hours 3 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 31.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1815, Napoleon begins his exile on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Conflicts can escalate quickly for the ignorant, the emotional, or the undisciplined among us. Start raising tariffs, and you might find yourself in a trade war. Find yourself in a trade war, and you might notice one day — believe it or not! — that a trade war involves other nations retaliating:
Trump posted on Truth Social last night: “I believe that China purposefully not buying our soybeans, and causing difficulty for our soybean farmers, is an economically hostile act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with cooking oil, and other elements of trade, as retribution.”
Talk of retribution is precisely the opposite of what markets had hoped for, and is a further about-turn from the White House on relations with Beijing. On Friday, Trump threatened 100% tariffs on its key trading partner, before issuing assurances that a deal will be reached. It comes as the latest export data for China shows Washington may not have as strong a hand as it believed in the trade war, with Chinese exporters reporting growth having focussed on trade with the rest of the world as opposed to the States.
See Eleanor Pringle, Powell says exactly what Wall Street wants to hear as Trump provokes soybean battle with China, Fortune, October 15, 2025.
See also, from yesterday, Trade War Creates Cycle of Agriculture’s Dependency on Government.
California engineer wins pumpkin contest with 2,346-pound gourd: